Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewingthe Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!
This week, Bingo turns dangerous!
Episode 1.5 “Everyone’s A Winner”
(Dir by Gary Plaxton, originally aired on October 30th, 1985)
Jack Christian, the assistant manager of Cobb’s, has been assigned to oversee the store’s bingo promotion! He has handed out over 3,000 bingo cards to all of Cobb’s customers. Each day, a new number is drawn. The first person to get a bingo will win a free trip to …. GREECE!
Really, Greece? That seems kind of random, especially for a grocery store contest. It seems like it would be easier to just give the winner a discount or even a basket of free groceries. But no, the contest is for a free trip to Greece and everyone in Toronto is excited about it. However, when Murray the Stockboy takes a look at the bingo cards, he notices what everyone else has missed. All of the cards are identical. Apparently, in order to save some money, Christian gave the printing job not to the usual company that Cobb’s uses but instead to his cousin Lenny. And now, once the number 35 is called, 3,000 people will be demanding a free trip to Greece.
Well, that could be a problem.
Another problem is that, when two blind men shop in the store at the same time, the leashes of their service animals get tangled. Security guard Alf untangles the leashes but he gives the wrong dog to each man. The men don’t notice because they’re blind. That said, one of the dogs is considerably larger than the other and that really does seem like something that one should be able to sense, even without eyesight. The dogs lead each man to the wrong home. One man is injured when he falls in a pool. The other man has sex with first man’s wife three times. Now, both men want to sue Cobb’s! Howard’s genius solution is to give both men a shopping cart and telling them to fill it up for free. However, the two men’s dogs end up running through the store, knocking over the bingo machine, and causing the bingo balls to scatter all over the place.
Yay! For some reason, that means the bingo promotion is canceled and everyone totally accepts it because Canadians are nice people. Seriously, if they tried that in the States, the store would have burned to the ground….
Actually, one of the more interesting things about Check It Out! is that the show never specifically says that it’s taking place in Canada, even though it obviously is. Almost every member of the cast has a Canadian accent. All of the measurements make use of the metric system. And yet the show itself will often toss in random references to places and people in the U.S. For instance, Edna has a sister who lives in Florida. In this episode, Howard makes a reference to Ronald Reagan’s economic policies. One gets the feeling that the show’s producers hoped to fool Americans watching in syndication into thinking that this very Canadian show was actually taking place in the U.S. It reminds me a bit of how Italian actors and directors would often be credited with stereotypically “American” name in order to hide the fact that a film was an Italian production.
As for this week’s episode, Jeff Pustil’s portrayal of Christian’s growing desperation was amusing. Most of the episode’s jokes, however, fell flat. I’ve noticed that this show repeatedly uses the same joke structure. Someone will say something outrageous and then Howard will repeat it in a slightly shrill tone. It gets old after the 10tth times it happens. Admittedly, hhere was some potential to the story. (Check out TheOffice’s “Golden Ticket” episode for an example of this type of story done effectively.) But having everything resolved via a random case of Dues Ex Machina just felt like laziness on the part of the writers.
I guess the lesson here is that you’ll have to pay your own way to Greece.
Well, Horrorthon is over and I’m trying to get caught up on all the shows that I have waiting for me on the DVR and on all the streaming services. It’ll probably take a while for me to watch all of it but that’s okay. I always enjoy a good excuse to just sit on the couch for a few hours.
Here’s a few notes on what I watched this week!
The Amazing Race (Wednesday Night, CBS)
I can’t wait to get caught up on the latest season of The Amazing Race! I watched the latest episode on Wednesday and I’m glad that the team that got U-turned still managed to survive and make it to the pit stop in time. I’ve never been a fan of the U-turn and I always lose a little respect for teams that choose to use it. Of course, this season, it appears that the teams have not been given the option of opting out.
I watched the 5th episode of this Canadian sitcom earlier today. Unless I get too tired to write it up, my review should drop in a few more hours.
Dirty Pair Flash (YouTube)
I watched another episode of this anime on Friday night. I couldn’t really follow the plot but everyone had really neat hair and a lot of stuff blew up. It was stylish and fun in its own incoherent way.
