Category Archives: TV Show

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 9/15/24 — 9/21/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have spent most of this week getting ready for the annual October Horrorthon, which means that I’ve been watching a lot of horror movies and not a lot of television.  As a matter of fact, I haven’t watched one episode of Big Brother this year and I didn’t even realize that Survivor started last week.

(Most years, I blog about Big Brother for another site but, due to my father’s passing, I took a leave of absence of this year.  I may, however, write about Survivor because it’s only a once-a-week show as opposed to a 7-day a week gig.)

Here’s a few thoughts on what I did watch this week:

American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez (FX)

I watched the first two episodes of the latest Ryan Murphy-produced true crime miniseries on Saturday.  This show deals with the life and crimes of Aaron Hernandez, a pro football player who ended up going to prison for murder and who is suspected of carrying out a lot more murders over the course of his short life.  The first two episodes followed Aaron in high school and college, struggling to live up to his father’s ambitions and also with his own sexuality.  The episodes were well-directed but I have to admit that the culture of sports remains extremely odd to me.  So far, the defining image of the series is a bunch of naked football players hugging on each other while loudly talking about how much they hated anything that they considered to be gay.

So far, Josh Andres Rivera is believable as Aaron, even if he doesn’t exactly have the most exciting screen presence.  Then again, Aaron Hernandez appears to have been kind of an idiot so maybe it makes sense that he would be kind of a blah person.  The best performance so far has come from Tony Yazbeck as Aaron’s college coach.

The Emmy Awards (ABC)

Jeff and I watched the ceremony on Sunday but we muted it fairly early on.  From what I saw, it was a pretty boring ceremony, up until Hacks beat The Bear for Best Comedy.  I’m not really a huge fan of Hacks but it’s definitely more of a comedy than The Bear.  That said, and this may be my film snobbery coming through, The Emmys have always felt a bit pointless when compared to the Oscars.  Maybe that’s the Oscars have different nominees every year whereas the Emmys will nominate Only Murders In The Building until it finally ends its run.

Get Judged By Byron Browne (Nosey)

I watched an episode on Friday, in between horror movies.  A guy called in, upset because his father sold his childhood home.  (The guy had been led to believe, by his grandmother, that the house belonged to him.)  Byron basically told the guy that promises from grandma have no legal standing.  Poor guy.  I felt bad for him.  GIVE THE MAN HIS HOUSE!

The Jerry Springer Show (Nosey)

The episode I watched on Monday featured Jerry interviewing the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Hebrew Israelites (which, despite the name, is a Black supremacist group) at the same time.  Needless to say, none of them were happy about being on stage together and the whole thing devolved into a bunch of shouting.  One white woman in the audience shouted that black men received the right to vote before white women.  A black woman then said that the Bible says that women are not supposed to vote because men were created first.  It was a strange episode.

The Love Boat (Paramount Plus)

Read this week’s review here!

Miami Vice (Prime)

Read this week’s review here!

Monsters (YouTube)

I binged and wrote reviews of several episodes of Monsters.  Read this week’s review here!

Night Flight (Night Flight Plus)

This Friday, I watched an old episode of this 90s music show.  It was all about guitar rock and it was pretty cool.  Of course, the whole thing was pretty much just videos of Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Jeff Beck but they all sounded good.  This EDM girl enjoyed listening to them.

One Step Beyond (YouTube)

I watched a few episodes of this paranormal anthology show on Thursday as I prepared for this year’s Horrorthon.

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 3.27 “Class Encounters of the Carvelli Kind”

Posted on 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 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, the third season comes to an end.

Episode 3.27 “Class Encounters of the Carvelli Kind”

(Dir by Robert Hegyes, originally aired on May 18th, 1978)

At the Kotter apartment, Gabe tells Julie a joke about his Uncle Bruce, the dressmaker.  Julie responds by slamming the bedroom door in his face.  Poor Gabe!  Julie, if you hate his jokes that much, just get a divorce!

