Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing The Master, which ran on NBC from January to August of 1984.  The show can be found on Tubi!

After spending last week in Las Vegas, John Peter McAllister (Lee Van Cleef) and Max Keller (Tim Van Patten) drive Max’s van across the country in search of McAllister’s daughter.

Episode 1.6 “Fat Tuesday”

(Dir by Sidney Hayes, originally aired on March 9th, 1984)

This episode opens not with a scene of Max Keller in training but instead with Okasa (Sho Kosugi) visiting a dojo in Las Vegas.  The master of the dojo explains that he does know where John Peter McAllister is but that he will not tell Okasa because he is not sure that Okasa is actually a former student of McAllister’s.  Okasa responds by 1) fighting every student at the dojo and 2) proving that, unlike Lee Van Cleef, Sho Kosugi didn’t need a stunt double for his scenes.  Having proven that he trained under the legendary McAllister, Okasa is informed that McAllister and Max Keller are in New Orleans.

That’s right!  This week, we’re in the Big Easy!

Of course, any show that takes place in New Orleans has to take place during Mardi Gras.  This episode is full of stock footage of the Mardi Gras celebrations but, at the same time, we never see McAllister or Max taking part in any of them.  In fact, other than a trip to a jazz club and a fight on a dock, McAllister and Max do very little that one would normally expect to see a visitor doing in New Orleans.  New Orleans is one of the most distinctive city in the U.S. but, in this episode of The Master, it might as well be Houston.

McAllister and Max are in New Orleans because a reporter named Eve Michaels (Susan Kase) has been writing a series of stories about how a wealthy businessman named Beaumont (Robert Pine) has been smuggling drugs into the city and selling weapons to Middle Eastern terror groups.  In her stories, Eve claims that her source is named Terri McAllister.  Could Eve’s source also be John Peter McAllister’s daughter?

Eve, The Reporter

No, she’s not.  However, it’s not just a case of mistaken identity.  As Eve eventually confesses to Max, Terri McAllister is a name that she assigned to a source that she made up.  It turns out that Eve never had a source for her stories about Beaumont but apparently, Beaumont is such a shady character that it was easy for Eve to imagine what Beaumont was probably doing.  Because Eve’s made-up story was too close to the truth, Beaumont kidnapped and killed Eve’s friend.  That just made Eve even more determined to make up additional lies, all of which turned out to be true.  As crazy as that sounds, what’s even crazier is that neither McAllister nor Max are particularly upset to discover that they’re no closer to finding the real Terri.  Indeed, McAllister seems to find the whole thing rather amusing which makes me wonder if he really cares about Terri or not.

Beaumont, the bad guy

Of course, Max and McAllister are also busy proving the Beaumont is a criminal.  They crash Beaumont’s Mardi Gras party.  McAllister wears his ninja costume.  Max dresses up like a …. well, I guess he’s supposed to be a pirate.

Okasa also shows up at the party, also dressed as a ninja.  In fact, this episode’s saving grace is that it features more of Okasa (and Sho Kosugi’s determined performance in the role) than any episode so far.  Not only do McAllister and Okasa fight at the party but they have a later confrontation at a park.  What’s interesting about this scene is that McAllister isn’t in his ninja uniform so Lee Van Cleef’s stunt double was required to put on a really phony looking bald cap for the fight scenes.  Needless to say, the fight scenes are filmed in long shot and McAllister never faces the camera.

Along with fighting Okasa, McAllister also faces off against two of Beaumont’s men.  In this fight scene, Van Cleef is actually shown throwing a punch and kick but he does so in slow motion and we don’t really see him making contact with anyone.

Oh, Lee!

This was a fairly generic episode.  The most disappointing thing about it is that it didn’t really have any New Orleans flair to it.  As well, the plot depended on a huge amount of coincidence and character stupidity.  (Just imagine if Beaumont had just threatened to sue Eve for libel, as opposed to sending his hired goons to kidnap her.)  Lee Van Cleef came across as being a bit tired and cranky in this episode.  To his credit, Tim Van Patten tried to inject some energy and some humor with his pirate disguise.  It didn’t work but at least he tried.

Next week: Max and McAllister take on an evil trucking company!