Dr. Phil (YouTube)
I used several episodes of Dr. Phil as background noise this week. I quickly got used to the sound of him yelling about being trained in forensics.
Get Gotti is a three-episode crime docudrama about the efforts to put mobster John Gotti in jail. It’s a story that I’ve heard before but John Gotti was an intriguing figure and the docuseries did a good job of contrasting Gotti’s flamboyant charisma with the somewhat more low-key people who spent years trying to put him in prison. New York in the 80s will always be a fascinating topic.
The second season started with Sir Humphrey getting rid of a troublesome cabinet secretary by tricking Jim into thinking the secretary was planning to launch a leadership challenge. What’s funny is that the secretary was viewed as being a threat because of his radical employment policies but, once he had been manipulated it resigning, Jim decided to continue the secretary’s plan and just take credit for it himself. No one won but it was very funny.
You Are So Not Invite To My Bat Mitzvah is a well-acted, well-written, and sweet-natured coming-of-age film, featuring Sunny Sandler as Stacey Friedman, a Hebrew school student who is eagerly looking forward to both her Bat Mitzvah and the party after while also dreading the prospect of that party being ruined by her well-meaning but kind of embarrassing parents (Adam Sandler and Idina Menzel).
Stacey believes that the party, the first major event of her adulthood, will determine the rest of her life and therefore, it’s important that it be a huge party with a wonderful entrance video and at least one celebrity guest. Her older sister (a wonderfully deadpan Sadie Sandler) tells her not to get her hopes up. Her father tells her to stop obsessing on her party and concentrate on what it means to be Jewish. Stacey can only watch in horror as her parents invite their dry cleaner to the ceremony and her mother insists on buying her a dress that Stacy says makes her look like the woman who takes sick kids out of the classroom.
Still, Stacey knows that no matter what happens, she’ll always have her BFF, Lydia Rodriguez Katz (Samantha Lorraine), at her side. Except that, in the weeks leading up to her Bat Mitzvah, Stacey discovers that Lydia is dating Andy Goldfarb (Dylan Hoffman), the inarticulate soccer player that Stacey has had a crush on for years. Of course, as Lydia points out, every girl at the school has had a crush on Andy for years. In a moment of anger, Stacey announces, “You are so not invited to my bat mitzvah!”
As I said, it’s a sweet and very sincere movie, one that celebrates friendship and family. It’s not particularly shocking that Andy turns out to be a middle school jerk but everyone’s had a crush like Andy Goldfarb and, if they’re lucky, everyone had had friends like Stacey and Lydia. In the end, the message here is that friendship is more important than some boy who can barely speak in complete sentences and that being adult means thinking about more than just your own concerns. It’s a good message. This film acknowledges its debt to John Hughes by having Stacey’s father take her to a festival of Hughes’s film and, like the best of those films, You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah is a teen comedy with heart.
Also, like the best of John Hughes’s films, it’s full of memorable characters. It’s tempting to roll your eyes when you see just how many people involved in this film are named Sandler but everyone gives such a good performance that you quickly forget about any charges of nepotism. We all know that Adam Sandler has made a lot of bad films over the years but he seems to finally be at a point in his career where he’s no longer embarrassed by the fact that he can actually be a good actor. Sunny Sandler is likable and relatable as Stacey and easily carries the film’s emotional moments while Sadie Sandler’s deadpan delivery is one of the movie’s highlights. Idina Menzel, who also played Adam Sandler’s wife in the far different Uncut Gems, is perfectly cast as Stacey’s overbearing but loving mother and Sandler’s real-life wife, Jackie Sandler, is well-cast as Lydia’s mother. Samantha Lorraine makes both her friendship with and her anger at Stacey feel real and poignant. Sarah Sherman is great as the quirky but ultimately quite wise rabbi. Even Luis Guzman shows up and is responsible for some of the film’s funniest moments.
