Welcome to Late Night 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 Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, a reporter uses a cursed camera to make the news!

Episode 1.21 “Double Exposure”

(Dir by Neill Fearnley, originally aired on May 16th, 1988)

As you may remember, at the end of the previous episode, Ryan reluctantly left the Pentite Community and returned to Toronto so that he could continue to help Micki and Jack track down the cursed antiques.  When he left, he promised Laura that he would always love her.

Well, that didn’t last long.  This episode opens with a Ryan in a photobooth, taking pictures of himself and his new girlfriend, Cathy!  RYAN, YOU CAD!  Now, in Ryan’s defense, Cathy is played by Catherine Disher (who previously played the supercool Sophie in the first season of T and T) and she seems like a much better match for Ryan than the somewhat dour Laura.  Cathy and Ryan actually have fun together!  Of course, this is Friday the 13th and that means that all fun is temporary.

There’s a serial killer stalking Toronto and Ryan just happens to witness him murdering his latest victim in an alley.  To Ryan’s shock, the killer appears to Winston Knight (Gary Frank), a television news anchorman who is currently getting huge rating because of his reporting on the killings.  But how can that be?  When Ryan witnesses the murder, Winston is live on the air, delivering the news.  Winston even gets a phone call from someone claiming to be the murderer.

Winston speculates that the killer might be an obsessed fan who is wearing a Winston Knight mask.  Of course, the truth of the matter is that Winston is using a cursed camera to take a picture of himself.  The picture then turns into a doppelganger of Winston.  The Doppelganger commits a murder, Winston reports on the tragedy, and then, after five hours, Winston sets the negative on fire and the Doppelganger is destroyed.  If Winston doesn’t destroy the negative after five hours, Winston will be the one who is destroyed and the Doppelganger will become human.  It all sounds a bit complicated, to be honest.  You have to wonder how Winston managed to figure all of this out.

Anyway, the important thing is that Winston is eventually exposed as the murderer.  While trying to kill Ryan at the antique store, the Doppelganger is stabbed by Ryan.  It doesn’t hurt the Doppelganger until Winston fails to burn the negative and vanishes from existence.  The Doppelganger becomes human and then promptly drops dead of his wound.  Ryan conquers another cursed antique but, unfortunately, not before the Doppelganger murders Cathy.  The episode ends not on a note of triumph but instead with Ryan looking at a picture of Cathy and tearing up.

Wow, what a dark episode!  Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that, on this show, Ryan is basically a very naive and very earnest teenager.  He falls in love easily, he always believes that things will turn out for the best, and his heart is broken nearly every time he has to retrieve an antique.  Jack is used to the pain and Micki is a bit of a cynic but Ryan is still trying to balance happiness with the psychological damage that comes from seeing the worst things possible on a weekly basis.  John D. LeMay and Catherine Disher were adorable together and it was hard not to get a bit upset when Cathy fell victim to the Doppelganger.  This episode was sad but undeniably effective.

Poor Ryan!