The next morning, Gabe steps into his classroom and finds Mr. Woodman sitting at the window and watching the rain falling outside.  “Being alive is overrated,” Woodman says.  “Try telling that to a dead person,” Gabe replies.  Woodman reveals that, when he was young, he dreamed of being a podiatrist.  “I love feet but I hate socks …. Sock stood between me and happiness!”

Woodman has every reason to be depressed.  There’s some sort of weird student exchange program going on.  Epstein is spending the week at another high school.  (In real life, Robert Hegyes was not available to play Epstein because he was busy directing this episode.)  Meanwhile, Carvelli (Charles Fleischer) and his buddy Murray (Bob Harcum) are going to Buchanan.

When Carvelli and Murray tell a story about being abducted by aliens and taken to the planet Yorksl, Gabe takes them to the vice principal’s office so Woodman can straighten them out.  To Gabe’s surprise, Woodman not only believe Carvelli’s story but he decides that he wants to go live on another planet.  He gives Carvelli permission to invite the aliens to land in the school’s courtyard.  Gabe is even more shocked with the alien does show up and it turns out to be Julie!  Julie explains that she’s a Yorsklite and then she agrees to Woodman away with her.  “You look like a nice little fella….”

Wow, I guess the show’s over.  I mean, Woodman is gone.  Julie’s an alien.  How do you do another episode about homework after that….

Oh wait, it was all a daydream.

Okay, never mind!

Usually, I hate it when a show does the whole “It was all a dream” thing but I actually enjoyed this episode because it gave John Sylvester White a chance to be totally unhinged as Woodman.  White’s performance as Woodman has been one of the few things to remain consistently strong through the first three seasons of Welcome Back, Kotter.  Watching him lose his mind, piece-by-piece, has truly been entertaining.

The episode and the third season ends with Washington tells Mr. Kott-air a joke about how ugly his aunt is.  Gabe is impressed enough to write the joke down on a notepad.

And that’s it for Season 3!  This was definitely an uneven season, with the humor ultimately getting a bit too broad for its own good.  The Sweathogs themselves are all obviously adults now.  This was something that Gabe Kaplan himself noticed.  He reportedly suggested setting the next season at a community college and having Gabe get a job as a professor.  (His students would, of course, be the graduated Sweathogs.)  ABC disagreed, which resulted in Gabe not appearing in several season 4 episodes.  Meanwhile, John Travolta also only appeared in a handful of episodes as he was now busy being a movie star.

What would all that mean for Season 4?

We’ll start finding out next week!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.10 “Night Hunger”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, we’ve got the saddest episode of Friday the 13th yet!

Episode 2.10 “Night Hunger”

(Dir by Martin Lavut, originally aired on January 9th, 1989)

As a young boy, Michael Firono was constantly told by his father, Dominic (Nick Nichols), that he should always play to win and that, if he lost, it was because he was a wimp.  Needless to say, once Mike became a teenager, he did not have a great relationship with his father.  Seeking an escape from his abusive household, Mike spend all of his time at the local antique store where, on his 16th birthday, the store’s owner, Lewis Vendredi (R.G. Armstrong), gave him a special silver chain.

Mike (played by Richard Panebianco) has grown up to be an angry young man.  He always wears the chain around his neck.  Hanging on the chain is the key to his car.  Mike loves to race his car and, far from being the loser that his father claimed he would grow up to be, Mike cannot be beat.  His car is amazingly fast and Mike is incredibly (one might even say supernaturally) skilled behind the wheel.  His main goal is to defeat his childhood rival, Deacon (Real Andrews), who is now a street racer himself.  Deacon is hesitant to race Mike, precisely because Mike seems to be so driven to win that racing with him can be even more dangerous than usual.  To Deacon, street racing is fun.  For Mike, it’s an obsession.

Of course, Mike has a secret.  As long as he’s wearing the silver chain, he can’t be defeated.  But he has to kill people and dip the key in their blood for the chain to work.  Jack, Micki, and Ryan set out to reclaim the silver chain but an accident results in both the chain and the key being absorbed into Mike’s body.  With the chain and the key now sitting next to Mike’s heart, Mike’s eyes not only glow red but his car seems to have a mind of its own….