If I had seen this film two months ago, I probably would have said that it was a simply a well-made and very likable coming-of-age film. Seeing it today, at a time when Jews are being told not to enter certain neighborhoods and to hide any external signs of their religion and their cultural background, You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah feels very relevant. At a time when anti-Semitism is being mainstreamed and posters of abducted Jewish children are being ripped off walls and people are openly chanting the most vile of words, You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah feels almost defiant. It is a film about people who proudly and unapologetically Jewish and, when Stacey reads from the Torah at her Bat Mitzvah, it’s not just the prelude to a party or a chance for her to realize that her friendships are more important than the Andy Goldfarbs of the world. It’s a religious ceremony, it’s a cultural tradition, and it’s a proud and triumphant declaration of identity, one that defies all of the hateful bigots. In these troubled times, You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah is a film that takes on an entirely new importance.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1979. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!
This week, we have the start of a two-part story!
Episode 2.18 “Whatever Happened to Arnold? Part One”
(Dir by Bob LaHendro, originally aired on February 3rd, 1977)
At the apartment, Gabe tells Julie about his uncle who was a skin diver. His name was Mike Nelson Kotter. One day, Mike was shocked to see a guy go down 40 feet without equipment. When Mike demanded to know what the guy was doing, the guy replied, “You jerk! I’m drowning!”
At school, Epstein amuses the Sweathogs by doing his Mr. Kotter impersonation.
Gabe walks in on Epstein’s routine but he’s not upset because it actually gives him the perfect excuse to tell the Sweathogs about the school drama festival. He needs some volunteers to appear in one scene from a play, which Gabe will direct.
“Acting is stupid,” Barbarino says, “Pretending to be somebody else.”
Horshack disagrees and shows off his acting skills by falling to his knees and declaring his love for Freddie. Freddie proceeds to do his Harry Belafonte impersonation which leads to Barbarino ripping his t-shirt and shouting, “Stella!” before Gabe then does his Vito Corleone impersonation and compliments Barbarino’s Marlon Brando.
“I was doing John Wayne,” Barbarino replies.
Realizing that Horshack actually is serious about wanting to act, Gabe offers to direct Horshack in a scene from Cyrano de Bergerac. Of course, Horshack’s co-star will be Judy Borden (Helaine Lembeck), who goes to Mr. Woodman to complain about having to work with a Sweathog, though she should be used to it by now as she ends up having to work with them every time that she appears on the show. Woodman tells Judy to do what he does and imagine that she’s a missionary and the Sweathogs are a bunch of cannibals preparing to eat her.
“Throw me into the pot! THROW ME INTO THE POT!” Woodman starts yelling.
Later, when Woodman sees Horshack in costume and carrying a sword, Woodman shouts that Kotter is “arming the Sweathogs!” before adding, “Call out the national guard!” Poor old Woodman.
Unfortunately, Gabe’s attempts to hold rehearsal are interrupted by Barbarino, Freddie, and Epstein, who all show up and proceed to heckle Horshack and Judy. First Judy storms off. That’s to be expected because that’s what Judy always does. But then Horshack gets angry, yells that he’s trying to do something good for all the Sweathogs, and storms off the stage.
The next day, there has still been no sign of Horshack. Freddie, Epstein, and Barbarino tell Gabe that they broke into Horshack’s house but didn’t see any sign of him or his family. With Horshack missing, that means someone is going to have to put on the fake noise and play Cyrano in his place.
“Stella!” Barbarino shouts.
Anyway, the day of the drama festival comes and Barbarino …. well, he’s not a very good Cyrano. He forgets his lines. He talks back to the audience. He and Judy argue in the middle of the scene. He dances while delivering the few lines that he does remember. He ends the scene by falling to his knees and screaming, “Stella!” But it doesn’t matter because he’s a young John Travolta and he’s absolutely adorable with his fake nose. The audiences loves him but Barbarino says that the moment feels hollow because this should have been Arnold’s moment.
“Where could he be?” Freddie asks.
“I don’t know,” Gabe says, “but I think the problem is something more serious than this play. But what?”
And, on that rather ominous note, this episode ends. Fear not, we’ll learn what happened to Horshack in the next episode. For now, let’s just remember that John Travolta did a very convincing Brando and a very amusing Cyrano. The entire cast of this show did a good job (and I especially enjoy John Sylvester White’s weekly descent into insanity) but episodes like this remind us of why John Travolta is the one who went on to become the biggest star.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, for #ScarySocial, Deanna Dawn will be hosting 1988’s American Gothic!
