Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The entire series can be found on YouTube!

This week, we say goodbye to Friday the 13th.

Episode 3.20 “The Charnel Pit”

(Dir by Armand Mastroianni, originally aired on May 14th, 1990)

All things come to an end and that includes the adventures of Micki, Jack, and Johnny.

Friday the 13th: The Series ends with an episode about a professor (Vlasta Vrana) who owns a two-sided painting that he can use to send people into the past.  He sends female victims back to the time of the Marquis de Sade (Neil Munro) and the Marquis sends the professor his unpublished works.  If you’ve ever seen an episode of this show, you will not be surprised to learn that eventually Micki is sent back to the Marquis and briefly finds herself fascinated by the man for whom sadism is named.  Micki  gets to dress up in a cleavage-baring costume and Neil Munro plays another villain.  All the bad guys end up dead and the painting is tossed in the Curious Goods vault.  It’s Friday the 13th!

It might not seem like much of a finale.  Unfortunately, the cast and crew were not informed that the series wouldn’t be returning for a fourth season until they were almost finished filming this episode.  As a result, Friday the 13th did not get a proper send-off.  The series ended with many of the cursed antiques still out there and Jack, Micki, and Johnny apparently destined to spend the rest of their lives searching for them.

On the one hand, I enjoyed this series and I regret that it didn’t get a proper ending.  Micki, Jack, and even Johnny suffered so much that it seemed like they deserved to end things with some sort of triumph.  At the same time, it does feel appropriate that — after a season that featured some ill-thought experimentation with the show’s format — Friday the 13th went out with a traditional episode.  This show was always at its best when it focused on antiques and creepy villains.  That’s certainly the way that I’ll remember the show.

I enjoyed watching and reviewing Friday the 13th.  Was it uneven?  Sure.  It was a low-budget, syndicated show.  A certain uneveness is a part of the package.  At its best, though, it was a genuinely creepy show that was blessed with some wonderful chemistry between Chris Wiggins, Robey, and John D. LeMay.  (The show never really recovered from LeMay’s exit.)  On the whole, the good definitely outweighed the bad, even during the final season.  And who knows?  Perhaps, if there had been a fourth season, the writers would have finally figured out a way to make Johnny into a compelling character.

I’ll miss reviewing this series.

Next week, something new will premiere in this time slot.  What will it be?  You’ll find out next week!