This is another one of those episodes of Friday the 13th where the villain is himself a victim.  Even before he met Lewis and received the silver chain, Mike was doomed.  His abusive father left Mike feeling so insecure and so obsessed with winning that there was really no way Mike wasn’t going to end up snapping eventually.  In the present day, Dominic finally understands how much he hurt Mike and he feels guilty about it but it’s too late to undo the damage that’s been done.  Like a pusher befriending people most likely to get addicted to his product, Uncle Lewis saw Mike as someone who would easily succumb to a cursed antique.  Mike becomes addicted to using the key and that leads to him doing a lot of bad things.  But the real curse here is not the silver chain but instead Mike’s abusive childhood.  Mike never had a chance.

This is a genuinely sad and well-acted episode, with Mike’s obsession eventually destroying him.  As happen so often with this show, Ryan and Micki are left with the knowledge that, while they can reclaim the cursed objects, they can never repair the damage that they’ve done.

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.15 “The Butler Duet”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 …. oh my God, it’s a surprisingly good episode of T and T!

Episode 3.15 “The Butler Duet”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on April 14th, 1990)

Sometimes, one screenshot tells you everything that you need to know about an episode.

In this episode, T.S. is indeed hired to bodyguard a parrot.  The parrot, named Higgins, has been named the sole beneficiary of Mrs. Wells’s will.  Mrs. Wells’s children (one of whom is played by comedian Colin Mochrie) want to declare their mother incompetent.  While Terri does her best to defend Mrs. Wells in court, T.S. works with Mrs. Wells’s butler (Ian White) to protect the parrot.

How does T.S. protect the parrot?  By putting on a tuxedo and working as the Butler’s assistant.  “Dinner is served,” T.S. Turner growls at one point.  Of course, to the surprise of no one, it turns out that the Butler is really the one whom is behind the effort to make Mrs. Wells look mentally incompetent.  “It’s always the butler,” Turner growls after grabbing the Butler in the courtroom.  Turner, it should be noted, does a lot of growling in this episode and I was happy about that.  What’s the point of casting Mr. T if he’s not going to growl at anyone?

With the Butler exposed, Mrs. Wells is ruled to be mentally competent and I guess that means that Higgins is going to be one rich bird.  Good for Higgins.  I like parrots.  I could never own one, of course, not with my love cats and my dislike of hearing my own words repeated back at me.  But still, they’re good for television shows and movies.  I think it’s a shame that Higgins didn’t have more of a Canadian accent but whatever.  You can’t have everything, I guess.

(How do parrots learn to talk?  And how difficult would it be for me to teach a parrot to like give an hour long speech or something?  I think next year’s state of the union address should be delivered by a parrot.  I mean, if a parrot were president, there would be no war.  There would be no government and things could go bad really quickly.  It would probably work better as a TV show than a real-life thing.)

This was an incredibly silly episode but it was also oddly likable.  For one thing, the judge in the courtroom was fascinated by the parrot and it was hard not to smile at him trying to get the parrot to talk while the witnesses testified.  As well, the episode was smart enough to realize that there’s no way that Mr. T cannot be amusing while wearing a tuxedo.

By T and T season 3 standards, this was a surprisingly good episode.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.17 “The Last Assignment”

Posted on 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, it’s time for a theological debate!

Episode 2.17 “The Last Assignment”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on February 12th, 1986)

While he and Mark drive through another run-down American city, a radio news report of a man dressed as Santa Claus giving people exactly what they ask for even though it’s not even Christmas leads Jonathan to suspect that Harold might be in the area.  As Jonathan explains to Mark, Harold is an angel who has been on probation for hundreds of years because he can’t obey the rules.  Instead of encouraging people to find it in themselves to do the right thing and to create their own opportunities, Harold just gives people exactly what they want.  If Jonathan is all about teaching people to have faith no matter what, Harold is about creating sudden miracles.

