Category Archives: Lisa’s Week In Television

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 10/12/25 — 10/18/25

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Abbott Elementary (Wednesday Night, ABC)

The Abbott teachers go to a baseball game!  As our readers may have noticed, my sister loves baseball so I made sure to have her watch this episode with me.  She enjoyed it, which made me happy.  Myself, I found myself wondering why so many shows — like Abbott with Philadelphia or Dick Wolf’s Chicago shows — take place in cities that most American hate.  Like, if I was ever told that I had to pick between Philadelphia or prison, I’d probably pick prison because at least there wouldn’t be as many people yelling.  Yet, Abbott is often a rather charming show and I usually love It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.  It’s just weird how these things work.

Hell’s Kitchen (Thursday Night, Fox)

Ugh, this episode made me physically ill.  I don’t think I could ever be a professional chef, not if it means having to clean every inch of a fishing boat.  (I cleaned my kitchen before watching this episode and my back was killing me by the time I was finished.)  As for this episode and this season, it doesn’t seem like a single chef should be trusted to cook food for anyone.  Chef Ramsay is doing a lot of yelling and I agree with him.

Law and Order (Thursday Night, NBC)

This week, yet another millionaire was murdered in New York City and there was yet another crazy defense that, for whatever reason, Maroun seemed to have sympathy for.  As much as I usually like the “Law” half of these shows, the “Order” part often verges on self-parody.  Between Nolan Price’s wimpy summations and Maroun’s eagerness to protect the criminals, I’m surprised they ever get a conviction.

Night Flight (NightFlight Plus)

On Saturday morning, I watched a video profile of KISS, a band that I really didn’t know much about.  I enjoyed the juxtaposition between the fearsome makeup and their not-at-all fearsome music.

Snub TV (NightFlight Plus)

On Friday night. Jeff and I watched an episode of this 80s music show with our friends, Patrick and Dani.  It was good music.  You could dance to it.

Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test (Thursday Night, Fox)

This show is just not that interesting without Jussie Smollett crying about how nobody will accept that “I just want to move on” from filing a false police report.  If it was really the world’s toughest test, I don’t think a bunch of out-of-shape reality show participants would be doing as well as they are.

Twilight Zone (Prime)

This week, I watched a few classic episodes — To Serve Man, The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street, Twenty-Two (“Room for one more, honey!”), Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up, Nick of Time, and Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.  If the Twilight Zone is not a part of your October viewing, you’re doing Halloween wrong!

The Vanishing Ray (NightFlight Plus)

I checked in with this 1930s serial on Friday night.  The bad guys were still after the vanishing ray and the good guys were still trying to protect it.  As always, this chapter ended with a cliffhanger and an invitation to return to theater next week for the next installment.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 10/5/25 — 10/11/25

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Abbott Elementary (Wednesday Night, ABC)

Eh.  I’m not really interested in Melissa’s adventures as a sixth grade teacher.  As well, Tariq really hasn’t been amusing since the end of the first season.  I worry this show is reaching the “treading water” phase of its existence.

Hell’s Kitchen (Thursday, Fox)

After a week of commercials that implied the police would be showing up at Hell’s Kitchen to arrest one of the chefs, this week’s episode featured the cops showing up at Hell’s Kitchen so the chefs could make them breakfast.  I wasn’t really surprised.  Hell’s Kitchen has always been shameless about doing stuff like that.  That’s actually a part of the show’s appeal.  As for this week’s episode, everyone appears to be remarkably incompetent.  I wouldn’t accept a meal from any of these people.

Law & Order (Thursday Night, NBC)

Another week, another murder.  Once again, Maroun was upset over having to do her job.  The law half of this show is usually pretty good but the order half is awful.  Nolan is such a wimp.  Maroun should have been fired the first time she ever suggested allowing a criminal to go free.

Ozark Law (Hulu)

I guess this show ran on A&E earlier this year.  I watched the first episode on Hulu.  It was a reality show about cops in small town Missouri.  They had to deal with a bunch of people hanging out at the lake for the Fourth of July weekend.  It was the usual stuff.  The cops arrested a woman for having an expired license.  A man’s house was burglarized.  The male cops were all heavily tattooed and bearded.  The female cops all looked like the hyper-religious girl from high school who would judge you for wearing a short skirt.  All the cops had that terse cop way of speaking.

