Author Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 6.22 “Love Island/The Sisters”

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.

Today, the sixth season of Fantasy Island comes to a close and so does Tattoo’s time on the show.

Episode 6.22 “Love Island/The Sisters”

(Dir by Philip Leacock, originally aired on May 14th, 1983)

This is it.  This is not only the finale of season 6 but it’s also the final episode to feature Tattoo as Mr. Roarke’s assistant.

Why did Herve Villechaize leave Fantasy Island after the end of the sixth season?  The story that you always hear is that Villechaize wanted more money to continue working on the show.  He felt that he deserved to be paid as much as Ricardo Montalban.  The show’s producers disagreed.  To them, Montalban was not only the star of the show but also someone who has just appeared in a hit movie, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn.  They felt that they could keep the show going without Villechaize and …. well, it turns out they were totally and completely wrong about that.

I have not seen much of the seventh season, in which Villechaize was replaced by Christopher Hewett.  And, due to the vagaries of my DVR, there’s a lot of season 7 that I won’t be able to review.  What I do know is that the show went from being #39 to bring ranked #47 in the ratings after Villechaize left.  Obviously, being the 39th ranked show was nothing to brag about but it was still a helluva lot better than #47.  Villechaize left and a lot of the audience left with him.

I’ve made a lot of jokes about Roarke and Tattoo’s relationship.  Especially during the early seasons, Roarke and Tattoo sometimes did seem to be friendly rivals.  (That was when Roarke was a far more enigmatic fellow and Tattoo always seemed to be trying to figure out a way to make some extra money on Fantasy Island.)  Remember when Tattoo ran against Mr. Roarke in an Island election?  That said, Roarke and Tattoo’s relationship really was the heart of the series.  The fantasies themselves were often forgettable.  How many times can you get excited about seeing a member of the Brady Bunch as a guest star?  The thing that people really remember about Fantasy Island is the relationship between Roarke and Tattoo.  Regardless of what went on behind the scenes, Montalban and Villechazie had a good on-camera chemistry.  It was fun to watch them interact.  I always enjoyed the episodes that allowed Villechaize to reveal Tattoo’s sensitive side.  (In real life, Villechaize was an advocate for abused children, often taking the time to personally visit with children who had been rescued from abusive households.)

This is all my long-winded way of saying that they should have just agreed to pay Herve Villechaize more money.

At the very least, they should have given him a proper goodbye episode.  The sixth season ends with a rather basic episode, with no mention made of Tattoo leaving or even thinking of leaving.  Instead, we get Maureen McCormick going to a mysterious mansion to rescue her old sister (Britt Ekland) from an abusive man (played by Peter Mark Richman).  And then we get Bob Denver and Paul Kreppel as two wannabe womanizers who end up in prehistoric times, trying to romance a cavewoman while dealing with dinosaurs.  The dinosaur effects were cheap but likable but they were also the only thing that really made either of their fantasies stand-out.

And so, season 6 ends, not with a bang but a whimper.  Tattoo waves goodbye one last time.  I’m going to miss him.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Wally Pfister Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to cinematographer Wally Pfister!  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Wally Pfister Films

Memento (2000, dir by Christopher Nolan, DP: Walyl Pfister)

Insomnia (2002, dir by Christopher Nolan, DP: Wally Pfister)

The Prestige (2006, dir by Christopher Nolan, DP: Wally Pfister)

Inception (2010, dir by Christopher Nolan, DP: Wally Pfister)

Late Night Retro Television Review: ChiPs 4.2 “Sick Leave”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

This week, death comes to California.

Episode 4.2 “Sick Leave”

(Dir by John Florea, originally aired on September 28th, 1980)

Andy (Robert Viharo) is a veteran member of the highway patrol who, when he’s not chasing down bad guys, is a student at the the local college.  He wants to become an archeologist and go to Peru.  Unfortunately, Andy has a brain lesion and may not get the chance.  His behavior is erratic.  His vision is failing.  He refuses to admit that there’s anything wrong.  Can Ponch and Jon get him off the street before he gets someone killed?  Andy says that if he wants to die, he wants to go out saving someone’s life and not sitting behind a desk.  An escalating fraternity prank war makes Andy’s dream come true.  The theft of a fraternity’s prized bird sculpture leads to a high-speed chase and several overturned cars.  Andy manages to save a young woman from a crashed car but, when the car explodes, he ends up with a hunk of shrapnel sticking out of his back.  Ouch!  He dies in Baker’s arms.  If Ponch had been the one holding him, one can only assume that Andy would have been magically healed by the power of Estrada.