It’s actually an interesting plot, in that it really does capture one of the central debates at the heart of any religion.  Should God just give people what they want or should people’s faith in God give them the strength to understand and pursue what they truly need?  It’s the battle between those who take a vow of poverty and show their devotion through sacrifice and suffering and those who preach the so-called prosperity gospel, insisting that God is some sort of celestial regulatory agency.

(It’s also a reflection of the ongoing debate as to how involved the government should get in other people’s lives.  Jonathan argues for a hands-off approach that respects and promotes the idea of individual freedom.  Harold, for his part, seems to be a big government guy.  Jonathan supports encouraging people to pull themselves up.  Harold supports hand-outs.  Jonathan is a Republican.  Harold probably wants to be Bernie Sanders’s guardian angel.)

Jonathan tracks down Harold (Ed Asner).  Harold has opened a fire hydrant and turned water into wine, making all of the neighborhood alcoholics vey happy.  Harold says that he performed a miracle and gave the people what they wanted.  Jonathan argues that the people needed to learn that they had the power within themselves to find their own happiness.  Taking it upon himself to keep an eye on Harold, Jonathan can only watch as Harold bends the rules to help a woman sell her stamp collection for $500 and also reunites an older woman with her lost dog.  Jonathan says that Harold isn’t teaching anyone anything or helping anyone to discover their inner strength.  Harold argues that he’s helping out the faithful.  But when Jonathan and Harold meet a priest who has lost his faith, both of their approaches are put to the test.

Theological debates aside, it’s obvious that the main point of this episode was to give Ed Asner a showy role.  Asner makes the most of Harold, playing him as someone who may pretend to be a buffoon but who actually truly cares about people and who is truly angered by what he views as being cosmic injustice and holy indifference.  Asner and Landon both give good performances here and, as a result, the rather episodic story is always watchable.  The show may ultimately come down on Jonathan’s side but you’re still happy when it becomes clear that Harold isn’t going to change his ways for a second.

Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.10 “The Costume Party”

Posted on 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Summer forever!  Hey, who wants to go to a costume party on the beach?  Like, seriously, why would you even do that?

Episode 1.10 “The Costume Party”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on December 13th, 1998)

Well, this is sure stupid.

This week, Jason once again proves himself to be the world’s worst boyfriend by getting jealous just because Stads is working with a totally hot lifeguard named Kip (Taso Papadikis).  Jason fears that Stads will dump him for Kip, just because Kip happens to be better-looking and a lot more athletic than Jason.

Scott proves himself to be the world’s worst brother by suggesting that Jason flirt with Tracy in order to make Stads jealous.  Jason does so, not knowing that Stads has absolutely no romantic interest at all in Kip because Kip’s dumb.  Stads, however, doesn’t know that Jason is just flirting with Tracy to make her jealous and she starts to get insecure about their relationship.  Stads, being a doormat, doesn’t realize that a decent boyfriend wouldn’t be flirting with another girl right in front of her in the first place.

Sam proves herself to be the world’s worst friend by suggesting that Stads make Scott jealous by flirting with Kip.  Stads flirts with Kip.  Jason responds by continuing to flirt with Tracy.  Eventually, Scott and Sam realize that they’ve royally screwed things up but it’s too late.  Jason and Stads have already broken up.

Luckily, there’s a costume party on the pier!  Because seriously, who wouldn’t want to go a hot beach in a suffocating costume?  Thinking that Stads is dressed as an astronaut and that Jason is dressed as a gorilla, Scott dressed up like a gorilla and pretends to be Jason.  What he and Sam don’t know is that Stads and Jason switched costumes.  So, when Scott tries to give a romantic note to who he thinks is Stads, he actually gives it to Jason.

As you can probably guess, this leads to Jason and Scott holding each other tight and dancing while the audience whoops it up.  If this sounds familiar, it’s because the exact same joke was used on Saved By The Bell and a host of other Peter Engel-produced sitcoms.  In the Engelverse, there’s apparently nothing funnier than two guys dancing together.