The Prisoner (Nightflight Plus)

Jeff and I watched the final episode of this 60s show on Friday night.  I’ll miss Rover.

Special Force: World’s Toughest Test (Fox, Thursday Night)

Jussie Smollett has left the show so what even is the point now?

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 9/28/25 — 10/4/25

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the most part, I’ve spent this week watching horror movies and reviewing them.  That said, I did get caught up with a handful of shows.  Here are a few thoughts:

Abbott Elementary (Wednesday Night, ABC)

I got pretty bored with Abbott last season but I still caught the season five premiere this week.  I laughed quite a bit so I guess I’m going to give the latest season a chance.  The show got a bit heavy-handed last season and I got bored with all of the golf course nonsense.  Hopefully, this season will put the focus back on teaching.

Big Brother 27 (Sunday Night, CBS)

Big Brother ended on Sunday and I’ve already forgotten all about it.  That’s the way things should be.

Hell’s Kitchen (Thursday Night, Fox)

I got caught up with the latest two episodes of Hell’s Kitchen.  The men seem to be especially incompetent this season.  I know that every season seems to start out with the men weak and the women strong before reversing things later on but seriously, this season, I wouldn’t want any of these people cooking for me.

Law & Order (Thursday Night, NBC)

I decided to give Law & Order another try this season.  (Last season, I stopped watching about halfway through.)  Of course, when I watched the first two episodes of the current season, the first thing I saw was Price on the verge of tears.  Is there ever a time when Nolan Price isn’t on the verge of tears?  Just as with the previous season, I preferred the Law to the Order part of the show.  If Maroun and Price are always miserable about having to do this jobs, why are they even working for the District Attorney’s office to begin with?  Ever since this show was revived, we’ve had a steady stream of new detectives and yet Price and Maroun are still the same colorless characters that they were when they first appeared.

The Prisoner (Night Flight Plus)

I watched two episodes of this cult classic on Friday.  My favorite character is Rover.

Seinfeld (Netflix)

Kramer starts a talk show in his living room.  It made me laugh!

Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test (Thursday Night, Fox)

Yet another group of celebrities have gathered to see if they can pass Special Forces training.  I watched the first two episodes this week.  I laughed when one of the instructors yelled, “How badly do you want this!?”  They probably just want their paycheck.  I also laughed at Jussie Smollett, trying to make a comeback as one of the celebs.  What if Smollett wins this season and is sent to Afghanistan with orders to take down the Taliban?  That would be a hell of a redemption arc!

The Young and the Restless (Weekday Morning, CBS)

I watched an episode on Monday, largely to see if Victor was still around.  He was.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 8/31/25 — 9/6/25

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Big Brother 27 (CBS, Paramount+, Pluto TV, 24/7)

Only one more month of this crap left!  I’ve been writing about Big Brother, on an increasingly irregular basis, over at the Big Brother Blog.  I’ll be happy when Survivor and The Amazing Race return.

The Dark Side of Comedy (Hulu)

I watched a few episodes of this show because I was bored.  The Dustin Diamond episode was sad.  You know what wasn’t sad?  The Family Matters episode, in which the only two members of the cast willing to be interviewed complained endlessly about being overshadowed by Jaleel White.  I mean, admittedly, if my big chance at stardom was short-circuited by Urkel, I’d probably be bitter too but still, there comes a time when you have stop whining.

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia (Hulu)

I finished up the latest season.  I have to admit that the trip to the dog track almost made me throw up, it got so (intentionally) disgusting.  But no matter!  Frank as the Golden Bachelor?  Brilliant!  Now, I want to see Dennis and Mac on The Amazing Race.  Or maybe Charlie and Frank on The Amazing Race.  Or Dee and …. well, she’d probably end up running alone.  It would still make me laugh, though.

The Paper (Peacock)

From the creators of The Office …. oh, I really wanted to like this.  And the show had its isolated funny moments but what it didn’t have were any characters who were, in any way, as interesting as the folks on The Office.  The Paper mixed the format of The Office with the earnestness of Parks and Rec and I was pretty bored by the sixth episode.  One thing that this show didn’t seem to get is that people could see themselves in The Office because everyone hates their job.  Everyone could relate to Jim’s frustrations and Pam’s boredom.  The Paper, on the other hand, is about people who love their job to an almost obnoxious extent and, as such, the characters just weren’t relatable.  If anything they were kind of annoying.  The show attempts to do a Jim-and-Pam thing with the characters played by Domhnall Gleeson and Chelsea Frei but it doesn’t work because 1) he’s her boss and 2) the two actors don’t really have much chemistry.  Their scenes together felt forced.  (I was happy to see Oscar Nunez again, if just because he brought so much needed cynicism to the show.)  I’m a big admirer of producer Greg Daniels and the King of the Hill reboot was brilliant but, in this case, I think he overestimated that amount of nostalgia that people have for newspapers.

