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, the Bulls sign a new player!
Episode 5.4 “Mind Games”
(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on November 1st, 1989)
The Bulls have signed college phenom Achilles Byron (Ronald William Lawrence) to the roster. However, in order to his name on the dotted line, they also have to sign his loud-mouthed, wheelchair-bound father (Ron O’Neal). Mr. Byron is tough taskmaster who constantly yells at Achilles and forces him to do extra drills. Denardo isn’t happy about Mr. Byron’s presence on the sidelines. Quite rightly, he explains to TD Parker and Kristy that there can only be one coach on the field.
Fortunately, Achilles scores the game-winning touchdown in his first game and Mr. Byron announces that Achilles no longer needs him. Mr. Byron also reveals that he was driving drunk on the night that he crashed his car, injured his spine, and killed Achilles’s mother. Wow, that’s a lot to dump on a kid who just won a football game. Luckily, Achilles had already figured out all of that on his own. Achilles is like No hard feelings and I’m going to say, “Ouch,” on the behalf of the deceased Mrs. Bryon.
Denardo, as a sign of respect, rolls Mr. Byron out of the locker room. Denardo also threatens to roll Mr. Byron down a flight of stairs. Mr. Byron suddenly starts laughing.
1st & Ten has this weird habit of tossing new characters into the mix and expecting us to get emotionally invested in them despite the fact that we’ve never seen them before and we’ll never seem them again. I’ve already checked with the IMDb. This is the only appearance of the character of Achilles Byron on the show. The Bulls agreeing to let Mr. Byron sit on the sidelines never made any sense and the final revelation about the night he was driving drunk came out of nowhere. It almost felt like a parody of badly-done melodrama.
While all of that was going on, Dr. Death was briefly brainwashed by a cult. It doesn’t look like he’ll ever get his killer instinct back! But then an opposing player calls Dr. Death a “pinhead” and he snaps out of it. He scores a viscous tackle that leaves the other player so dazed that that he wanders over to the wrong sideline. Obviously, he has a concussion but the laugh track tells us not to worry about it.
Dr. Death getting brainwashed actually was kind of funny. Ron O’Neal, best known for starring in Superfly, does a lot of yelling as Mr. Byron. It’s not exactly a good performance but one gets the feeling that was more the fault of the script than O’Neal. This was another curiously insubstantial episode of 1st & Ten.
