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 Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!

This week, we finish up Freddy’s Nightmares.

Episode 2.22 “Life Sentence”

(Dir by Anita W. Addison, originally aired on March 11th, 1990)

The final episode of Freddy’s Nightmares is also one of the most boring.

Just as with last week’s snoozefest, this episode takes place at the local prison.  Andy (George De La Pena) is due to be released.  Everyone knows that he killed a guard during an armored truck robbery but Andy blamed his accomplice Bruno (Ron Troncatty) and got away with a plea bargain.  Andy can’t wait to get out of jail.  He brags to the guy in the next cell about how he knows where all the money is hidden.

Uh-oh, it looks like the prison’s psychiatrist, Elaine Alamo (Penny Johnson Jerald), is trying to keep Andy imprisoned.  What does Andy care?  Sure, everyone hates him but Bruno’s in another prison and Andy’s got all that money waiting for him.  However, when Andy finds out that Bruno has escaped, Andy no longer feels safe on the outside.  However, Elaine has changed her mind about keeping Andy in jail because she wants Bruno to kill Andy because the guard the Andy killed was her father.  So, Andy kills Elaine so he can stay in prison.  But then Bruno gets captured and becomes Andy’s new cellmate.  That’s the first story.

The second story features the prison’s warden, Hendler (John Milford), running for sheriff.  He’s behind in the polls so he uses an experimental truth serum on Andy.  Andy hallucinates that the Warden is Bruno and Andy tells him where the money is hidden.  Then Andy dies from a heart attack.  The Warden calls a press conference to announce that he’s found the money but Dr. Redman (Glynn Turman), the inventor of the serum, spikes the Warden’s drink and the Warden confesses to killing Andy.

Freddy doesn’t do anything in either one of these stories, other than appear in three host segments and tell a joke about dropping the soap.

This episode was incredibly dull.  The low-budget was extremely obvious.  (The Warden holds his press conference in the prison, presumably because the show couldn’t afford to dress another set.)  Penny Johnson Jerald does a  good job with her role but otherwise, this was a poorly acted episode that featured dull characters.  Andy was unlikable.  The Warden was unlikable.  This episode was sad note for this show to go out on.

Of course, it’s not a shock that Freddy’s Nightmares ended with a bad episode.  It wasn’t a very good show to begin with,  There were a few above average episodes during the second season and the first season features some memorably grotesque moments but otherwise, Freddy’s Nightmares was too constrained by the standards of television to really live up to the legacy of A Nightmare on Elm Street.  The best episode were the ones the featured Freddy getting involved in the plot but those were few and far between.

Freddy’s Nightmares did not get a grand finale.  Instead, it just got a forgettable final episode.  Unlike the Friday the 13th series, Freddy’s Nightmares never found a consistent tone or a compelling reason for existing.

Oh well.  Next week, we’ll have a new show in this time slot.  See you then!