The Serial Killer’s Apprentice (HBOMax)

This documentary took a look at the disturbing life and crimes of Texas serial killer Dean Corll and it featured an interview with Elmer Henley, the young man who went from being Corll’s accomplice to eventually being Corll’s killer.  Henley is still serving a life sentence.  This documentary featured an interview with him and it made the mistake of featuring an actor playing the older Henley as he spoke on the phone in the jail.  It’s an interesting story and I’m surprised that it hasn’t been turned into a cheap B-movie like so many other real-life serial killer tales have.  That said, this documentary was a bit on the shallow side.  Elmer Henley may have ultimately killed Corll but, before that, he helped Corll kill a lot of people.  Henley is right where belongs, in prison for the rest of his life.

Freddy’s Nightmares Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 1.6 “Saturday Night Special”

Posted on by casewright

GUEST REVIEWER ALERT!!! 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 Plex! 

This episode was really two storylines that had very little to do with one another; so, I’ll have to do like a story A and a story B. Story A shows Gordon (Scott Burkholder) and weird friend pining for a blonde bombshell ice skater. This entire scene is really creepy. Why? Neither of these guys went to the skating rink to skate or watch a game. They are literally just there to watch people. Yikes!

Super creepy Rob Lowe likes to go to the rec center and watch folks swim just like these guys who go to the rec center and watch people ice skate

Gordon has an OK job. He is not particularly handsome, but he’s not the worst. Anyway, he’s lonely. Gordon decides to use a dating service that has him lie on a video to get women. This could’ve been a cool plot line, if the dating service was run by the devil and he was selling his soul, but nope, it was just a dumb dating service. Then, out of nowhere, he was dead the whole time. So, huh?

Story B has an unattractive woman named Mary who gets convinced by her pretty coworker to get bizarre plastic surgery to be beautiful, but she’s actually not beautiful. It was so convoluted that it was really hard to follow.

The story B also had a sub plot that the real estate place where Mary worked was hiring pretty women to sleep with the clients to close deals. After Mary beautifies herself, she agrees to prostitute herself to close a real estate deal, but then the client thinks she’s ugly and she dies. Yep, the plot was schizophrenic. I was going to use a flow chart to follow it, but I can’t spend more time on story than the writers did.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 6.14 “Paroled to Love/First Impressions/Love Finds Florence Nightingale”

Posted on by casewright

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!

Gavin MacLeod of the clan MacLeod declares (after the song number) “There can be only one!”, runs amok

This episode should be called- Lying Liars Who Lie!!!!

There are three stories all of which have pathological liars. The first story is “Paroled to Love” and it is beyond impossible. Gloria Baxter (Vicki Lawrence) is a criminal defense lawyer who just got a pardon for her embezzling client Eddie (Richard Kline). As the plot would have it, Eddie and Gloria love one another, but Eddie has a secret: he done did it and Gloria thought he was an innocent man!

Sidenote: as you may know, I was a criminal attorney for a number of years and in all of those cases, I can’t say that I had no innocent clients because I had one. One!

When I told my criminal defense attorney public defender friends that I had an actually innocent client, they told me to hold on because they needed to get recesses in the courthouse so that all of the PD’s could come out and hear this tale that sounded like lore! These attorneys had been doing criminal defense for decades and never had an innocent client! There was a crowd of over 70 attorneys, both public and private! They listened rapt to every detail of my story like I was Gandolf telling the stories of the rings!

I told them that I had documented proof that the police officer had not only lied, but falsified his police report, you could feel their goosebumps. Several of them begged me to just let them sit next to me as co-council or let them file a motion for me for free just so they could be part of this once in a career event. So, why in the world did Gloria not just presume that Eddie was not only guilty but a liar? Was this her first case? Was she hit on the head with something hard? Was her law school in Candyland?

