Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 3.3 “A Loaded Gun”

Posted on February 11, 2026 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 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, OJ Simpson argues with his wife.

Episode 3.3 “A Loaded Gun”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on August 19th, 1987)

With Yinessa continuing to hold out for more money, Teddy thinks that he’s come up with a solution. He tells Yinessa that he will personally take out an insurance policy on him so that Yinessa can work out with the team, despite not having a contract. Yinessa agrees. TD Parker tells all of the defenders not to touch Yinessa because they cannot risk him getting hurt.

“Anyone who touches Yinessa is going to wind up in Buffalo!” Parker tells them.

Unfortunately, John Manzak has been taken too many steroids. As a result, the first thing he does is sack Yinessa. Yinessa is injured. As he’s rushed to the hospital, Diane tells Teddy, “Thank God you got that insurance policy.” Teddy looks worried — uh oh, it looks like someone didn’t get that insurance policy!

At the hospital, a doctor tells Diane that Yinessa has a detached retina and he’ll probably never play football again.

Meanwhile, TD is having trouble in his marriage. He forgets his wife’s birthday but TD’s secretary (Leah Ayres) sends flowers and buys a gift. Unfortunately, TD’s wife sees through the entire ruse. She and TD argue. And because TD Parker is played by OJ Simpson, it’s hard not to worry whenever anyone argues with him.

Hey, that’s a good point, OJ! Let’s move on!

Also, in this episode, Bubba goes to therapy because he hasn’t been able to make love to his wife since she gave birth. Jethro goes with him and pretends to have a shoe fetish. This led to another patient hiding his shoes. 1st and Ten is a comedy that rarely makes me laugh but I have to admit that I did chuckle when Jethro started talking about how much he loved shoes.

Other than the therapy scene, this was a pretty serious episode. Yinessa might never play again. John Manzak is going crazy due to the steroid abuse. (Is he going to be sent to Buffalo? I don’t know how he’s going to handle that!) The kicker is still looking for a wife so he won’t get deported. And Diane has no idea what’s going on with her team.

How will the Bulls ever make it to the championship game!?

I guess I’ll have to keep watching to find out.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 7.7 and 7.8 “When Worlds Collide/The Captain and the Geisha/The Lotter Winners/The Emperor’s Fortune”

Posted on February 11, 2026 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, it’s a very special cruise of The Love Boat!

Episodes 7.7 and 7.8 “When Worlds Collide/The Captain and the Geisha/The Lotter Winners/The Emperor’s Fortune”

(Dir by Jerome Courtland, originally aired on November 5th, 1983)

The Love Boat is sailing to Japan!

Lila (Heather Thomas) is a photographer whose father is in a wheelchair due to the injuries that he received during World War II. She meets and falls for Bud O’Hara (Tony Danza). It seems like love at first sight but how will she react when they arrive in Japan and she discovers that Bud’s father (James Shigeta) is Japanese!? At first, Lila cannot get over her prejudice but then Bud’s father reveals that his own parents were killed at Hiroshima and that he has also struggled with forgiveness. “I am proud to be Japanese,” Tony Danza declares.

Martha Chambers (Mariette Hartley) is a professor in Asian studies who has a crush on the Captain. When she finds out that the Captain is fascinated by the culture of Japan, Martha pretends to be a geisha.

Barney (Ted Knight) and his wife (Rita Moreno) have just won five million dollars in the lottery and they spend almost the entire cruise showing off how much money they have. The crew isn’t comfortable dealing with the nouveau riche. Myself, I’m just happy that this storyline didn’t feature Ted Knight or Rita Moreno pretending to be Japanese.

Celia (Jean Hoffman) and her daughter, Joanie (Nancy Morgan), own one piece of an embroidered silk artwork. Ben Cummins (John Ritter) owns another piece. They’ve all been invited to Japan by a businessman named Yamamoto. Yamamoto claims to have the third piece and says that, when all the pieces are together, they will form a treasure map. Ben falls for Joanie. Celia falls for Harvey (Harvey Korman), a businessman who happens to be on the cruise. When the other two silk pieces are stolen, it doesn’t take long for Ben to figure out that Harvey is the one who took them. Harvey explains that he is Yamamoto and that he’s a career criminal. However, because he’s fallen in love with Celia, he returns all three of the silk pieces to her.

This two-hour episode was a travelogue. The Love Boat did one or two of these type of episodes every season. The show would leave the sound stages of Los Angeles and instead be filmed on an actual boat during an actual cruise. With these two hour episodes, the storylines were usually just an excuse for the Love Boat crew and their guest stars to see the sights. That’s certainly the case here. Captain Stubing gets a full tour of Japan. (Captain Stubing also has a lengthy fantasy sequence where he imagines himself as a shogun. It’s definitely not the show’s finest moment.)

