Monthly Archives: September 2024

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.17 “The Last Assignment”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, it’s time for a theological debate!

Episode 2.17 “The Last Assignment”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on February 12th, 1986)

While he and Mark drive through another run-down American city, a radio news report of a man dressed as Santa Claus giving people exactly what they ask for even though it’s not even Christmas leads Jonathan to suspect that Harold might be in the area.  As Jonathan explains to Mark, Harold is an angel who has been on probation for hundreds of years because he can’t obey the rules.  Instead of encouraging people to find it in themselves to do the right thing and to create their own opportunities, Harold just gives people exactly what they want.  If Jonathan is all about teaching people to have faith no matter what, Harold is about creating sudden miracles.

It’s actually an interesting plot, in that it really does capture one of the central debates at the heart of any religion.  Should God just give people what they want or should people’s faith in God give them the strength to understand and pursue what they truly need?  It’s the battle between those who take a vow of poverty and show their devotion through sacrifice and suffering and those who preach the so-called prosperity gospel, insisting that God is some sort of celestial regulatory agency.

(It’s also a reflection of the ongoing debate as to how involved the government should get in other people’s lives.  Jonathan argues for a hands-off approach that respects and promotes the idea of individual freedom.  Harold, for his part, seems to be a big government guy.  Jonathan supports encouraging people to pull themselves up.  Harold supports hand-outs.  Jonathan is a Republican.  Harold probably wants to be Bernie Sanders’s guardian angel.)

Jonathan tracks down Harold (Ed Asner).  Harold has opened a fire hydrant and turned water into wine, making all of the neighborhood alcoholics vey happy.  Harold says that he performed a miracle and gave the people what they wanted.  Jonathan argues that the people needed to learn that they had the power within themselves to find their own happiness.  Taking it upon himself to keep an eye on Harold, Jonathan can only watch as Harold bends the rules to help a woman sell her stamp collection for $500 and also reunites an older woman with her lost dog.  Jonathan says that Harold isn’t teaching anyone anything or helping anyone to discover their inner strength.  Harold argues that he’s helping out the faithful.  But when Jonathan and Harold meet a priest who has lost his faith, both of their approaches are put to the test.

Theological debates aside, it’s obvious that the main point of this episode was to give Ed Asner a showy role.  Asner makes the most of Harold, playing him as someone who may pretend to be a buffoon but who actually truly cares about people and who is truly angered by what he views as being cosmic injustice and holy indifference.  Asner and Landon both give good performances here and, as a result, the rather episodic story is always watchable.  The show may ultimately come down on Jonathan’s side but you’re still happy when it becomes clear that Harold isn’t going to change his ways for a second.

Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.10 “The Costume Party”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Summer forever!  Hey, who wants to go to a costume party on the beach?  Like, seriously, why would you even do that?

Episode 1.10 “The Costume Party”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on December 13th, 1998)

Well, this is sure stupid.

This week, Jason once again proves himself to be the world’s worst boyfriend by getting jealous just because Stads is working with a totally hot lifeguard named Kip (Taso Papadikis).  Jason fears that Stads will dump him for Kip, just because Kip happens to be better-looking and a lot more athletic than Jason.

Scott proves himself to be the world’s worst brother by suggesting that Jason flirt with Tracy in order to make Stads jealous.  Jason does so, not knowing that Stads has absolutely no romantic interest at all in Kip because Kip’s dumb.  Stads, however, doesn’t know that Jason is just flirting with Tracy to make her jealous and she starts to get insecure about their relationship.  Stads, being a doormat, doesn’t realize that a decent boyfriend wouldn’t be flirting with another girl right in front of her in the first place.

Sam proves herself to be the world’s worst friend by suggesting that Stads make Scott jealous by flirting with Kip.  Stads flirts with Kip.  Jason responds by continuing to flirt with Tracy.  Eventually, Scott and Sam realize that they’ve royally screwed things up but it’s too late.  Jason and Stads have already broken up.

Luckily, there’s a costume party on the pier!  Because seriously, who wouldn’t want to go a hot beach in a suffocating costume?  Thinking that Stads is dressed as an astronaut and that Jason is dressed as a gorilla, Scott dressed up like a gorilla and pretends to be Jason.  What he and Sam don’t know is that Stads and Jason switched costumes.  So, when Scott tries to give a romantic note to who he thinks is Stads, he actually gives it to Jason.

