Daily Archives: February 13, 2024

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.14 “Backup”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on Youtube!

This week, Eddie Kramer returns!

Episode 1.14 “Backup”

(Dir by Charles Bail, originally aired on February 24th, 1996)

Visiting his former home for re-certification, former Baywatch lifeguard Eddie Kramer (Billy Warlock) is patrolling the ocean when he comes across a boat that’s on fire and sinking.  Two people on a dinghy yell that someone is still on the boat.  Eddie boards the boat and doesn’t see anyone.  The two people on the dingy continue to insist that someone is on the boat, even as Eddie dives off of it.

Along with Baywatch regular Newman (Michael Newman, the real-life model for Mitch Buchanan), Eddie searches the now sunken boat.  And, to his shock, he finds a dead man on the boat.  Eddie does a classic “Nooooooooo!” but, being underwater, no one can hear him.

With everyone blaming him for the accident, Eddie continues to insist that no one was alive on the boat when he first checked.  Eddie’s old friend and mentor, Mitch Buchanan, decides to investigate the case himself and he soon figures out the truth.  The dead man did drown but he was already dead by the time the boat sank!  But who wanted to kill him?

It’s actually not much of a mystery as there are only two suspects and it is established early on that they’re working together.  In fact, they talk about how they committed the murder before Mitch even figures out that it was a murder so say goodbye to any suspense.  The truth of the matter is that the storyline was less about the mystery and more about trying to boost the ratings by reminding everyone that this was a Baywatch show.  It might have been more effective if the show had made use of a top-tier Baywatch co-star (David Charvet, Pamela Anderson) as opposed to bringing back Billy Warlock, who hadn’t been on the show for a few seasons before his guest turn here.  But then again, bringing on a “current” co-star would have begged the question of “Why do we need a new show to watch a story from the old show?”

There’s a second storyline, in which a man (Barry Pearl) is concerned that his mistress (Valerie Wildman) has hired a hitman to kill him.  Garner, Ryan, and Lou all stakeout the mistress and discover that she doesn’t actually want to go through with the plot and that her original plan was to kill the man’s wife.  The man is so overjoyed to discover that his mistress wanted to kill his wife that he literally jumps for joy.  This was a weird storyline but at least it featured the characters doing real detective work for once.

This was a breezy and entertainingly dumb episode.  This is perhaps the first episode to feature every member of the main cast doing something and there was a nice feeling of comradery amongst the regulars.  That said, the episode ended with Mitch pointing out that they had solved all the cases and then asking, “What do we do now?”  Uhmm …. how about you go to your other job, Mitch?

Seriously, I don’t know how Mitch balances everything.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 4.13 “The Man From Yesterday/World’s Most Desirable Woman”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming on Daily Motion.

This week, the Island is full of damn liars.

Episode 4.13 “The Man From Yesterday/World’s Most Desirable Woman”

(Dir by Robert C. Thompson, originally aired on January 31st, 1981)

Bill Keating (Martin Milner) is a photojournalist who has reported from some of the most war-torn areas of the world.  He has spent years searching for a notorious mercenary named Calvin Doyle (Dennis Cole) and he believes that he has finally tracked Doyle down to Fantasy Island.  Bill swears to Mr. Roarke that his fantasy is to only do an interview with Doyle.

Of course, Bill’s lying.  Once Bill tracks down Doyle and discovers that Doyle has not only renounced his previous ways but is also the foster father of three native children, Bill reveals that his true fantasy is to shoot Doyle and get revenge for all the terrible things that Doyle did during his former life.

Marsha (Barbi Benton) is a frumpy, 39 year-old woman who says that she just wants to know what it’s like to be young and beautiful for a weekend.  Maybe she could even enter and win The World’s Most Desirable Woman pageant that’s being held on Fantasy Island.  Mr. Roarke and Tattoo take Marsha to the Island’s fountain of youth.  Marsha enters the fountain as a 39 year-old wearing a modest one-piece bathing suit.  She steps out of the fountain as a 21 year-old wearing a bikini.

Of course, Marsha isn’t being totally honest about her motives.  She is married to Hal Garnett (Bert Convy), the owner of Erotic Magazine and the sponsor of the pageant!  Her fantasy is to get revenge on Hal for all the years in which he’s neglected her for the younger women who appear in his magazine.

Two fantasies, two liars.  Mr. Roarke is fairly busy this week, showing up frequently in both fantasies (and even singing at the Most Desirable Woman pageant).  Mr. Roarke warns Marsha that she is getting too caught up in her newdound beauty.  Mr. Roarke also warns Calvin that Bill Keating wants to kill him.  Roarke allows Keating to take his shot at Calvin but he also arranges for the confrontation to happen on a rickety bridge so that the wounded Calvin can escape into the water below.  It’s interesting to see Roarke getting involved for once and Ricardo Montalban knew exactly how to deliver the character’s occasionally ominous lines.  Still, you have to wonder why he let these two liars on the Island on the first place.  Usually, he has pretty firm rules about stuff like this.  What if the bridge hadn’t broken and Doyle had died?  Mr. Roarke would look pretty dumb.

Fortunately, it all works out.  Having faked his own death, Doyle is able to leave the Island with his children.  And Marsha is informed that she will not go back to being 39 at the end of the weekend but will instead remain 21 and just age naturally.  Hal freaks out, realizing that men are going to be chasing his wife.  Roarke tells him that he better be good to her.

(Of course, Tattoo later takes a picture of Marsha and is shocked to see that picture is of the old Marsha, suggesting that the young Marsha is just an illusion that only Marsha, Hal, and I guess Tattoo can see.  It’s weird.)

Barbi Benton and Dennis Cole were regular guests to Fantasy Island and they both do well with their roles.  All of the lying felt a bit out-of-place for this show but at least Roarke got to be an active force in both fantasies.  All in all, this was a good trip to the Island.

Have A Happy Mardi Gras With The Gang From Easy Rider!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Mardi Gras!

If you can’t get down to New Orleans today (because maybe you have a sprained ankle like me), fear not!  Mardi Gras has been immortalized in a number of films.  In fact, some have theorized that the whole reason 1969’s Easy Rider was filmed was because Dennis Hopper wanted to go to New Orleans.

The Mardi Gras sequence occurs towards the end of Easy Rider.  After a long and eventful journey, Wyatt (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper) reach New Orleans and experience Mardi Gras with two women that they met at a brothel (Karen Black and Toni Basil).  However, the Mardi Gras scenes were actually amongst the first to be shot and Hopper actually filmed several hours of documentary footage of New Orleans’s most famous party.  If you watch the footage, you can see bystanders looking directly at the camera.  They were not extras hired for the film.  They were people on the street who became a part of one of the most important indie films in the history of American cinema.  These scenes were shot guerilla style, without permits or, by most reports, any advanced planning.

Hopper also filmed Fonda having an actual bad acid trip.  For obvious reasons, Fonda was not happy about being filmed in that condition but he did say, in later interviews, that Hopper made the right decision to include the footage in the film.

For the record, I relate to Toni Basil in this film.  She’s having fun and dancing no matter what.

Music Video of the Day: Bayou Boy by Graham Barham (2024, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Mardi Gras to all!

What can I say about this video other than it’s definitely authentic?  There’s a lot of people who will be able to relate to every word of this song.  This guy actually reminds me of more than a few of my cousins.  The fact that the song features more than a little Cajun French only contributes to the authenticity.