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 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.
Welcome to 2013!
Episode 4.9 “Team Picture”
(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on November 30th, 1988)
Weird, weird episode.
Taking place 25 years in the future, this episode features the ’88 California Bulls reuniting in 2013. Of course, since this episode was made in 1988, its version of 2013 is a bit different from the one that we all lived through. The 2013 of this episode is a dark and depressing dystopia, with militarized police and …. well, maybe it wasn’t that much different from what we lived through.
In 2013, former wide receiver Billy Cooper is a reporter who is hoping to go from the sports desk to the anchor desk.
TD Parker (OJ Simpson) is now the mayor of Los Angeles.
Zagreb is still playing in the NFL.
Doug Clayton is a Nobel prize-winning scientist.
Dr. Death works at a lumber yard.
Mad Dog owns twenty-five “sex discos.”
Bubba Kincaid is now the “King of Beer.” After his bar was shut down and demolished, he started Bubba Beer, which we are told is the “last American beer.”
And Jethro — well, no one has seen Jethro for ten years. Bubba tried to get Jethro to join him in his Bubba Beer business but Jethro refused. He went into wrestling and then he vanished. Most of his teammates are angry with him. They view him as being a crybaby who needs to man up.
In this episode, Jethro resurfaces at the Dodds Corporate Headquarters in Los Angeles. He’s got a bomb strapped to his chest and he’s threatening to blow the whole place up. TD and Billy both try to talk to him but Jethro doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. Dr. Death approaches him and encourages him to blow himself up. Finally, Bubba goes to Jethro and apologizes for abandoning him. Unfortunately, Bubba gets shot by a robot sniper and is transformed into a pile of blue ash as Jethro watches.
And that’s how the episode ends!
I appreciated the fact that this episode was so weird. It pretty much came out of nowhere and I’ll be surprised if it’s ever referenced again. Probably the most interesting thing about it is that all of the Bulls ended up becoming jerks. No one seems to really care that Jethro might die. For that matter, Jethro isn’t that upset when Bubba gets killed.
I imagine when this episode aired, it was meant to be a commentary on how uncertain the life of a pro-athlete can be once they’re no longer playing. For every success story, there’s someone else who ends up losing all of their money and being exiled to the fringes of society. Seen today, it’s hard to watch Jethro without thinking about CTE and all of the former players who have succumbed to it.
This episode was so odd that it defies a traditional “good or bad” classification. I appreciated it for trying to do something different.
Through the Shattered Lens 