Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.5 “Death Watch”

Posted on January 20, 2025 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

This week, someone dies! OH MY GOD!

Episode 3.5 “Death Watch”

(Dir by Barry Crane, originally aired on October 13th, 1979)

Dennis (Christopher Stone) is a veteran movie stunt driver who has never gotten over the tragic death of his child and the way he was treated by a heartless insurance company. He now drives up and down the freeway, looking for drivers who look like they have good insurance. Using his stunt skills, he causes accidents and then, under one of many assumed names, he files an insurance claim. Dennis’s wife (played by Dee Wallace, who was married to Stone at the time) thinks that Dennis is taking things too far but Dennis is convinced that he’s earned the right to commit insurance fraud. As he puts it, the companies have enough money that it’s not going to hurt them if he steals some of it.

Unfortunately, his latest attempt to cause an accident results in a delivery van swerving to the side of the road and striking two policemen who have pulled over a drunk driver. One of the policeman is series regular Bear (played by Brodie Greer). The other is a guy named Steve (Stephen Parr) who we’ve never seen before but who is quickly established as being everyone’s best friend. Or, I guess, he was everyone’s best friend as he dies shortly after being taken to the hospital. I have to admit that Steve dying was a bit jarring. It’s rare that anyone on CHiPs is seriously injured, much less killed.

The highway patrol officers are shaken by Steve’s death. Ponch and Baker go to the station’s gym and work off their frustration. Jon lifts weights. Ponch takes off his shirt and starts hitting a punching bag and, despite the tragedy of the situation, it was hard not to laugh at the show using it as an excuse for Erik Estrada to once again take off his shirt.

The members of the highway patrol attend Steve’s funeral. It’s pretty somber until Bear rolls into the church in his wheelchair and everyone breaks out into a huge smile. They’re happy that Bear survived but I do have to wonder how Steve’s family felt when they saw all those smiles and heard the officers joking amongst themselves. I guess they should have been happy that Ponch actually wore pants and a shirt to the funeral as opposed to showing up in a speedo. Seriously, if anyone would do that, it would be Ponch.

All of the bad drivers are brought to justice. The driver of the delivery van loses his job. Dennis goes to prison. By the end of the episode, everyone’s in a good mood again. Rest in peace, Steve!

This episode deserves some credit for trying to deal with a serious issue. Death is a big deal. Unfortunately, CHiPs really isn’t the best format for heart-rendering drama. Even after Steve was killed, the show still teased the audience with the promise of another crash. In the end, the main message seemed to be that it was better to lose Steve than Bear …. or, God forbid, Ponch!

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 3.14 “Cuba Libre”

Posted on January 20, 2025 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, everyone’s moved on from Zito’s death.

Episode 3.14 “Cuba Libre”

(Dir by Virgil W. Vogel, originally aired on January 23rd, 1987)

A routine drug bust at the mansion of Armando Rojas (Willie Colon) goes wrong when a group of masked gunmen show up and demand that Rojas give him all their money. The gunmen kill a young vice cop and get into a gunfight with Crockett and Tubbs (who are, as usual, pretending to be Burnett and Cooper). The gunmen make their escape but Crockett suspects that this was more than just a fight amongst drug dealers. As he tells Castillo, the gunmen acted more like “Quantico than Colombia.” Since the dead vice cop was a protegee of Crockett’s, Crockett is taking this one personally!

Unfortunately, for Crockett, the FBI doesn’t want him to take this one personally. The gunmen work for Paco Zamora (Joe Urla), a Cuban refugee who has been working for the government ever since the Bay of Pigs. Zamora is looking to raise money so that he can overthrow Fidel Castro. (Boo! Castro! Boo!) Crockett and Tubbs go — *sigh* — undercover as Burnett and Cooper to discover Zamora’s plans. “Burnett” says that he wants to rip off “Cooper.” I know I kind of harp on this but I always have to roll my eyes whenever Crockett and Tubbs do the whole Burnett and Cooper thing. After three seasons of them arresting and killing everyone who falls for the Burnett/Cooper con, you would think the Miami underworld would have caught on by now! I mean, wasn’t Frank Zappa going to tell everyone in Miami not to trust Sonny Burnett? Do people in Miami just not share information with each other? Are they just that easily fooled? No wonder Fidel Castro hung onto power for all those years. (Boo! Castro! Boo!)