As you can probably guess, this leads to Jason and Scott holding each other tight and dancing while the audience whoops it up.  If this sounds familiar, it’s because the exact same joke was used on Saved By The Bell and a host of other Peter Engel-produced sitcoms.  In the Engelverse, there’s apparently nothing funnier than two guys dancing together.

This was a pretty dumb episode but, surprisingly enough, Murray’s antics did make me laugh this week.  Having forgotten the security code to his house, Murray moves in with the Collins family.  First, he’s a slob.  Then, he’s a neat freak.  In the end, he dresses up like the Silver Surfer and runs around the costume party.  It was silly but Brandon Brooks really went all-out in the role and, for once, the character’s weirdness made me smile.

Otherwise, this was all pretty dumb.  Seriouisly, Stads …. you deserve better!

Music Video of the Day: If I Could Change Your Mind by HAIM (2014, dir by Warren Fu)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Browsing through my YouTube recommendations, I was shocked to discover a Haim video that I hadn’t already shared for music video of the day.  Let’s correct that this morning!

This energetic video was choreographed by Fatima Robinson.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.14 “Bed and Boar”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

Episode 2.14 “Bed and Boar”

(Dir by Sara Driver, originally aired on January 21st, 1990)

Traveling salesman John Dennis (a young Steve Buscemi) just wants to get a good night’s rest in a sleazy motel but, unfortunately, the couple in the room next to his is making a racket.  A woman and a man are fighting and yelling at each other.  “Bitch!  Bitch!” the man seems to be yelling.  Finally, the woman (Jodie Markell) leaves her room, runs through the stormy night, and ends up in John’s room.

John take one look at the woman in her white nightgown (which has gotten soaked in the rain) and decides that he has absolutely no problem with her staying in his room.  He has no problem with her removing her wet nightgown and wrapping herself in the sheets of his bed.  The only problem that John has is with her husband (Charles Kay-Hune), who not only tries to break into the room but also has the head of a boar.

You would think that would be enough to convince John to find another motel but instead, after chasing off the board husband, John spends the night with the woman.  John declares that he’s falling in love with the woman.  When her husband literally tears down a wall to get at them, John fights off and kills the woman’s boar-headed husband.

And it’s only then that it occurs to John that the woman might be a witch (“He wasn’t yelling bitch, he was yelling….”) and that maybe she was the one responsible for turning her husband into a pig.  (Someone has obviously never read The Odyssey.)  Of course, by this point, John is himself starting to turn into a pig.

The good thing about this episode is that it features a young Steve Buscemi, playing one of his trademark quirky characters who never knows when to stop talking.  The bad thing is that the episode doesn’t really give Buscemi much to do, other than be an idiot.  Since it was obvious, to me, that the woman was a witch and that she was the one who turned her husband into a boar, I spent the entire episode waiting for some sort of a surprise twist.  I was waiting for John to reveal that he was a warlock or a werewolf or a vampire or anything other than just a salesman in a motel room.  But that never happened.  As a result, the whole story felt rather pointless.

On the plus side, the husband was frightening.  The show did a good job with the boar makeup because I I did jump a little when that thing came bursting into the room.  This was a case where the monster was better than the story.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.23 “The Duel/Two For Julie/Aunt Hilly”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

This week, Hollywood royalty boards the Love Boat!

Episode 4.23 “The Duel/Two For Julie/Aunt Hilly”

(Dir by Ray Austin, originally aired on March 14th, 1981)

Who is Aunt Hilly?

She’s Olivia de Havilland!

And who is Aunt Hilly’s latest husband, Col. Von Ryker?

He’s Joseph Cotten, making his final screen appearance before retiring from acting!

Even for a show that was known for featuring stars from Hollywood’s Golden Age, de Havilland and Cotten are welcome additions to this episode of The Love Boat.  They bring a lot of class to the ship, both as themselves and as the characters that they’re playing.  It’s not just all of the wonderful Hollywood history that they bring with them.  It’s also that they both give charming performances, showing that they still had the screen presence that made them stars to begin with.

Hilly is Captain Stubing’s aunt, a wealthy woman who has devoted so much of her life to work that she missed out on spending much time with her family.  She wants to make up for the past by arranging for Vicki to attend an exclusive private school in Switzerland.  Captain Stubing is reluctant but ultimately, he agrees that it would be best for Vicki to be able to have friends her own age and to get a formal education as opposed to just receiving lessons from the occasionally mentioned but never-seen tutor who apparently lives on the Love Boat.