It’s a good thing that the scenery is lovely in this episode because the stories themselves are nothing special and, in some cases, they’re actually difficult to watch. The Love Boat attempted to make a plea for tolerance and forgiveness and that’s definitely a good thing. But then the show cast Tony Danza as a half-Japanese man named Bud O’Hara and that was more than a bit cringey. There’s nothing about Tony Danza that is the least bit Japanese. For that matter, there’s nothing particularly Irish about him either.

This was not the best cruise of the Love Boat.

Scenes That I Love: Burt Reynolds in The Last Movie Star

Posted on February 11, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today would have been the birthday of Burt Reynolds.

Our scene that I love is from 2018’s overlooked The Last Movie Star. In this scene, an elderly Burt Reynolds finds himself transported back to the days of Smokey and the Bandit, where he meets his younger self and takes a ride in a famous black sportscar. It turns out that the two Burts do not agree when it comes to observing the posted speed limit.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Joseph L. Mankiewicz Edition

Posted on February 11, 2026 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, we celebrate the great director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who was born 117 years ago today. It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Joseph L. Mankiewicz Films

All About Eve (1950, dir by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, DP: Milton R. Krassner)

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959, dir by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, DP: Jack Hildyard)

Cleopatra (1963, dir by Joseph L. Mankiewicz , DP: Leon Shamroy)

A Carol For Another Christmas (1964, dir by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, DP: Arthur Ornitz)

Music Video of the Day: Little Of Your Love by Haim (2017, dir by Paul Thomas Anderson)

Posted on February 11, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As we approach Valentine’s Day, this music video from Haim feels appropriate. Back in the day, Paul Thomas Anderson directed video-after-video of the Haim sisters walking around Los Angeles and it was the greatest thing ever.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.14 “Heartbeat”

Posted on February 10, 2026 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 Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network! It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, Palermo dies but it’s not a permanent condition.

Episode 3.14 “Heartbeat”

(Dir by Terence H. Winkless, originally aired on December 28th, 1997)

This week, Pacific Blue decided to stop pretending that it was anything more than a Baywatch ripoff by having Carmen Electra appear as Lani MacKenzie, the lifeguard that she played on Baywatch. She helped the bicycle cops out with a rescue and then the bike cops helped her out when she had to break up a knife fight on the beach.

Lani was also present to discuss a new program in which two EMTs will ride with the cops. They will learn how to get around on a bicycle while teaching the bike cops stuff like CPR. One of the EMTs is Alexa Cholak (Alex Datcher), an ex-girlfriend of Palermo’s. This complicates things when an explosion rips across the beach. Palermo and a random woman are injured. Alexa and all the bike cops work on restarting Palermo’s heart, giving him mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions. Palermo lives. The woman dies. The woman’s boyfriend then sues the bike patrol because he says that they were so concerned about saving Palermo that they essentially just let his girlfriend die. We’re supposed to dislike the boyfriend but he is actually kind of …. sort of …. right? Chris points out that the woman would have died even if the EMTs had tried to save her but they had no way of knowing that at the time. Essentially, they decided to save their friend Palermo while ignoring someone else who was seriously injured.

This really gets to one of the major problems I have with Pacific Blue. The show just assumes that we’re going to be on the side of the bike patrol no matter what, despite the fact that they often come across as being a bunch of jerks. That’s certainly the case here. When Palermo returns to the office, everyone starts applauding and cheering for him, despite the fact that the dead woman’s boyfriend happens to be standing just a few feet away.

This episode features scenes of the members of the bike patrol being interviewed by a therapist after the explosion. Palermo says that, when he was dead, he didn’t see a bright light or feel any sort of inner peace. He didn’t see his loved ones waiting for him. It’s like even the show is admitting that Palermo is going to go to Hell for creating the bike patrol.

As for the rest of the episode, Chris and Victor investigated the claims of an environmentalist whack job (Michael Houston King) who said that a big evil businessman (Larry Wilcox, of CHiPs fame) was polluting the beach. It turned out the environmentalist was telling the truth. Meanwhile, shaken by the death of the woman and the resulting lawsuit, Alexa resigned from the bike patrol. It would have been touching if Alexa had actually been in more than one episode. Still, each member of the bike patrol popped a wheelie in honor of Alexa. It was dumb. Get those bicycles off the beach!

Stupid episode, this week.

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 1.4 “Home Shopping”

Posted on February 10, 2026 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 Saved By The Bell: The New Class, which ran on NBC from 1993 to 2o00. The show is currently on Prime.

This week, an old friend makes an appearance.