Anyway, it turns out that there is a member of Castro’s (boo!) government visiting Miami and Zamora and his army are planning on assassinating him. Crockett and Tubbs and the Vice Squad have to stop an international incident from happening in Florida. Or — considering all of the people that Castro had assassinated over the years (Boo!) — maybe they could have just stayed out of it and let Zamora do his thing. Seriously, in what world is a Southern good old boy and former CIA-connected football player like Sonny Crockett going to be so concerned with protecting the lives of communist diplomats? Is that was Larry Zito died for!? Regardless and as usuasl, everything ends with a shoot-out in which Sonny makes his final argument with a bullet. Pauline Kael once wrote that Oliver Stone had left-wing politics but a right-wing sensibility and that’s certainly true of Miami Vice as well.

This episode felt pretty routine. Especially after all the emotional drama of the previous two episodes, Cuba Libre felt like an example of the show on autopilot.

Scenes I Love: The Final Scene of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return

Posted on January 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“What year is this?”

The final scene of Twin Peaks: The Return has haunted me ever since I first watched it 2017. I’m still not sure what the ending meant or where Cooper and Laura were but somehow, as enigmatic as it all was, it felt like the only proper way to end the saga of Twin Peaks.

And really, this is a scene that only Lynch could have made work. Another director would have tried too hard to tell the audience what to think or how to react. Of course, many directors probably wouldn’t have had the guts to end things on such on open-ended note. But Lynch not only had the courage to stick to his vision but he also had the faith to trust his audience to figure it out for themselves. Courage and faith are two of the main reasons why David Lynch was one of the greatest directors of his time.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi High 1.8 “Little White Lies”

Posted on January 19, 2025 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 Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1989 to 1991! The series can be streamed on YouTube!

This week, it’s time for another party!

Episode 1.8 “Little White Lies”

(Dir by John Bertram, originally aired on December 19th, 1989)

There’s yet another party being held and Diana (Chrisa Erodotu) desperately wants to attend!

Who?

Diana has been on the show for a while but this is the first episode to feature her at the center of a story. She’s a friend of Kathleen’s and she wears glasses and …. well, that’s pretty much all we’ve learned about her in the past. In this episode, it’s revealed that she’s Greek, her parents are dead, and she lives with her overprotective brother (Nick Stamiris). Her brother doesn’t want Diana to go to a party. In fact, when he catches her smoking, he throws a fit and he ground her. He may seem a bit harsh but I had some sympathy for the character. He’s barely an adult himself but he has to keep an eye on and take care of Diana. I think he’s being too overprotective but I get where his mind is at.

Diana, however, decides to sneak out of the house and go the party on her own. She has a crush on Yick and he might be there! When she arrives, she has a drink and sits on the couch while holding a bottle of alcohol. How could this go wrong …. oh wait, who just walked into the party and spotted Diana sitting there with the alcohol? It’s her brother! Diana gets dragged home and has a big fight with her brother.

Poor Diana! That said, this is something that happened to a lot of Degrassi students over the course of the series, most of whom I felt I knew a lot better than Diana. Diana’s just kind of been a nonentity up until this episode so it’s hard for me to get worked up, one way or another, over her situation. It doesn’t help that Diana continually compares herself and her friends to The Outsiders and yes, I do mean the book about the juvenile delinquents in Oklahoma. Degrassi High deserves some credit for giving the less-cool students just as much attention as Joey, Caitlin, and the main stars but the whole Outsiders is just a bridge too far for me.

Speaking of Joey, he, Snake, and Wheels decide to go a strip club! It doesn’t work out, even with the use of fake IDs. First off, when they arrive at the club, they discover that two of the fake IDs have Joey’s name on them. Joey is sure the bouncer won’t notice. Then, they discover that they’ll only have enough money to pay the cover charge if they pool all their money together. Unfortunately, since they’ll also have to order drinks inside the club, they still only have enough money for two of them to go in. Snake and Wheels head in to the club, deserting their friend Joey. A prostitute approaches Joey and asks if he would like to have a good time but the clueless Joey says that he has to get home. Meanwhile, Snake and Wheels pay $8 for two Cokes and are then kicked out when they say they can’t afford anything else. Who would have guessed life in Canada could be so difficult!