However, Col. Van Ryker knows that Vicki would be happier on the boat and that Hilly is just trying to deal with her own guilt over her strained relationship with her son, Conrad.  With the Colonel’s gentle help, Hilly realizes that it would be better for Vicki to stay with Captain Stubing.

Now, to be honest, I do kind of wonder if it’s a good idea for Vicki to live on the boat.  I mean, does she really have any friends outside of the members of the crew, all of whom are much older than her?  Personally, I think going to school is Switzerland and spending her summers on the Love Boat would have been a great idea.  But no matter!  This was a sweet story.  What I really appreciated is that, even though they were on opposite sides, both the Captain and the Aunt had the best of intentions and motivations.  It would have been easy to just portray Hilly as being a snob who thought living on a cruise ship was beneath the dignity of a Stubing.  Instead, she was a genuinely nice woman trying to do what she felt was the right thing.  Gavin MacLeod, Jill Whelan, Olivia de Havilland, and Joseph Cotten all did wonderful work with this story.

The other two stories were overshadowed by Cotten and de Havilland.  In the sillier of the two, Linda Cristal played a woman who tried to make her husband jealous by flirting with Doc Bricker.  Her husband (Alejandro Rey) reacted by challenging Doc to a duel.  Isaac and Gopher tried to convince the husband that Doc was an experienced and deadly duelist.  Again, it was just as silly as it sounds.

Meanwhile, Julie had two men (Ken Kercheval and Dack Rambo) hitting on her.  The two men were also competing to be the new vice president of Don Ameche’s company.  In the end, Julie remained single and good for her.

One silly story.  One boring story.  And one story that was so good that the other two stories didn’t matter.  This was a great cruise.

Music Video of the Day: Banned From The USA by The Covids (2024, dir by Rene Nuijens)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This song is actually based on a true story.  When the Covids were about to embark on the first U.S. tour, two members of the group ran into visa problems and, after what appears to have been a rather tense encounter with the customs people, were banned from entering the country.  The two members of the band who did enter the country couldn’t tour so they wrote a song about the whole mess.

This video was shot after the the two members who entered the U.S. returned home to Amsterdam.  It features all the members of the band, including those who were banned from the U.S.A.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.10 “Space Spores”

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, the threat comes from space!

Episode 2.10 “Space Spores”

(Dir by Richard Freidman, originally aired on January 19th, 1997)

Having completed another intergalactic mission, the Space Shuttle Discovery returns to Earth.  Of course, when I say Earth, what I actually mean is America because we all know which country is the most important around here.

Unfortunately, the Discovery also spreads a bunch of “space dust” over a small farm in California.  It wasn’t intentional on the part of the Space Shuttle crew.  Those people are saints!  Instead, it’s just one of those accidents that happens.  The problem is that space dust is a lot more dangerous than Earth dust.  Earth dust can trigger asthma attacks (believe me, I know), while space dust can cause animals to explode.

At first, the government shows up at the farm, all decked out in their HAZMAT gear.  A few days later, Daimont Teague drags Mitch and Ryan out to the farm so that they can take another look.  Daimont doesn’t bother to give either Mitch or Ryan a HAZMAT suit and he also doesn’t bother to tell them what exactly they’re looking for.  He says he wants them to keep their minds fresh but I think it’s more a case of Teague just being a dick.  I mean, why would you task a lifeguard with investigating space dust?

While Daimont goes off to meet with his connections in the government, Mitch and Ryan investigate the farm.  They discover that the space dust has caused a lot of animals to explode.  They also discover the farmer is dead but his young daughter, Katie (Ashley Buccille), has survived.  Unfortunately, when the family dog explodes, Ryan and Katie end up covered in space dust.  Now, Mitch and Griff (who shows up because he apparently has nothing better to do on a Sunday night) have to get Ryan and Katie to a decompression chamber before the space dust causes them to explode.  Unfortunately, there’s a lot of evil government types who are more worried about the public learning about the space dust than they are about saving the lives of Ryan and Katie.