Episode 1.4 “Home Shopping”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on October 2nd, 1993)

With the entire school freaking out about midterms and Scott and Lindsay working in the school store (which apparently is just a cardboard sign set up next to a trashcan in the hall), Scott comes up with a brilliant idea. Why not start a home shopping network on Baywatch’s TV station? And why not sell a special memory tonic that is basically just chocolate syrup and fish oil?

Soon, the entire school is drinking Chocolate Memory. Evil old Dr. Hammersmith (David Byrd) announces that he’s going to make his midterm even more difficult as a way to combat the use of Chocolate Memory. Scott recruits James the Actor (Mark Blankfield) to pretend to be a Harvard professor who is willing to offer Dr. Hammersmith a job but only if Dr. Hammersmith gives an easy midterm.

James the Actor, I should mention, appeared in a handful of episodes of the original Saved By The Bell. He was a waiter at the Maxx and an actor who would happily put on a fake beard whenever Zack needed to fool someone. It’s not a surprise that he would come back for Saved By The Bell: The New Class. What is a surprise is that Scott — a transfer student from another school — somehow knows who James is. In fact, how do any of the members of the new cast know James as well as they do? James was Zack’s friend and now, suddenly, he’s Scott’s friend. It seems like James, a grown man approaching 50, just liked hanging out with high school students and helping them with their zany schemes. Red flag! Red flag!

Oh, this episode was dumb. Presumably, everyone flunked their midterms, except for Megan who was so worried about fooling Mr. Hammersmith that she actually studied for them. What’s funny is that the “difficult” questions that Mr. Hammersmith asked weren’t that difficult. I mean, if you can’t remember the year that the Boston Tea Party occurred, maybe you should be held back a grade or two. (1773, by the way.)

One of the more familiar complaints about the first season of Saved By The Bell: The New Class is that it didn’t do much to differentiate itself from the original series. It just brought in a bunch of new people and had them act like Zack, Slater, Kelly, and Weasel. That’s certainly true in this case. As I watched Scott go through the motions with his wacky scheme, I found myself suspecting that the episode’s script probably just had a line marked through “Zack” and “Scott” added in pencil.

At the end of the episode, Megan and Scott share a smile and agree that they make a great team. “Whooooo!” the audience shouts. I guess they make an okay team. I mean, they managed to get everyone in the school to drink a potentially lethal combination of fish oil and chocolate syrup. If Megan wants to become a professional con artist, I guess she’s found her man.

Scenes I Love: Lon Chaney, Jr. Learns The Facts Of Werewolf Life

Posted on February 10, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On this date, 116 years ago, Lon Chaney, Jr. was born in Oklahoma City. At the time, Oklahoma wasn’t even a state. His father was the actor Lon Chaney Sr.

Originally named Creighton Chaney, Lon Jr. followed in his father’s footsteps. Like many sons of famous men, he often struggled to escape his father’s shadow. While he would never be mistaken for a man of a thousand faces, Lon Chaney, Jr. did make a name for himself, first as Lenny in the Oscar-nominated 1939 film version of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and then as Larry Talbot, the unfortunate man who found himself cursed to turn into the Wolf Man whenever the moon was full. Chaney spent the majority of his career appearing in horror films and, later, westerns. Not only did he play The Wolf Man but he was also one of the many actors to take a shot at playing both Frankenstein’s Monster and Dracula. Later, he would appear in a series of low budget horror films that were often a far cry from his best-known films. In his later years, he was a favorite of producer/director Stanley Kramer, who cast him in both High Noon and The Defiant Ones and who once said that Chaney was one of the finest character actors in Hollywood. His deep voice and craggily face made an undeniable impression in those later films. Looking at him, you could see had lived a tough life but he had the heart of a survivor.

In today’s scene that I love, Larry Talbot learns the facts about being a werewolf. From 1941’s The Wolf Man, here is Lon Chaney, Jr in his signature role.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Alexander Payne Edition

Posted on February 10, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to director Alexander Payne! It’s time for….

4 Shots from 4 Alexander Payne Films

Election (1999, dir by Alexander Payne, DP: James Glennon)

Sideways (2004, dir by Alexander Payne, DP: Phedon Papamichael)

The Descendants (2011, dir by Alexander Payne, DP: Phedon Papamichael)

Nebraska (2013, dir by Alexander Payne, DP: Phedon Papamichael)

Music Video of the Day: With You by Jessica Simpson (2003, dir by Elliott Lester)

Posted on February 10, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s music video features Jessica Simpson, back in happier days. This was the last video she made with Nick Lachey. (They would get divorced three years later.) It’s essentially just an advertisement for the reality show that was their life. When Jessica and Nick split up, a generation stopped believing in love. They probably should have stopped believing in reality television instead.

Jessica Simpson and I went to the same high school, though Jessica had dropped out and moved to California long before I started going there. Still, I had some teachers who remembered her as being a nice person.

Enjoy!