This was a pretty dumb episode but, surprisingly enough, Murray’s antics did make me laugh this week.  Having forgotten the security code to his house, Murray moves in with the Collins family.  First, he’s a slob.  Then, he’s a neat freak.  In the end, he dresses up like the Silver Surfer and runs around the costume party.  It was silly but Brandon Brooks really went all-out in the role and, for once, the character’s weirdness made me smile.

Otherwise, this was all pretty dumb.  Seriouisly, Stads …. you deserve better!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.14 “Bed and Boar”

Posted on 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 Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

Episode 2.14 “Bed and Boar”

(Dir by Sara Driver, originally aired on January 21st, 1990)

Traveling salesman John Dennis (a young Steve Buscemi) just wants to get a good night’s rest in a sleazy motel but, unfortunately, the couple in the room next to his is making a racket.  A woman and a man are fighting and yelling at each other.  “Bitch!  Bitch!” the man seems to be yelling.  Finally, the woman (Jodie Markell) leaves her room, runs through the stormy night, and ends up in John’s room.

John take one look at the woman in her white nightgown (which has gotten soaked in the rain) and decides that he has absolutely no problem with her staying in his room.  He has no problem with her removing her wet nightgown and wrapping herself in the sheets of his bed.  The only problem that John has is with her husband (Charles Kay-Hune), who not only tries to break into the room but also has the head of a boar.

You would think that would be enough to convince John to find another motel but instead, after chasing off the board husband, John spends the night with the woman.  John declares that he’s falling in love with the woman.  When her husband literally tears down a wall to get at them, John fights off and kills the woman’s boar-headed husband.

And it’s only then that it occurs to John that the woman might be a witch (“He wasn’t yelling bitch, he was yelling….”) and that maybe she was the one responsible for turning her husband into a pig.  (Someone has obviously never read The Odyssey.)  Of course, by this point, John is himself starting to turn into a pig.

The good thing about this episode is that it features a young Steve Buscemi, playing one of his trademark quirky characters who never knows when to stop talking.  The bad thing is that the episode doesn’t really give Buscemi much to do, other than be an idiot.  Since it was obvious, to me, that the woman was a witch and that she was the one who turned her husband into a boar, I spent the entire episode waiting for some sort of a surprise twist.  I was waiting for John to reveal that he was a warlock or a werewolf or a vampire or anything other than just a salesman in a motel room.  But that never happened.  As a result, the whole story felt rather pointless.

On the plus side, the husband was frightening.  The show did a good job with the boar makeup because I I did jump a little when that thing came bursting into the room.  This was a case where the monster was better than the story.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.23 “The Duel/Two For Julie/Aunt Hilly”

Posted on 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, Hollywood royalty boards the Love Boat!

Episode 4.23 “The Duel/Two For Julie/Aunt Hilly”

(Dir by Ray Austin, originally aired on March 14th, 1981)

Who is Aunt Hilly?

She’s Olivia de Havilland!

And who is Aunt Hilly’s latest husband, Col. Von Ryker?

He’s Joseph Cotten, making his final screen appearance before retiring from acting!

Even for a show that was known for featuring stars from Hollywood’s Golden Age, de Havilland and Cotten are welcome additions to this episode of The Love Boat.  They bring a lot of class to the ship, both as themselves and as the characters that they’re playing.  It’s not just all of the wonderful Hollywood history that they bring with them.  It’s also that they both give charming performances, showing that they still had the screen presence that made them stars to begin with.

Hilly is Captain Stubing’s aunt, a wealthy woman who has devoted so much of her life to work that she missed out on spending much time with her family.  She wants to make up for the past by arranging for Vicki to attend an exclusive private school in Switzerland.  Captain Stubing is reluctant but ultimately, he agrees that it would be best for Vicki to be able to have friends her own age and to get a formal education as opposed to just receiving lessons from the occasionally mentioned but never-seen tutor who apparently lives on the Love Boat.

However, Col. Van Ryker knows that Vicki would be happier on the boat and that Hilly is just trying to deal with her own guilt over her strained relationship with her son, Conrad.  With the Colonel’s gentle help, Hilly realizes that it would be better for Vicki to stay with Captain Stubing.