This is the rare episode of CHiPs in which someone dies.  In fact, I think this is only the third episode in which a traffic accident has led to a fatality.  It happened once during the pilot.  During the second season, several people were killed in a multi-car pileup.  For the most part, though, CHiPs features people who somehow manage to survive the most horrendous of crashes.  Andy is killed by a sharp hunk of metal but, the show suggests, he would have died anyway from the brain lesions.

Along with a rare death, this episode featured a lot of slo mo of doom.  At the start of the episode, Andy’s reckless driving causes Ponch to crash his motorcycle and we get to watch Erik Estrada’s stunt double fly through the air in slow motion.  Later, when Andy runs away from the exploding car, the entire scene is in slow motion.  It works.  There’s a reason why slow motion is so overused.  It’s incredibly effective.

Overall, this episode had good intentions but a somewhat shaky execution.  Robert Viharo went so overboard with his performance that you couldn’t help but wonder why Ponch and Baker were the only ones who noticed that Andy obviously wasn’t doing well.  Not even Sgt. Getraer seems to notice!  The main problem is that silly scenes of the fraternity prank war (one fraternity even rents a helicopter!) were mixed with scenes of Andy’s mind literally shutting down as we watched.  Tonally, this episode was a mishmash.  CHiPs, with its bass-heavy theme and Erik Estrada’s blinding smile, might not have been the right place to try to pull off a heart-rending drama.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.10 “Love At First Sight”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, as the drug epidemic rages out of control, Sonny searches for a serial killer.

Episode 4.10 “Love At First Sight”

(Dir by Don Johnson, originally aired on January 15th, 1988)

What the Hell, Miami Vice?

Seriously, remember when this show was about Crockett and Tubbs going after drug dealers while Phil Collins played in the background?  Season 4 feels like a completely different show.

This week’s episode finds Sonny going undercover (*massive eye roll as Sonny does his, “My name is Sonny Burnett” routine for the thousandth time*) and joining a video dating service.  The plan is for Sonny to bust prostitutes but instead, he finds himself as the latest client to be targeted by a serial killer.

Sonny goes on dates, never knowing if the woman he’s with is a killer.  One woman approaches him with something behind her back.  Is it a knife?  No, it’s a vibrator!  “I can see the headlines now — Undercover cop slugs woman after assault with a sex toy!” Sonny says while wearing a yellow sweater and having a nice grapefruit breakfast at his mansion.

Meanwhile, cocaine is flooding Miami, the crack epidemic is spiraling out of control, there are communist taking over Central America, Fidel Castro is still alive, there’s a lot of going on out there and apparently it’s being ignored so Sonny can be used as serial killer bait — hey Vice Squad, why don’t you let the homicide detective deal with the murders while you get back to what you’re supposed to be doing?

Caitlin, Sonny’s wife, worries.  Oh, how she worries.  Her best friend tells her that she’s knew what she was getting into when she married a cop.  If Sonny is trying to maintain his undercover identity, should Caitlin be telling people that she married a cop?  Shouldn’t she be like, “I’m married to drug dealer!  His name’s Burnett and he just looks like that guy who used to play college football?”  That Sheena Easton was not a professional actress is pretty obvious in this episode.  When she previously appeared, she was a singer playing a singer and that brought some authenticity to her performance.  Now, she’s having to pretend to be the worried wife of a cop and her acting limitations are much more easier to see.

The killer is eventually revealed to be a woman (played by David Bowie’s future wife, Iman) with multiple personalities.  When she feels threatened, she turns into her brother and uses a knife to castrate the men from the dating service.  Will Sonny survive?  Yes, he does.