This episode felt a bit too familiar for its own good. Diana’s story is one that we’ve seen dozens of times on Degrassi. And Snake, Joey, and Wheels are always doing something stupid and getting kicked out of places. This episode wasn’t bad but it wasn’t particularly memorable either.

Great Moments In Television History #37: Eisenhower Hosts The First Televised Press Conference

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

“Well, I see we’re trying a new experiment this morning. I hope that doesn’t prove to be a disturbing influence.”

With those words, President Dwight D. Eisenhower opened the first ever televised (though pre-taped) presidential news conference. For the first time, viewers at home could watch as the President took questions from the members of the press and answered them in his own words. Today, we take it for granted and we even get bored with televised news conferences and speeches. But seventy years ago today, on January 19th, 1955, what Eisenhower did was considered to be revolutionary and a little dangerous. How would the public react to actually seeing the man who led the country answering questions in person.

Eisenhower was asked about the dangers of Communist China, the new budget bill, and his own opinion about how his first term had gone and whether had any plans for a potential second term. Eisenhower laughed at the last query, saying, “It looks like a loaded question.”

Obviously, the new experiment worked. The pubic continued to like Ike and, when he did run for a second term, he was elected just as easily as the first time. The Democrats didn’t even bother to put a new candidate and instead just brought back Adlai Stevenson. Eisenhower would be succeeded by John F. Kennedy, who went on to perfect Eisenhower’s “new experiment.”

Previous Moments In Television History:

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 2.4 “A Many Splendored Thing”

Posted on January 19, 2025 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 Sundays, I will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC! It can be viewed on Peacock.

This week, season 2 of Homicide comes to a close with an episode directed by John McNaughton, of Henry: Portrait of A Serial Killer fame.

Episode 2.4 “A Many Splendored Thing”

(Dir by John McNaughton, originally aired on January 27th, 1994)

The second season finale of Homicide opens with Bolander in a good mood and Munch feeling that life is pretty much pointless. It’s a reversal from what we’ve seen over the last few episodes of Homicide and, as annoyed as I got with all the storylines about Bolander’s private life, I was still happy to see Bolander happy in this episode. As an actor, Ned Beatty’s performance is a lot interesting when Bolander is looking forward to the future. By that same token, Richard Belzer always seemed to be trying to hard whenever it came to playing Munch’s happiness. Belzer was born to play a cynic and, in this episode, he delivers his lines with a bitterness that is both funny and authentic.

Bolander is dating Linda and I have to admit that, despite my initial weariness, I really like Ned Beatty and Julianna Margulies as a couple. Bolander and Linda go on a double date with Kay and Danvers. Awwww, two couples in love and having dinner together! How sweet! Uh-oh, here comes Munch….

While Munch is ruining Bolander’s date, Bayliss is getting in touch with his own dark side. An investigation into the S&M-related death of a young woman leads to Bayliss and Pembleton arresting a man who killed her during rough (but consensual) sex. Bayliss and Pembleton spend their investigation in Baltimore’s red light district. Bayliss claims to be disgusted by the whole scene, leading to Pembleton calling him out for being judgmental. Pembleton tells Bayliss that he can’t be a good detective unless he’s really in touch with every aspect of his existence. After the murder is solved, the woman’s co-worker, Tanya, gives Bayliss the gift of a leather jacket. Tanya is played, in a very good performance, by the actress Adrienne Shelley. Tragically, Shelley herself would, 12 years later, be murdered in her New York apartment. And while it’s tempting to write about the irony of Shelley appearing on a show like Homicide, I’d rather recommend that everyone see Waitress instead. It was the second feature film that Shelley directed and it is very good.

Finally, Lewis investigates a man who committed murder because he felt someone had taken his favorite pen. Lewis searches for a deeper motive but in the end, it really was all about a pen. Lewis, I’ve noticed, always seems to get the cases that show just how random life and death can truly be.

