Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.9 “Night Whispers”

Posted on September 10, 2024 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, a vampire comes to California!

Episode 2.9 “Night Whispers”

(Dir by Reza Badiyi, originally aired on November 24th, 1996)

The mysterious Francesca (Felicity Waterman) is being held in police custody as a suspect in the murder of a jogger. The jogger was found with his throat slit. Ryan, who was there when the body was found, suspects that Francesca might be vampire.

Why? Ryan has her reasons.

Francesca speaks with the same type of unplaceable Eastern European accent that all vampires tend to speak with.
Francesca wears sunglasses inside and says she can’t go out during the day because her eyes are just too sensitive to the sunlight.
Francesca occasionally wears a cape.
Francesca wears gloves to hide her vampire hands.
Francesca’s gown was splattered with the dead guy’s blood.
Francesca does not cast a reflection in her apartment’s mirror.

(Why do vampires even own mirrors?)

Ryan seems like she has a pretty good case but Mitch is skeptical. Mitch doesn’t believe in any of that supernatural stuff, despite the fact that he’s spent the past few months dealing with sea monsters, ghosts, and government conspiracies. Just a few episodes ago, he stepped into a house and was transported through time!

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I understand skepticism. For the most part, I’m a skeptic too. But the main reason that I’m such an adamant skeptic is because I haven’t ever had anything supernatural happen to me. Now, if I started meeting ghosts and sea monsters on a regular basis, I would probably become less of a skeptic. I would reexamine all of my prejudices and I would say, “Hey, maybe something is out there.”

Not Mitch, though! Mitch listens to Ryan explain why she thinks Francesca is a vampire and he laughs it off. What’s odd is that it takes Ryan forever to get around to mentioning that Francesca does not cast a reflection. Instead, she fixates on Francesca wearing gloves in California. Trust me, the whole mirror thing is a lot more convincing than the glove thing. Some people wear gloves and some people don’t but everyone (except for the undead) casts a reflection. Ryan also points out that Francesca doesn’t have a birth certificate and ….. SHE’S NOT REGISTERED TO VOTE!

A trip to the police station to visit Francesca goes terribly wrong when Francesca gets out of her cell and proceeds to stalk Mitch, Ryan, a detective, a pimp, and two prostitutes through the building. Though Francesca is willing to drink anyone’s blood, it becomes obvious that she’s obsessed with capturing the Hoff and really, who can blame her? I imagine she would be quite popular with her co-workers if she was the one who turned the Hoff into a vampire.

This is a deeply silly episode but the same can be said of just about every episode of Baywatch Nights. There’s no reason to take this show seriously. The important thing is that the action movies fairly quickly, Felicity Waterman appears to be having a ball as the vampire, and the Hoff and Angie Harmon get to show off the chemistry that made Baywatch Nights a lot more fun than it had any right being. This may not be a classic vampire tale but it’s an entertaining one.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.8 “Lillian Russell/The Lagoon”

Posted on September 10, 2024 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. Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites. Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

Episode 5.8 “Lillian Russell/The Lagoon”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on November 28th, 1981)

Tattoo is in this episode, which means that Julie only appears long enough to tell Mr. Roarke that she’s going to busy exploring the island with a bunch of hunky professors. (It says a lot about how poorly the Julie character has been developed that I couldn’t tell if Julie was supposed to be naive or clever when it came to going off with the men.)

At this point, it’s obvious that Julie was only added to the show to act as insurance in case Herve Villechaize walked off the set. Early on in the season, when Herve was apparently negotiating for a better contract, Julie had a few episodes where she was Roarke’s main assistant while Tattoo was described as being elsewhere on the island. But in the episodes where Tattoo is present, Julie always has to go do something else for the weekend. Ironically, Julie is such a bland and unnecessary character that it actually proves Herve Villechaize’s point about how important Tattoo was to the success of the show. By having Julie always leave whenever Tattoo is present, the show really only reminds the viewer that Roarke only needs on assistant and it’s Tattoo.

As for this week’s fantasies, they both have to do with the past.

Calvin Pearson (Claude Akin) has just spent years in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit. He’s finally been released and, understandably, he really doesn’t want to have much to do with the rest of the world. When he was a child, he spent a summer on a nearby island with his father. His father was fisherman and Calvin claims that he once caught a fish that could sing. Calvin wants to spend the weekend on the Island and he wants to catch the same serenading fish.

Sound like a pretty simple fantasy, right? Well, Calvin is not happy to discover that the he’s not alone on “my island.” There’s now a trading post, run by Jake Dutton (Broderick Crawford) and his daughter, Mira (Pamela Susan Shoop). Even worse, there are some recently escaped convicts (led by Glenn Corbett) who want to kidnap Mira! At first, Calvin refuses to get involved. He just wants to fish. But, in the end, he finally does the right thing and saves the Duttons.

What about the “serenading fish?” Calvin may not have caught a fish but he did capture the heart of Mira, who hums a tune that she says she once heard out on the lagoon. Calvin leaves the Island alone but he tells Roarke that he plans to return so that he can work at the trading post with the Duttons.

This fantasy was a bit predictable and you really do have to wonder why Roarke insists on nearly getting his guests killed every week. It seems like that would lead to a lawsuit. But the fantasy does feature a good performance from Claude Akin as a man who manages to conquer his own bitterness.

As for the other fantasy, it features Phyllis Davis as a writer named Lilly Martin who wants to write a book about the singer Lillian Russell. Roarke sends her back to 1890s New York and literally transforms Lilly into Lillian Russell, complete with singing talent and two notorious suitors, “Diamond Jim” Brady (Gene Barry) and Peter Whiting (Craig Stevens). This fantasy was enjoyable eye candy, with Lilly getting to dress up as Lillian Russell and getting to wear all sorts of jewels. Unfortunately, it’s also a fantasy that ends with a poker game. I’ve never been able to follow poker and I always groan a little whenever the plot of a show hinges on the outcome. Whenever people start talking about “bluffing” and “royal flushes,” and all that, my eyes just glaze over and that was the case here.

That said, at least Mr. Roarke got to take part in Lilly’s fantasy, popping up not once but three times to see how everything was going! In fact, Mr. Roarke and Tattoo also popped up in Calvin’s fantasy. It’s always fun when Roarke drops in.

The poker game aside, this was an enjoyable trip to the Island. Season 5 has been a bit uneven but this was one of the better episodes.