If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime. I’ll probably be there and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!
Tonight, we have the first Halloween episode of Friday the 13th: The Series!
Episode 1.5 “Hellowe’en”
(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on October 26th, 1987)
Somehow, it was not until I watched this episode that I noticed that the Friday the 13th antique shop is names Curious Goods. I guess that’s a good name for a cursed antique shop. (It’s probably more inviting than going with something more honest, like Evil Junk.) Certainly, it appears that it was good enough to keep the place open, even though the owners spent most of their time taking back the antiques from the people who bought them.
This episode takes place during a Halloween party. Is it a good idea to throw a Halloween party in a location that is full of cursed items? That’s the exact question that Micki asks Ryan but Ryan thinks that the store needs to do something to let the neighborhood know that it’s not as scary as it looks. Ryan is actually thinking like a businessman, whereas Micki is thinking like someone who just wants to find all of the cursed antiques so she can get back to planning her wedding. Personally, I think Micki has the right idea.
That said, it’s not a bad party. Ryan dresses up like a renaissance prince. Micki wears a black gown that is to die for. (I assume Micki is costumed as the lead singer of an 80s goth band.) Jack, who really should have been the voice of reason when Ryan first suggested the party, dresses up like a wizard. A lot of people from the neighborhood come to the shop and they watch as Jack performs some simple magic tricks. Unfortunately, the party is ruined when two dummies wander down to the basement and accidentally activated a crystal ball. The lights in the store go out. There are scary noises. Everyone abandons the shop, except for Ryan and Micki.
Where is Jack? He’s taking a mysterious little girl trick-or-treating, just to suddenly discover that the girl is actually a Satanic creature who was sent to distract him while the ghost evil uncle Lewis (R.G. Armstrong) confronted Ryan and Micki in the shop. Lewis, who is wandering around because the damned are apparently allowed to do so only on Halloween night, lies and says that he needs the amulet of Zohar so that he can free his wife from a curse but, after Ryan and Micki stupidly bring him the amulet, Lewis announces that the amulet will actually allow him to transfer his spirt into the body of someone who has recently died, as long as that person died from natural causes. Lewis is going to use the amulet to return permanently to the land of the living.
Lewis and the little demon girl head down to the local morgue. Fortunately, Jack has broken free of the trap that the demon put him in and Ryan and Micki have, for once, managed to figure out what’s happening on their own. Between the efforts of Jack, Ryan, and Micki and Lewis’s own pickiness when it comes to picking a body, Lewis’s time runs out and he is dragged back to Hell.
This was a fun episode. Not only did did it feature Ryan and Micki wearing their very 80s Halloween costumes but it also featured an enjoyably over-the-top performance from R.G. Armstrong as evil Uncle Lewis. All Halloween episodes should be as enjoyable as this one.
Now streaming on Netflix, Sly is a documentary about the life and career of Sylvester Stallone.
The documentary opens with Stallone watching as all of his belongings in his Hollywood mansion are packed in boxes so they can be shipped to his new home in New York. As I listened to Stallone talk about how you sometimes have to return to your roots to discover who you truly are, it occurred to me that Stallone is one of those people who is never not playing a role. Even when he’s not Rocky Balboa or John Rambo or any of the other characters that he’s played in the movies (or, less frequently on television), he’s still playing Sylvester Stallone, the bigger-than-life movie star who has been an inescapable part of the American pop cultural landscape for longer than I’ve been alive. Watching Stallone talk about what it’s like to go, overnight, from being an unknown to being a celebrity, I never doubted his sincerity but I was always aware of how carefully chosen his words seemed to be. Sylvester Stallone lets the audience in but he’s still careful about how much he reveals about himself.