Don Johnson directed this episode and usually, when a cast member directs an episode of their show, their character tends to take a background role so they can concentrate on directing.  Not our Don!  This episode is so much about Sonny that the rest of the Vice Squad is barely in it.

This episode really made me miss the subtlety of Brian Dennehy playing a televangelist or James Brown kidnapping people for aliens.  Get it together, Miami!

Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us for Lethal Tender!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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

Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 1996’s Lethal Tender!

It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in.  If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Lethal Tender on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!

Enjoy!

Scene That I Love: Janet Leigh and Pat Hitchcock in Psycho

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday was Janet Leigh’s birthday and today is Pat Hitchcock’s birthday so it seems appropriate that today’s scene that I love should feature both of them.  From 1960’s Psycho, this scene features Leigh and Hitchcock as office co-workers who meet the very wealthy Mr. Lowry (played by Frank Albertson).

“He was flirting with you.  He must have seen my wedding ring,” remains one of the greatest lines ever written.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Robert Eggers Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to director Robert Eggers!  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Robert Eggers Films

The Witch (2015, dir by Robert Eggers, DP: Jarin Blaschke)

The Lighthouse (2019, dir by Robert Eggers, DP: Jarin Blaschke)

The Northman (2022, dir by Robert Eggers, DP: Jarin Blaschke)

Nosferatu (2024, dir by Robert Eggers, DP: Jarin Blaschke)

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi High 2.9 “Extracurricular Activities”

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 Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1989 to 1991!  The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi

This week, everyone’s either self-centered or foolish.

Episode 2.9 “Extracurricular Activities”

(Dir by John Bertram, originally aired on January 14th, 1991)

Caitlin or Lucy, it’s hard to say who is worse in this episode.

Caitlin is excited when her mother invites her to come home for a meeting with her father.  Caitlin, who has been imposing on friends ever since she discovered her father was cheating on her mother, is all excited because she thinks her parents are going to get divorced.  Instead, her parents announce that they’re staying together.  Caitlin gets angry, telling her friend Maya that she’ll just get an apartment and a job and she’ll never see her parents again.  Maya, who is in a wheelchair and actually knows a little more about hardship than Caitlin, reminds Caitlin that “they’re your parents,” which I think is Canadian for, “Good Lord, stop whining!”  Seriously, Maya — who actually has a lot that she could justifiably be upset about — never complains about anything while Caitlin — who is from a middle-class family and has a nice house and somehow only got a slap on the wrist after being arrested for trespassing and vandalizing — never shuts up about her difficult her life is.  We get it, Caitlin.  It sucks that everyone in the world isn’t as perfect and principled as you are.

(Does Caitlin ever ask anyone how they’re doing or does she just enter a room and automatically start talking about her life?  Based on the second season, the latter would appear to be true.)

Meanwhile, Lucy is dating Bronco, the student body president.  When Bronco tells Lucy that everyone’s favorite Degrassi band, the Savages, are going to be shooting a video at Degrassi, he swears Lucy to secrecy.  (Actually, Gourmet Scum was everyone’s favorite band on Degrassi High but I guess the Savages were cool too.)  So, of course, Lucy tells the creepy Farrell twins and then they make plans to break into the school on the weekend to watch the video shoot.  Joey and Snake also decide to break into the school for the video shoot.  Of course, they all get caught by Mr. Raditch and Bronco gets in a ton of trouble because Raditch assumes that Bronco let all of his friends into the school.

“Sorry,” Lucy says.

Gee, Lucy, that’ll really help!

You may have noticed this episode annoyed me.  Some of that is purely personal on my part.  With my mind slipping into summer and holiday mode, I’m missing both my mom and my dad so I wasn’t necessarily sympathetic to Caitlin’s demand that her parents split up or else never speak to her again.  As for Lucy and Bronco, Bronco should have known better than to tell Lucy.  And Lucy sure as Hell should have known better than to tell the Farrell twins.  Everyone was just too dumb this episode.

Next week, though, we have the first part of one of Degrassi High’s best-remembered episodes.  Fear not, we can put this episode behind us.