The second season of Homicide ends with Lewis giving Felton a pen, Bayliss putting on his new leather jacket and walking the streets of Baltimore, and Munch, Bolander, and Linda watching fireworks explode over the harbor. It’s a good way to end a season. As dark as the show was (and as dark as this particular episode was), the season ends on a note of hope. There is happiness out there for those willing to look for it.

Scenes That I Love: Vincent Price Performs The Raven

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As today is the anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, today’s scene that I love features Poe’s most famous interpreter, Vincent Price, reciting and performing The Raven. This scene comes from a 1985 television special that was called The Teller and the Tale.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.4 “I’m Okay, You’re A Spy”

Posted on January 18, 2025 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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Howard’s paranoid and with good reason! They are all out to get him….

Episode 3.4 “I’m Okay, You’re A Spy”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 17th, 1987)

After the new stockboy, 12 year-old Brad (played by T and T‘s Sean Roberge), shows Howard a newspaper article about how the company that purchased Cobb’s has been sending corporate spies into its stores to evaluate management, Howard gets extremely paranoid. He becomes convinced that there must be a spy in the store. He gathers Brad, Leslie, Christian, Viker, and Marlene into the stockroom and asks them if they’ve noticed anyone strange in the store. He also suggests that any one of them could possibly be the spy.

Or maybe — just maybe — the spy is the new butcher who keeps asking Howard all sorts of questions about the other employees. He would seem to be the most likely suspect and we know it’s him because the episode opens with him getting his assignment and talking about how he can’t wait to get Howard Bannister fired. Howard, of course, is so paranoid about the possibility of there being a spy in the store that he expresses all of his fears and frustrations to the spy. In other words, this is yet another episode episode where Howard is a complete moron. The previous season was split evenly between episodes where Howard was competent and episodes where Howard was an idiot. The episodes featuring stupid Howard were always funnier than the episodes featuring smart Howard so I think the showrunners made the right decision to focus o Howard’s stupidity in the third season. No one wants to watch a show about a good boss. What fun is that?

(It’s kind of like how we loved The Office when it was all about Michael screwing up but, when it became about new boss Andy proving himself, we all tuned out.)

It turns out that not everyone at the new corporation is supportive of the whole spy thing. T.C. Collingwood comes to the store and informs Howard that his butcher is the spy. Howard replies by giving the spy a lot of work to do. I guess that’s one way to handle it but it doesn’t change the fact that Howard told the spy that everyone at the store was incompetent and should be fired. This episode makes less and less sense the more that I think about it. Can’t corporate just look at whether or not the store had made any money and use that to determine whether or not Howard’s doing a good enough job? This episode didn’t make much sense.

Incidentally, Edna was on vacation during this episode. How many vacation does Edna get in the year? It seems like she’s never at the store. I have a feeling that Howard is going to run off with T.C. Collingwood at some point in the new future. Maybe that’s for the best. At least then Edna wouln’t have to flee to Florida every month.

Next week …. Howard wants to be a TV star! We’ll see what happens.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 1/12/25 — 1/18/25

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Brandon, you are not ready to be my head chef.”

Oh my God, did Chef Ramsay really just say that!? I’ve watched a lot of episodes of Hell’s Kitchen but I don’t think any elimination has taken me as much by surprise as the elimination of Brandon this week. Brandon is who I expected to win this season and I know that I’m not alone in that. That said, Brandon did struggle at service. Of all the chefs to receive black jackets, Brandon struggled the most and, even more importantly, Brandon was really the only one to struggle. Ramsay didn’t have much of a choice but I have a feeling Brandon will return in a future season.

Speaking of Chef Ramsay, I also caught the second part of the Kitchen Nightmares premiere. I’m glad that Ramsay apparently thinks that he’s fixed that restaurant but I can promise that there is no way I would ever voluntarily eat at any establishment featured on this show. I don’t care if it’s clean now. Once a rat trap, always a rat trap.

This week’s episode of Abbott Elementary surfaced in comparison to last week’s but that’s to be expected considering the brilliance of last week’s show. I still laughed at Ava trying to figure out what it’s like to “date the poors.”