Yes, Eddie lied to Gloria so she would get him a pardon when in fact, he was an embezzler, and she insists that to have her love he must go back to jail. At first, Eddie refuses, then she changes her mind, and Eddie decides to change his mind and go back to prison! It’s weird for many reasons: lawyers can’t date their clients and once a pardon is issued, it can’t be revoked! Once a pardon is accepted- It’s over.

The second story with a lying liar who lies is the Phyllis Faraday (Carole Cook) storyline. Phyllis wants to get a part playing of Florence Nightingale so decides to be a fake nurse for the Doc in order to get practice. Sadly, there was a shuffleboard accident and she did not set a compound fracture properly, the patient became septic, died, and the show was renamed The Death Boat. The show still had song and dance numbers, but they were all by Adele.

JK, she meets a guy who’s a rancher out of Wyoming, who thinks she’s an actual nurse and he falls in love with her after 24 hours because he thinks she’s a tenderhearted nurse. However, she is not a nurse and must confess this.

But did she really need to confess anything? I mean, this guy fell in love with her after 24 hours. How do you know that he won’t fall in love with the cab driver who picked them up for the ship and took them to their hotel or a cashier or anyone he meets for any period of time over 60 seconds?

The last storyline of lying liars who lie was probably the most weird, but it did allow them to have their required vaudeville acts of impressions and singing. Doris (Leia’s Mom) and Marsha (Marilyn Michaels) started a talent company with Julie. Gotta say, Julie seems agitated – I wonder why? Could it be????

Unfortunately, Doris and Marsha booked all of these celebrities to go on the cruise, but they sent them on the wrong cruise. They sent the stars on an Alaskan cruise and they didn’t bring any warm clothes which makes me wonder. Are they all dead? Is this like “Alive?” Why would that cruise ship take these stars aboard, when they were not on the manifest? What kind of a rogue cruise ship was this? Was it, in fact, a ship devoted to human trafficking? Are all these poor Hollywood stars now in some bizarre salt mine fighting to the death for the amusement of The Rumble on the infamous Money Plane???

I couldn’t find the “it’s rumble time”GIF

Doris and Marsha decide to do the most obvious thing: they pretend to be all these different Hollywood stars with OK impressions and then do a song number. Honestly, they might as well do that. It’s so hard for this show to contrive credible reasons for a song and dance number for every episode that I’ve seen so far; so, why not this?

I would describe this episode as OK.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 8/16/25 — 8/23/25

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Aaron Hernandez and The Untold Murders of Bristol (Hulu)

I watched this true crime documentary on the 17th.  As I watched it, I found myself wondering just how many documentaries will ultimately be made about Aaron Hernandez.  I’m going to guess that there will be quite a few just because his story really does capture the current cultural zeitgeist.  Americans love celebrities and they love true crime and the Aaron Hernandez case gives them both, along with CTE and toxic masculinity and repressed sexuality.  As for this documentary, it mostly focused on the Hernandez case but it also told the story of two other football players who went to high school with Hernandez and who also ended up becoming murderers.  I guess there must be something in the Gatorade up in Connecticut.  This documentary didn’t really bring anything new to the table.  Above all else, Aaron Hernandez appears to have just been a total idiot.

Big Brother 27 (CBS, Paramount+, Pluto TV, 24/7)

Go Ava!  If Ava wins, I’ll be happy.  I’ve ben writing about Big Brother over at the Big Brother Blog.

Murder Under Fright Night Lights (Hulu)

The Aaron Hernandez documentary led to me watching two seasons of this true crime show about football-related murders.  The first season was considerably better than the second season, leading me to suspect that the show made the mistake of front-loading all of the interesting stories.  Seriously, you have to spread things out if you want to keep people tuning in.

Freddy’s Nightmares Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 1.5 “Judy Miller, Come on Down”

Posted on by casewright

GUEST REVIEWER ALERT!!! 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 Plex! 

Judy (Siobhan McCafferty) is living a very terrible life. Tom (John DeMita), Judy’s husband, is a spoiled manchild hiding out in school to avoid working. Tom’s parents live with Judy and Tom and they treat Judy like an indentured servant. Judy’s only escape for a better life is to buy lottery tickets and apply to appear on gameshows. Like all Freddy’s I’ve seen, the initial story was not bad and should have remained 22 minutes. However, I will say that in NO WAY was this a horror script at all. It was meant to be a mediocre Twilight Zone script or that should’ve been where it was pitched. In fact, the only real blood was at the very end of the episode where Freddy squeezed a fake heart with blood in it. Really, that was it!