Now, to be honest, I do kind of wonder if it’s a good idea for Vicki to live on the boat.  I mean, does she really have any friends outside of the members of the crew, all of whom are much older than her?  Personally, I think going to school is Switzerland and spending her summers on the Love Boat would have been a great idea.  But no matter!  This was a sweet story.  What I really appreciated is that, even though they were on opposite sides, both the Captain and the Aunt had the best of intentions and motivations.  It would have been easy to just portray Hilly as being a snob who thought living on a cruise ship was beneath the dignity of a Stubing.  Instead, she was a genuinely nice woman trying to do what she felt was the right thing.  Gavin MacLeod, Jill Whelan, Olivia de Havilland, and Joseph Cotten all did wonderful work with this story.

The other two stories were overshadowed by Cotten and de Havilland.  In the sillier of the two, Linda Cristal played a woman who tried to make her husband jealous by flirting with Doc Bricker.  Her husband (Alejandro Rey) reacted by challenging Doc to a duel.  Isaac and Gopher tried to convince the husband that Doc was an experienced and deadly duelist.  Again, it was just as silly as it sounds.

Meanwhile, Julie had two men (Ken Kercheval and Dack Rambo) hitting on her.  The two men were also competing to be the new vice president of Don Ameche’s company.  In the end, Julie remained single and good for her.

One silly story.  One boring story.  And one story that was so good that the other two stories didn’t matter.  This was a great cruise.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.10 “Space Spores”

Posted on 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 Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, the threat comes from space!

Episode 2.10 “Space Spores”

(Dir by Richard Freidman, originally aired on January 19th, 1997)

Having completed another intergalactic mission, the Space Shuttle Discovery returns to Earth.  Of course, when I say Earth, what I actually mean is America because we all know which country is the most important around here.

Unfortunately, the Discovery also spreads a bunch of “space dust” over a small farm in California.  It wasn’t intentional on the part of the Space Shuttle crew.  Those people are saints!  Instead, it’s just one of those accidents that happens.  The problem is that space dust is a lot more dangerous than Earth dust.  Earth dust can trigger asthma attacks (believe me, I know), while space dust can cause animals to explode.

At first, the government shows up at the farm, all decked out in their HAZMAT gear.  A few days later, Daimont Teague drags Mitch and Ryan out to the farm so that they can take another look.  Daimont doesn’t bother to give either Mitch or Ryan a HAZMAT suit and he also doesn’t bother to tell them what exactly they’re looking for.  He says he wants them to keep their minds fresh but I think it’s more a case of Teague just being a dick.  I mean, why would you task a lifeguard with investigating space dust?

While Daimont goes off to meet with his connections in the government, Mitch and Ryan investigate the farm.  They discover that the space dust has caused a lot of animals to explode.  They also discover the farmer is dead but his young daughter, Katie (Ashley Buccille), has survived.  Unfortunately, when the family dog explodes, Ryan and Katie end up covered in space dust.  Now, Mitch and Griff (who shows up because he apparently has nothing better to do on a Sunday night) have to get Ryan and Katie to a decompression chamber before the space dust causes them to explode.  Unfortunately, there’s a lot of evil government types who are more worried about the public learning about the space dust than they are about saving the lives of Ryan and Katie.

I was kind of surprised by how much this episode depressed me.  It was entirely due to the exploding animals.  We only actually see a rat and then the dog explode but apparently, a cat explodes off-screen and so do several other animals.  I always get upset when bad things happen to animals on shows like this.  For whatever reason, I don’t really seem to care that much when the same thing happens to a human being.  Some of that’s because I’ve seen all the other human beings on other shows.  I was glad that Angie Harmon didn’t blow up because Angie and I are both Texas girls and we vote the same way.  But even if Mitch hadn’t been able to save Ryan, I know that Angie would have still gone on to appear on Law & Order and Rizzoli & Isles after this show ended.  Whereas with animals, I don’t have that reassurance.

