Daily Archives: April 13, 2024

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check it Out 2.2 “Edna’s Phantom Romance”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

Season 2 continues with more inconsistent Howard and Edna weirdness.

Episode 2.2 “Edna’s Phantom Romance”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 10th, 1986)

Howard Bannister is, once again, the most unromantic man who has ever lived.

Now, I know that goes against what we’ve recently seen of Howard.  In fact, just last week, Howard agreed to go without a paycheck for two months so that he and Edna could have a vacation together.  This show has never been particularly consistent when it comes to its portrayal of Howard and Edna’s relationship.  When it first started, Howard was portrayed as being a jerk.  Then, he became a romantic.  Then he went back to being a jerk.  And then he become, yet again, a romantic.  And now, he’s back to being a jerk.  And Edna has gone from being snarky to naive to intelligent to naive again that it’s next to impossible to really say for sure who she is supposed to be.

Edna and Howard’s anniversary is coming up.  Edna wants him to take her to Hawaii.  Howard would rather stay at home and watch bowling.  It seems to be an impasse but myself, I’m wondering if Edna realizes that flying from Canada to Hawaii is not exactly something that one does on a whim.  I mean, you don’t just hop down to Hawaii for a few hours and then fly back, especially not on a retail worker’s salary.  Howard may be the manager but I doubt he has enough money to purchase a private jet.  Plus, Edna and Howard just took a 2-month vacation.  She could have gone to Hawaii then.

Edna, trying to get Howard’s attention, hires one of Leslie’s community theater friends to pretend to be her new boyfriend.  Howard freaks out after he sees Edna and the actor together.  Edna thinks that Howard is going to propose to her but instead, he breaks up with her.  “Oh, Howard!” Edna says before explaining that she was just paying the other guy to pretend to be in love with her.  Howard is surprisingly okay with that and the two of them get back together.  It’s interesting that Howard doesn’t care that Edna has basically spent a week lying to and manipulating him.

This was one of those really annoying and dumb episodes where every problem could have been resolved by people just talking to each other and not making assumptions.  Bleh.  I hate episodes like this.

On the plus side, Marlene’s constantly changing hairstyle remains the best thing about the show.  Here’s what she went with this week:

This episode was pretty dumb and I’m pretty sure that they already did a Howard-Screws-Up-His-Anniversary episode during the previous season.  If Check It Out! is already repeating itself (and especially if its repeating itself to diminishing returns), that means I’ve got a long few months ahead of me as I make my way through seasons 2 and 3 of this show.

Next week …. oh, who knows?

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 4/7/24 — 4/13/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Other than the shows that I watch for my retro television reviews, I didn’t watch a lot this week.  I was busy with other things.  (Luckily, I did get to watch a few movies.)  Here’s a few thoughts on what I did watch.

On Wednesday, I watched a screener for Chaser, which is a thought-provoking and surreal science fiction series that can currently be viewed on Prime.  I was flattered to get a chance to watch it for free and to review it.  I posted a review of the show on Friday so read the review and watch the show and leave a comment detailing how much you liked my review.

Abbott Elementary returned this week.  Janine was offered a full-time job with the District and she accepted it, much to Gregory’s disappointment.  To be honest, I’m kind of bored and more than a little frustrated with Janine and Gregory.  Gregory’s inability to act on his feelings has crossed the line from being an sweet example of social awkwardness to just being annoying.  My hope, as it has been from the start, is that Janine will realize that she is meant to teach and we’ll finally be done with all of this District nonsense.  That said, I did enjoy the AI storyline and Jacob’s shock at discovering that no one was reading his emails.  We’ve all known someone or had a friend like Jacob.  I would totally subscribe to Mr. Johnson’s newsletter.

I watched an old episode of Night Flight on Friday.  It dealt with androgynous rock stars so, not surprisingly, the majority of it was made up of videos from David Bowie and Queen.

Today, I binged the new Netflix reality show, Unlocked: A Jail Experiment.  Shot in Little Rock, Arkansas, the show dealt with a sheriff who decided to give one cell block a good deal of freedom to see if they could handle it.  It was an interesting show, though a lot of it seemed to be staged.  It was hard not to notice that the camera was always in the perfect position to pick up the most drama.  I also had to laugh at the inmates who said they were worried about getting caught doing something illegal but who then proceeded to make a shank or brew jail moonshine while the cameras were pointed straight at them.  I mean, when Miller was making his shank and bragging about how he was going to use it against anyone who got on his nerves, did he not realize that show’s footage could probably be used in court?  Unlocked was a slightly more amusing version of 60 Days In.  Speaking of which, the sheriff on this show was surprisingly likable, especially when compared to the majority of the law enforcement people who have appeared on 60 Days In.