The same can be said of the documentary, which largely focuses on Rocky, Rambo, and The Expendables, with a little Lords of Flatbush, F.I.S.T., Paradise Alley, and Cop Land trivia tossed in as well. Stallone admits that he’s not proud of all of the films that he’s made, citing Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! as his biggest regret. (Arnold Schwarzenegger pops up to brag about how he was smart enough to turn down the script when it was originally sent to him.) That said, there’s not much attention given to Stallone’s films with Roger Corman or for the films that he did for Cannon. Sorry, there’s no Over The Top trivia. There are a few clips from Cobra and Rhinestone but not much more. If you’re looking for a documentary about the B-movies of Sylvester Stallone, this is not it. (Interestingly enough, even films like Demolition Man — which was one of Stallone’s better non-Rocky and non-Rambo films — are also glossed over.) Beyond talking his troubled relationship with his father, mentioning his love for daughters, and a moment where he gets noticeably emotional while talking about his late son, there’s not much information here about Stallone’s private life. And again, it’s not that Stallone owes anyone any of that information. At one point, Stallone says that he hasn’t had a moment of privacy since the release of Rocky and he’s probably right. He’s earned the right to keep some things private.
Also interviewed in the documentary are Frank Stallone, Quentin Tarantino, film critic Wesley Morris, director John Herzfeld, and Talia Shire. Frank comes across as a lot more genuine here than he did in his own documentary while Talia does the best job of understanding the appeal of Rocky.
This is a documentary that will probably best be appreciated by people who are already fans of Stallone. Stallone doesn’t attempt to win over his doubters but, having been a star for nearly 50 years, Stallone can definitely argue that his doesn’t owe his doubters any effort. Watching the documentary, it became clear to me that Stallone is one of those pop cultural figures who it is impossible not to love. Everything about him, from the rough Hell’s Kitchen childhood to his decision to write a movie for himself to his decision to move into the director’s chair, is pure Americana. There’s a reason why Rocky Balboa often appears with an American flag.
(That said, I still think that Stallone’s best performance was in First Blood and, in this documentary, Stallone gets genuinely emotional as he discusses when he discusses why he felt it was important for Rambo to survive the end of the film.)
He’s a survivor and he’s confident enough to admit that he got a bit arrogant after the success of Rocky. Stallone still has that confidence that borders on arrogance but he’s aging well and it’s hard not to feel that he’s earned the right to brag on himself. (It helps, of course, that he’s become a better actor as he’s aged.) Stallone may not totally open up but he still has his movie star charisma. When he talks, you listen. When he moves, you watch. We’ll miss him when he’s gone.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!
This week, season one of T and T comes to a close!
Episode 1.23 “Working It Out”
(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on June 23rd, 1988)
“In this episode,” Mr. T tells us, “push turns to shove and shove turns to ugly as a battle of sexes rages at Decker’s gym.”
Of all of the supporting characters who have been featured during the first season of T and T, Decker (played by David Nerman) has been the most prominent. That makes sense when you consider that each first season episode features at least a few minutes of T.S. Turner throwing jabs in a boxing ring or hitting the punching bag in Decker’s Gym. Decker is T.S.’s best friend. He may not be smart but he is loyal.
This episode finds Decker in a bit of quandary because Jessie (Allison Mang) wants to join the gym but, when she brings in the membership fee, Decker is shocked to discover that Jessie can also be a girl’s name! Decker’s gym is full of men who like to walk around in towels and say stuff like, “Where do you think you’re going, little girl?” Decker says the gym is men only.
(Myself, I don’t know why anyone would want to join Decker’s shabby little gym, which looks like it reeks of sweat.)
Amy decides to sue for her right to use the gym and she hires Amy Taler. Amy sends T.S. Turner down to Decker’s gym to talk to him about letting Jessie join. Decker explains he has no problem with Jessie joining but gym bully Madigan (Kevin Lund) doesn’t want to any girls to join. How much of a bully is Madigan? His nickname is Mad Dog and he even accuses T.S. of “getting soft!”
Meanwhile, Amy informs Jessie that the gym is a public business and therefore anyone can join. She also points out that there are other gyms in Canada, some of which are co-ed and women only. Jessie says that Decker’s sweaty, shabby gym — which, I would add, has been the scene of several major crimes since this season began — is the closest to her house. Personally, I would happily add a few minutes to my trip so that I could join a gym that doesn’t look like the set of a bad 70s porno but what do I know?