I was kind of surprised by how much this episode depressed me.  It was entirely due to the exploding animals.  We only actually see a rat and then the dog explode but apparently, a cat explodes off-screen and so do several other animals.  I always get upset when bad things happen to animals on shows like this.  For whatever reason, I don’t really seem to care that much when the same thing happens to a human being.  Some of that’s because I’ve seen all the other human beings on other shows.  I was glad that Angie Harmon didn’t blow up because Angie and I are both Texas girls and we vote the same way.  But even if Mitch hadn’t been able to save Ryan, I know that Angie would have still gone on to appear on Law & Order and Rizzoli & Isles after this show ended.  Whereas with animals, I don’t have that reassurance.

This episode, I didn’t really like.  I appreciated the anti-government theme but all of the exploding animals just weren’t for me.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.9 “Romance Times Three/The Night of the Tormented Soul”

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

Smiles, everyone, smiles!  It’s time to visit the Island.

Episode 5.9 “Romance Times Three/The Night of the Tormented Soul”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on December 5th, 1981)

This week again finds Tattoo working as Roarke’s assistant, which again means that the episode opens with Julie explaining that she won’t be able to help out Roarke and Tattoo with any of the new people coming to the Island.  What makes this week memorable as far as Julie excuses are concerned is that the reason Julie can’t help is because she’s been given a difficult task by Tattoo.  A 300-pound woman has come to the Island with a fantasy of leading the Charge of the Light Brigade and Tattoo has told Julie to find a horse for her.  Tattoo smirks as Julie tells Roarke.  Roarke wishes Julie luck while declining to help her himself.

As for the fantasies, let’s get the boring one out of the way first.  Sally Harris (Georgia Engel) works for a phone answering service.  I had to look this up via Google but apparently a phone answering service was something that people and companies used in the days before texts, voice mail and email.  Someone like Sally would answer the phone for you, collect your messages, and then call you later to give them to you.  I guess it was something that companies did when they were too cheap to hire a receptionist or a personal assistant.  I don’t know, it just seems strange to me.

Sally has fallen in love with three of her clients, though she hasn’t actually met any of them.  Jack (Frank Bonner) is a bon vivant who calls her for love advice.  Tony (Frank Converse) is a businessman who calls her for financial advice.  Ben (David Groh) is a writer who often discusses his writer’s block with Sally.  All three of the men have come to the Island.  Sally fears how the men will react to discovering the real her so Mr. Roarke casts a spell and tells Sally that each men will see her the way that he thinks of her.  Tony sees Sally as a prim and determined businesswoman.  Jack sees her as a dark-haired seductress.  And Ben sees her as a …. well, as a clown.  He has always resented Sally’s advice.  Of course, Ben is the one who ultimately falls in love with the real Sally.

It’s not a bad idea for a fantasy but it doesn’t really work because Georgia Engel isn’t convincing whenever she takes on any of Sally’s different personas.  No matter what costume she’s wearing, she still delivers all of her lines in this high-pitched whisper that sometimes make it difficult to understand what she’s saying.  (She’s not quite as inaudible here as she was in Jennifer Slept Here but still, I did struggle to hear everything she said.)  The men are all thinly written, as well.  I was glad she ended up with the writer but in the end, I really wouldn’t have cared that much if she had ended up with the businessman or the sex addict.

The better fantasy features Stephen Shortridge and Dianne Kay as Jason and Beth Martinique.  When they were children, Beth and Jason survived a shipwreck and washed up on the shore of Fantasy Island.  They were raised by a local millionaire, Richard Martinique (Richard Anderson) and their nanny, Blanche Barrens (Elinor Donahue).  Both Richard and Ms. Barrens died one stormy night.  Richard was shot and Ms. Barrens’s neck was broken in a fall.  Jason and Beth want to go back to their childhood home so they can learn what happened that night.  Fortunately, the ghosts of Richard and Ms. Barrens are still in the mansion, giving Jason and Beth a chance to see the tragic accident that led to the deaths of both Richard and Ms.  Barrens.  Even better, Mr. Roarke and Tattoo show up to inform Jason and Beth that they aren’t really brother-and-sister and therefore, they are free to pursue a romance.  That’s good because, before Roarke showed up, Jason and Beth were gazing at each other like the brother and sister from the old Folger’s commercial.  You know who I’m talking about.

I always enjoy it when Fantasy Island deals with ghosts and haunted mansions and this fantasy was filled with atmosphere and melodrama.  The accident that led to death of Richard and Ms. Barrens was ludicrous and yet somehow poignant at the same time.

So, an overall mixed review on this episode but I think the ghost fantasy makes up for the other fantasy.  Plus, Tattoo gets to show off his karate skills!  Let’s see Julie do that!