This episode, I didn’t really like.  I appreciated the anti-government theme but all of the exploding animals just weren’t for me.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.9 “Romance Times Three/The Night of the Tormented Soul”

Posted on 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 the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984.  Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites.  Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

Smiles, everyone, smiles!  It’s time to visit the Island.

Episode 5.9 “Romance Times Three/The Night of the Tormented Soul”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on December 5th, 1981)

This week again finds Tattoo working as Roarke’s assistant, which again means that the episode opens with Julie explaining that she won’t be able to help out Roarke and Tattoo with any of the new people coming to the Island.  What makes this week memorable as far as Julie excuses are concerned is that the reason Julie can’t help is because she’s been given a difficult task by Tattoo.  A 300-pound woman has come to the Island with a fantasy of leading the Charge of the Light Brigade and Tattoo has told Julie to find a horse for her.  Tattoo smirks as Julie tells Roarke.  Roarke wishes Julie luck while declining to help her himself.

As for the fantasies, let’s get the boring one out of the way first.  Sally Harris (Georgia Engel) works for a phone answering service.  I had to look this up via Google but apparently a phone answering service was something that people and companies used in the days before texts, voice mail and email.  Someone like Sally would answer the phone for you, collect your messages, and then call you later to give them to you.  I guess it was something that companies did when they were too cheap to hire a receptionist or a personal assistant.  I don’t know, it just seems strange to me.

Sally has fallen in love with three of her clients, though she hasn’t actually met any of them.  Jack (Frank Bonner) is a bon vivant who calls her for love advice.  Tony (Frank Converse) is a businessman who calls her for financial advice.  Ben (David Groh) is a writer who often discusses his writer’s block with Sally.  All three of the men have come to the Island.  Sally fears how the men will react to discovering the real her so Mr. Roarke casts a spell and tells Sally that each men will see her the way that he thinks of her.  Tony sees Sally as a prim and determined businesswoman.  Jack sees her as a dark-haired seductress.  And Ben sees her as a …. well, as a clown.  He has always resented Sally’s advice.  Of course, Ben is the one who ultimately falls in love with the real Sally.

It’s not a bad idea for a fantasy but it doesn’t really work because Georgia Engel isn’t convincing whenever she takes on any of Sally’s different personas.  No matter what costume she’s wearing, she still delivers all of her lines in this high-pitched whisper that sometimes make it difficult to understand what she’s saying.  (She’s not quite as inaudible here as she was in Jennifer Slept Here but still, I did struggle to hear everything she said.)  The men are all thinly written, as well.  I was glad she ended up with the writer but in the end, I really wouldn’t have cared that much if she had ended up with the businessman or the sex addict.

The better fantasy features Stephen Shortridge and Dianne Kay as Jason and Beth Martinique.  When they were children, Beth and Jason survived a shipwreck and washed up on the shore of Fantasy Island.  They were raised by a local millionaire, Richard Martinique (Richard Anderson) and their nanny, Blanche Barrens (Elinor Donahue).  Both Richard and Ms. Barrens died one stormy night.  Richard was shot and Ms. Barrens’s neck was broken in a fall.  Jason and Beth want to go back to their childhood home so they can learn what happened that night.  Fortunately, the ghosts of Richard and Ms. Barrens are still in the mansion, giving Jason and Beth a chance to see the tragic accident that led to the deaths of both Richard and Ms.  Barrens.  Even better, Mr. Roarke and Tattoo show up to inform Jason and Beth that they aren’t really brother-and-sister and therefore, they are free to pursue a romance.  That’s good because, before Roarke showed up, Jason and Beth were gazing at each other like the brother and sister from the old Folger’s commercial.  You know who I’m talking about.

I always enjoy it when Fantasy Island deals with ghosts and haunted mansions and this fantasy was filled with atmosphere and melodrama.  The accident that led to death of Richard and Ms. Barrens was ludicrous and yet somehow poignant at the same time.

So, an overall mixed review on this episode but I think the ghost fantasy makes up for the other fantasy.  Plus, Tattoo gets to show off his karate skills!  Let’s see Julie do that!