Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity
No-one ever explained its significance but it became a TV icon.
Ben Casey was noted for its gritty realism, and especially the lead character as played by Vince Edwards as a bad-tempered, nasty, friendless man who snarled at patients, colleagues and administrators alike. Sam Jaffe co-starred as the kindly and wise Dr Zorba.

  The brooding, mean Casey character was something quite new in TV heroes, and the audiences loved it. Nor were they afraid of technical language as Casey frequently described complex neurosurgical techniques The show was made on a ludicrously cheap budget. The set shown here is typical, just stand the characters in front of a flat backdrop on the tiny set and make it seem like a busy hospital. The corridor behind does not exist and they used tin foil to create the illusion of distance. But the claustrophobic result worked in their favour,and made us all feel as edgy as we do in hospitals.

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There were two boxes in the room—I sat on one, Warren on the other, and we would each take a bunch of forms down from the shelves, place it on our laps, and thumb our way through it. The rustle of paper constantly disturbed the dust that floated thickly in the air.
“How do you stand it in here?”
I shrugged.
“All this dust and the bad light. It’s so awful.”
Again I shrugged.
“You actually don’t mind it, do you?”
“No.” For some time the proposals rustled.
“Won’t you be glad when this is all finished and you can return to the office upstairs?”
“No.”
“You mean you like it down here?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, I understand. It’s good being on your own. In charge of your own work.”
  I didn’t know whether that was what was good about it or not, so I said nothing. Neither did Warren Whatmore, for a while.

 

Somehow The Spy Who Loved Me slipped past me. I’m not even sure if I read all of it. A James Bond story told by a woman—a civilian who has an encounter with him one night at a motel and doesn’t entirely believe him when he tells her what he does for a living. For her it is an unforgettable experience, for him just another one night stand. Terrible. I was reading every Bond the moment it came from the publishers at the time but this one... ? Maybe it was mercifully blotted from my memory. Even Ian Fleming couldn’t get it right all the time.