“She’s effeminate, isn’t she?” Sophie asks Amy about Jessie.
“You mean a feminist?” Amy replies.
“Yeah,” Sophie nods.
Amy rolls her eyes without answering Sophie’s question. Personally, I’m wondering how Sophie went from being a computer expert in one episode to not knowing what a feminist is in this episode.
Back at the gym, Decker tries to talk Madigan into accepting Jessie as a member of the gym. Decker tells Madigan that the men of the gym will just have to stop walking around without any clothes on. “We’re working out and sweating!” Madigan replies, “It makes sense to walk around without any clothes on!” And maybe Madigan would have a point if he was living in ancient Sparta but this is Toronto!
Decker goes to the law office, to talk to Amy. Decker is worried that Madigan will kill Jessie. Amy suggests turning his gym into a private club so that he can bar women from joining and offers to draw up the papers for him. Whose side are you on, Amy!?
The next day, when Jessie shows up at the gym, Madigan and every guy in the gym walks out. Only T.S. Turner stays to support Decker and Jessie. When the guys fail to return the next day, Turner says, “Who cares? I’m here. Jessie’s here. Amy’s here.”
Decker points out that everyone who left is going to want a refund on their membership fees and he’s not going to have the money to keep the gym open. Decker will soon lose his business but at least Jessie didn’t have to spend an extra 5 or 10 minutes driving to a gym that doesn’t have a history of people being murdered in the locker rooms.
Later, when Jessie is out jogging, she’s approached by Madigan who explains that Turner has set up a “fitness test” at the gym to prove that Jessie has what it takes to be a member. Jessie hasn’t heard anything about this and — oh no! Is Madigan trying to trick Jessie into returning to the gym so that he and his evil friends can attack her!? No, actually, it turns out that Turner actually did set up the fitness test but no one bothered to tell Jessie, which would seem to defeat the purpose of the whole thing.
(Amy says that Jessie left the gym before giving Turner a chance to explain his plan to her but why couldn’t he just call her and tell her? I mean, I know this show is set in Canada but surely Jessie has a phone. It’s not like they’re in Manitoba.)
Later, Amy takes Jessie to the gym, where Turner is waiting. “Oh, Amy!” Turner says, “That’s a nice dress you have on. You got plans?”
“Dinner date,” Amy says.
“Don’t stay out too late,” Turner growls.
Anyway, the fitness test ends in a tie, which means that Jessie didn’t beat Madigan. This is a problem because, as Madigan points out, Turner specifically said that Jessie would have to win to join the gym. Jessie admits that “Mad Dog” Madigan is right. Decker suggests letting the membership vote. (Why didn’t you just do that to begin with, Decker!?) Madigan says he wants to fight Turner without gloves.
“Now I see why they call you Mad Dog,” Turner replies before removing his jacket in slow motion and then flattening Madigan with one punch.
So, Jessie gets to join the gym, all because one man knocked out another.
“You know, Jessie,” Amy says, “I think you may have started a revolution.”
Anyway, this was a silly episode. Jessie absolutely should have been allowed to join the gym, if she really wanted to spend her time at that ugly, foul-smelling hub of crime. But the episode’s main message appeared to be that you can accomplish anything as long as Mr. T is around to beat up anyone standing in your way.
Episode 1.24 “Now You See It”
(Dir by Patrick Loubert, originally aired on June 20th, 1988)
Amy — and not T.S. — provides the introduction for the finale episode of season one. “In this episode,” she tells us, “a psychic sees through a violent drug rip-off but no one is willing to listen.”
Despite not doing the intro for this episode, T.S. is still present. At the courthouse, after Amy wins an acquittal for a shoplifter named Billy (Simon Reynolds, the stockboy from one of the other Canadian shows that I’m reviewing for Retro Television Reviews, Check It Out.). T.S. tells Billy, “Look here, little brother, if you want to change your life, meet me at Decker’s Gym.” Is he going to try to set Billy up with Jessie? T.S. leaves to buy the Billy a sandwich, which means that Amy is alone when she meets Emma (Gwynneth Walsh), a psychic who wants to sue the the police for firing her because they didn’t like her vision of what happened when a heroin dealer was murdered in a warehouse.
