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 T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990.  The show can be found on Tubi!

T and T is back …. with a kidnapping!

Episode 2.11 “Hard Way Home”

(Dir by Al Waxman, originally aired on January 23rd, 1989)

Joe has the worst luck when it comes to making new friends!

One of the main themes of the second season of T and T has been T.S. (and, occasionally, Amy) acting as a mentor for teenage Joe Casper.  The season began with Joe losing his mother to a bomb that was set by Canadian Neo-Nazis.  T.S. apparently adopted Joe and now, the kid spends all of his time at Decker’s gym.  Whenever Joe makes a new friend, they either turn out to be a criminal or a victim of a crime.

This week, Joe’s new friend is George Papadopolous (David Stratton), who invites Joe to toss a football around with him in the park.  However, once they get to the park, George is grabbed by a couple of thugs and tossed into the trunk of a car.  Joe chases the car and even grabs onto the bumper but ultimately, he can’t save George.

When a banged-up Joe returns to Decker’s gym, T.S. assures him that his new scars will make him the most popular kid at his school.  Joe then calls George’s father and is told that the whole kidnapping was a prank and that he shouldn’t call the police.  This sounds strange to T.S. so he investigates on his own.

It turns out that George’s father is Peter (George Sperdakos), a big man in Toronto’s Greek mafia.  Someone has kidnapped George and is demanding a huge ransom.  Members of the Greek community are all donating their own money to help Peter raise the amount.  Because Joe was able to get the license plate number of the car that George was tossed into, it doesn’t take long for T.S. to discover that George was abducted by Peter’s rival, a used car dealer named Frangos (George Touliatos).  However, Frangos is not working alone.  It turns out that Peter arranged the kidnapping of his own son so that he could pocket the ransom money!

Needless to say, thinks work out in the end.  George is freed and Peter is arrested.  At first, Amy tells T.S. that there is no way that she would ever agree to represent Peter because 1) she knows that Peter is guilty and 2) Peter can’t afford to pay.  But then the members of Greek community (who are apparently very forgiving) donate their own money to convince Amy to defend Peter in court.  Does Amy win the case?  The episode ends before we find out.

This episode really showed the disadvantage of trying to tell a story like this in just 30 minutes.  There was never any suspense over who kidnapped George because there was only time to introduce one suspect!  Peter turning out to be in on it was a nice twist but it came out of nowhere because there really wasn’t any time to properly set it up.  This would have been a good hour episode but, at 30 minutes, it just felt rushed and it didn’t have any fun Mr. T line readings.  Toronto looked nice and cold but otherwise, this was a forgettable episode.