On Peacock, I watched the three episode documentary Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story and yes, that was certainly disgusting and disturbing, It was even worse than Hulu’s Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action, which I also watched. I guess I felt like catching up on some sordid history this week!

Speaking of sordid, Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire is on YouTube. I watched it and I have to admit that I laughed when the “millionaire” came lurching out and started speaking in a voice that sounded exactly like Bill Hader’s. Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire was a one-time, two-hour special that aired in 2000. The man behind this fiasco (the marriage was annulled, the millionaire was not a millionaire but just a guy who was the subject of multiple restraining orders) went on to create The Bachelor.

Also on YouTube, I found all six episodes of The Starlet, a reality competition show where aspiring actresses competed for a walk-on role on One Tree Hill. Stop laughing, it was a real show. I vaguely remember watching it when it first aired. I watched it a second time on Monday because I was bored. One of the judges was Faye Dunaway. Faye was surprisingly nice. The mean judge was Vivica A. Fox.

Case and I are continuing to watch Dark, on Netflix. What a fascinating and macabre show! I recommend it to anyone reading.

I watched the latest episodes of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test but I don’t remember a damn thing about them, other than it amused me how everyone pretended to be taking everything so seriously.

And, as always, I watched the shows that I review on a weekly basis. I’m not going to sit here and list them all because I’m tired. But you can find all my reviews on this site. Yay!

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 4.14 “Bride and Gloom”

Posted on January 18, 2025 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 can be purchased on Prime.

This week, it’s Welcome Back Barbarino!

Episode 4.14 “Bride and Gloom”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on January 13th, 1979)

Epstein needs a favor from Barbarino. Remember the time I saved your life? Epstein asks. No, Barbarino replies. Well, no matter! Epstein is still intent on getting to Barbarino to pay him back marrying Epstein’s Guatemalan cousin, Angelina (Rachel Levario). Angelina needs her citizenship so Vinnie just needs to stay married to her from three days and then they’ll get a divorce and Vinnie can continue to date Nurse Sally (Linda McCullough). (“What you’re doing is so noble!” Sally tells Barbarino. I am not sure I would have the same reaction to my boyfriend announcing he was marrying someone else.)

Julie and Woodman tell Barbarino that he’s too young to get married and it’s somewhat jarring to remember that Barbarino and the rest of the Sweathogs are still just supposed to be high school kids. (John Travolta was the youngest member of the cast but, by the time the fourth season rolled around, even he looked too old to be hanging out at Buchanan High.) Gabe is not around to provide any advice and I don’t think this episode even bothered to come up with an excuse to explain his absence.

Angelina does not speak a word of English so Epstein serves as the translator while she and Barbarino fight about the wedding. Angelina wants a nice wedding. Barbarino just wants to get it over with. They compromise by holding the ceremony in Barbarino’s ugly apartment. (If the show couldn’t even spend the money to convince Gabe Kaplan to appear in the show that he was starring on, there was no way they were going to splurge for an extra set.) The guests are the Sweathogs and Julie and, for some reason, Mr. Woodman. Babarino and Epstein both have huge families but none of them show up for the wedding. I guess hiring extras would have cost money. The show did hire an actor to play the priest so that was good of them.

Does Vinnie Barbarino get married? No. Angelina changes her mind and marries a musician instead. Barbarino can go back to dating Sally and I guess Gabe will just hear about it later at dinner.

“I’m so confused!” Barbarino says at one point and the audience goes wild. Even though Travolta spent this episode looking like he was pretty much over the whole thing, the studio audience was happy to see him. The show’s greatest strength, at this point, was Travolta but this episode also shows the limits of the show’s format. Barbarino had to be both a high school student and a green card groom. It felt odd and kind of unpleasant.

Finally, why is Barbarino’s apartment is always so filthy? I get that he’s supposed to be poor and living in New York but seriously, couldn’t they have swept the set occasionally? The sight of that apartment always depresses me.

This episode features the cast going through the motions and, as was often the case with season 4, it’s obvious that no one really wants to be there. I certainly didn’t want to be there! Next week features Barbarino’s final appearance on the show. Soon, Vinnie will be free.