Amy agrees to sue the police — specifically Detective Thompson (A.C. Peterson) — for being rude to the psychic. As she later tells T.S., it may seem like a small thing but it’s important to her. “Sometimes,” T.S. replies, “it’s the small things that matter.”
Thompson agrees to apologize to Emma. After he does so, Amy snaps, “You can stop playing the nice guy! You’re off the hook!” And, of course, Thompson isn’t a nice guy. He’s the one killing the drug dealers! T.S. figures this out when Billy tells him that he doesn’t want to deal drugs anymore because “the streets are dry” and T.S. has a series of black-and-white flashbacks to Thompson talking about the dead drug dealers.
Anyway, Thompson is captured and season one ends with an episode that attempted to cram 60 minutes worth of plot into just 30 minutes. Overstuffed episodes were a frequent issue when it came to T and T‘s first season.
The first season can best be described as being uneven. The show was at its best when it took advantage of Mr. T’s unique screen presence. Though he definitely didn’t have the greatest range as an actor, Mr. T did show some comedic timing. The show struggled whenever it didn’t focus on T.S. Turner and oddly, that happened in more than a few episodes, as if Mr. T wasn’t the main reason why anyone would be watching this show to begin with. As a character, there was nothing particularly consistent about Amy, who was sometimes brilliant and sometimes woefully naïve. The supporting cast was frequently underused, though Catherine Disher had a few funny moments as Sophie. Seen today, the show is a time capsule of Canada in the late 80s and that is perhaps the main reason to watch it.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, #FridayNightFlix has got 1989’s UHF, starring Weird Al Yankovic!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
UHF is available on Prime and Tubi! See you there!
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!
This week, Jonathan and Mark go country!
Episode 1.5 “Song of the Wild West”
(Dir by Victor French, originally aired on October 17th, 1984)
This week’s episode of Highway to Heaven has a country music theme as Mark’s car ends up breaking down outside of a country-western bar.
I have to admit that I had mixed feelings about this theme. Quite frankly, country music is not my type of music. As I’ve explained in the past, my musical tastes run the gamut from EDM to more EDM. Country music has just never really done much for me, though I’ve done a line dance or two.
That said, I grew up all over the Southwest. I live in Texas. I’m a city girl but I knw what it’s like to walk through the high grass on a humid day. I know what it’s like to be woken up at sunrise by the sound of a rooster. I’ve ridden horses. I once milked a cow but I really didn’t enjoy it at all. I know the country and I like the people who live out in the country and, though I’m meant to live in a city, I still feel a bit of nostalgia whenever I see a farmhouse or a muddy pickup truck. This episode did have a legitimate country feel, which I appreciated.
Jonathan actually had a handful of missions in this episode. First off, he had to help Trudy Swenson (Joan Kjar) win the bar back from Nick Claybourne (Clifton James), the blowhard who won the bar in a rigged poker game from Trudy’s husband. Secondly, he had to help gas station owner Tim Higgins (Jerry Hardin) come to terms with the musical ambitions of his teenage daughter, Sara (Michele Greene). And finally, he had to help Sara reunite with her mother, an alcoholic country music star named Pasty Maynard (Ronee Blakely). And he had to do all this while also working as a bartender at the bar. Not only did Jonathan have to solve everyone’s emotional problems but he had to convince the local drunk to drink a cup of coffee as opposed to ordering another shot.
Mark doesn’t do much this week and I assume that’s because Victor French also directed the episode. As a result, everything pretty much falls on Jonathan and it almost feels as if he’s been given too much to do. Throughout the episode, he’s rushing back and forth between Tim, Trudy, and Patsy. Add to that the fact that the action stops for a minutes at a time so that Patsy and Sara can perform and you end up with an episode that feels a bit overstuffed.
This episode didn’t really work for me. I could appreciate the fact that the episode did a good job capturing the country milieu but country music just doesn’t do much for me. And this episode had a lot of country music.
Through the Shattered Lens