Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

I’ll always remember….

Episode 3.7 “Julie’s Guy”

(Directed by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on October 4th, 1997)

Because Julie is incapable of doing anything that doesn’t somehow involve basketball, she is dating yet another basketball player.  You would think that she would have learned her lesson after Chris cheated on her and then Josh mysterious disappeared after the end of Season 2.  Of course, Chris and Josh were both teammates of Julie’s.  This time, Julie is dating Jason Redman, who plays for another team!

Needless to say, the other Tornadoes are not happy about this.  They’re not sure if they can trust Julie to put aside her feelings and play as a member of the team.  This is a pretty stupid concern.  Julie has been the show’s main character for two and a half seasons and we still don’t know a thing about her beyond the fact that she plays basketball and she brags nonstop about winning.

Once again, the Tornadoes play terribly for the first half of the game.  Fortunately, Fuller takes the time to yell at them in the locker room.  Everyone realizes they can trust Julie.  The Tornadoes go on to win by one point.  For all the bragging this team does, continually winning by only one point really isn’t that impressive.  Most good teams can actually win by several points.

Anyway, this one was pretty forgettable.  I have a feeling that we’ll probably never hear another word about Julie dating Jason.

Episode 3.8 “Playing with Pain”

(Directed by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on October 4th, 1997)

Coach Fuller is gone again and Assistant Coach Keelor (Todd Fraser) is in charge of the team.  The last time that Fuller was absent from the show, during the Fighting Words episode, it was explained that it was because he had the mumps.  This time, no explanation is given for Fuller’s absence.  I’m going to guess that Fighting Words and Playing With Pain were envisioned as airing back-to-back but that NBC showed them out-of-order.  This is something that NBC frequently did with its TNBC shows and, as a result, the continuity of these shows were always out-of-whack.  Its almost as if NBC just didn’t care.

Anyway, at the start of this episode, Keelor announces that a scout is coming from the University of Arizona to watch Michael play.  The scout turns out to be someone named David Stoudemire.  By the way the audience goes crazy whenever he shows up in a scene, I’m guessing he was a basketball player.  Like most of the real-life basketball players who showed up on Hang Time, Stoudemire was hopefully better at playing basketball than acting.

Anyway, Michael really wants to impress the scout but, while practicing with Julie, he seriously sprains his ankle.  (Even though it looks like it was Michael’s fault because of the way he landed, I’m still going to blame Julie.  Julie was so upset over not being the center of attention that she goaded Michael into practicing too hard, knowing that he would end up spraining his ankle.)  Worried that he’ll be benched if he tells anyone that he’s injured, Michael tries to play through the pain.  This is something many pro athletes have done.  From personal experience, I can tell you that this is also something that many dancers have done.  I hurt my ankle so many times when I was younger that it was probably more of a surprise when I didn’t injure it than when I did.  You take a bunch of pain killers and then you do the best you can before passing out in the dressing room afterwards.  However, since this is a TNBC show, Michael dramatically reinjures himself while playing basketball and ends up screaming in pain while everyone watches.  In the locker room, both Assistant Coach Keelor and David Stoudemire tell him that he’s a dumbass.

Bye bye, Arizona!