And that’s that, with the exception of the retro shows that I watch every week for this site.  As I said, I didn’t watch a lot this week.  I’m running behind on both Survivor and The Amazing Race.  And, at some point, I’d like to watch the latest seasons of The Bachelor and Farmer Wants A Wife.  Hopefully, I’ll soon be caught up.

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 3.17 “Meet Your New Teacher: Batteries Not Included”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC  from 1975 to 1979.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, a computer tries to take over Gabe’s class.  I wonder how Barbarino will react….

Okay, everyone, it’s Barbarino time!

Episode 3.17 “Meet Your New Teacher: Batteries Not Included”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on January 5th, 1978)

Barbarino’s not in this episode.

That may seem like an strange detail with which to lead off this review but, as far as the third season has been concerned, John Travolta’s performance as Barbarino has been one of the few consistently good things about Welcome Back, Kotter.  I’m going to guess that Travolta was absent from shooting because of the success of Saturday Night Fever.  Maybe he was off filming Grease.  That’s all understandable but still, the show really suffers when he’s not around.  Of the Sweathogs, he was the one who usually avoided turning into a cartoon.  In his way, he was the anchor of the group.  Plus, by this point, he was the only one who still looked young enough to be in high school.

Fortunately, John Sylvester White is in this episode.  If Travolta played an important role in keeping the show grounded, White’s unhinged performance as Woodman did an equally good job of keeping the show funny.  White could make even the simplest of lines hilarious by virtue of the incredible bitterness in Woodman’s voice.

This week, Mr. Woodman is excited because he’s purchased a computer that can teach!  He rolls it into Gabe’s classroom and informs Gabe that, from now on, he’ll be asking the computer for answers.

Obviously, it’s easy to roll your eyes at that bulky computer, especially since it appears to be more of a typewriter than anything else.  (I’m going to assume that is was state-of-the-art for the 70s).  Still, one could argue that this episode predicted the rise of A.I.  Gabe types in his questions and then the computer gives him an answer.  The computer has been programmed to always be correct.  Gabe complains that the computer can’t tell jokes but the Sweathogs don’t care.  They love the computer!  And, after a few days, Woodman returns to the classroom with a chart that shows how everyone’s grades have improved.

Woodman thinks that the computer is his ticket to a promotion.  He also thinks that the computer will finally allow him to fire Gabe.  (Sometimes, Woodman likes Gabe and sometimes, he tries to get him fired.  Normally, I’d complain about the inconsistency but the genius of John Sylvester White’s performance is that you just accept that Woodman’s insane and move on.)  The Sweathogs fear that Gabe will lose his job so Epstein sabotages the computer so that it gives wrong answers when Woodman tries to demonstrate it to a district representative.  Did you know the Harlem Globetrotters fought at the Battle of Waterloo?

It’s never really made clear how Epstein sabotaged the computer but no matter.  One of the flaws of AI is that, even though it acts like its thinking, it’s actually just repeating whatever it’s programmed to do.  This computer claims that the Globetrotters fought at Waterloo.  Decades later, Google Gemini would become infamous for creating ahistorical images of black and female presidents who were all presumably elected at a time when only white men were allowed to vote or run for office.  AI never changes.

I would have loved to have seen Barbarino interact with the computer.  He was seriously missed in this episode.  But Woodman’s unhinged personality made up for a lot of that.  This was fun, even if it still wasn’t nearly as memorable as any of the episodes from the first two seasons of the show.

As for this episodes jokes, Gabe tried to tell Julie a joke about his Uncle Magnovich.  Julie didn’t seem to care that much.  At the end of the episode, Gabe tried to tell the computer a joke.  The computer did not react.  “Don’t you get it?” Gabe typed.

“No,” the computer replied.

Poor Gabe!

Live Tweet Alert: Watch Silent Predators with #ScarySocial

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, Deanna Dawn will be hosting 1999’s Silent Predators!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  The film is available on Prime and YouTube.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Music Video of the Day: Conquer or Die by Megadeth (2016, directed by Blair Underwood)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This video is just Megadeth doing what Megadeth does best.

The Blair Underwood who directed this video is the same Blair Underwood who co-starred in L.A. Law and several subsequent films.  They seem like an unlikely combination, as Underwood was outspoken in his support of President Obama while Dave Mustaine was definitely not.  However, this is actually just one of several videos that Underwood did with Megadeth.  Music brings us all together.

Enjoy!