Back to the show, Judy gets called to be contestant on a gameshow, but it gets…weird. Not scary weird, but weird. The game show became a “Pit and the Pendulum” knock off where the host asked Judy personal questions and every answer led to her family members being NOT KILLED, but scratched. They could’ve had the deaths off screen. The show goes on and she wins the gameshow, but instead of the show allowing her to evolve and leave her abusive husband and in-laws, the story continues into ….. time travel. For real, the story took a turn into time travel, which is impossible. Look, I’m an applied physicist- let time travel go because It does not work. Let it go! You can’t save Kennedy! LET IT GO!

Once again, the story ached to end at the 22 minute mark, but had to keep going and where did it go? Time travel. Judy gets the money, stays married, and spends a lot. Then, her older -self time travels by “I went a long way”… so like Trader Joe’s and back because that is difficult with the small-ass parking spaces! Anyway, the older Judy warns her that her husband will cheat on her and she’ll stab him to death. Her older self advises her to give the money away and she’ll be happy. THIS IS STUPID! She was poor at the beginning of the story and miserable! Hey writers, weren’t you there?!!! Simple solution: just get a divorce – California is a no-fault state- Move on!

The problem with this show is that instead of doing re-writes, they took 22 minute stories and doubled them in the stupidest ways possible.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 6.13 “The Christmas Presence”

Posted on by casewright

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, Captain Stubing is unimpressed by proof that God exists…

This episode had surgery, singing, and supernatural beings who did not impress Captain Stubing. I assume Stubing runs into angels on earth just on his way back from shuffleboard- they’re just old hat to him. There is a sexist and abusive husband Jim Markham (Donny Osmond) married to Lori Markham (Maureen McCormick- He wishes!). Henry Beemus (Henry Gibson) and Charlie Dobbs (Keenan Wynn) are two crooks who want to smuggle gold using nativity figurines and Nuns to unknowingly move the stolen gold through customs – this plot annoyed/tired me; it tannoyed me A LOT. The Nuns were traveling with a choir of Dominican children one of whom was deadly ill, requiring surgery!!! Lastly, an Angel with limitless powers was played by Mickey Rooney.

Jim wanted a traditional wife, but Lori wanted to keep her career. He was abusive even by 1970s standards because everyone wanted to hit him. He kept this bitter storyline going until Lori helped Doc Bricker cut into a Dominican Choir Boy’s throat to allow him to breathe! Yes, The Love Boat became The Mercy Ship!

Questions: why was there no blood on any of the scrubs after the surgery? They cut a hole in a kid’s throat! Then, Jim’s heart was changed because he found out that his wife helped save the Dominican Boy’s life. Hold on, did he not know she was a surgical nurse?! If Jim thinks this was something, wait until your wife tells you about the multiple gang related GSWs she has to treat every Wednesday night!

The Dominican boy’s plotline was interminable and there were great lamentations that his tracheotomy was going to prevent him from singing. Duh! He has a hole in his throat! Along with the throat hole plotline, there were the two thieves Henry and Charlie. These storylines just annoyed me. Mostly, they were just weird foils for Mickey Rooney to work his divine powers.

Speaking of powers, Mickey Rooney’s powers were endless: he healed the Dominican boy, allowing him to sing, he created ornaments out of thin air, he transported matter with his mind, he remade people’s thoughts, and spoke to planets! A fair number of these miracles were witnessed by Captain Stubing and he was as casually impressed as I am when I get a 5 dollar off promotion for Civilization VI on Steam. Captain Stubing barely shrugged.

The episode ended with Mickey Roony’s disembodied animated head atop the ship’s Christmas tree. It was just his head and it winked and smiled at them! Save yourselves! RUN!

There was a lot going on in this episode, but overall it was enjoyable if not hyper-strange.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 8/10/25 — 8/16/25

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Big Brother 27 (CBS, Parmounht+, Pluto TV, 24/7)

With my aunt in the hospital this week, Big Brother didn’t really interest me that much.  I wrote about it over at the Big Brother Blog but there’s a part of me that no longer cares about shows like this.  All of the fake drama and all of the crocodile tears don’t add up to much when you’re dealing with real drama and shedding real tears.

The Simpsons (Disney+)

Jeff and I watched a few episodes this week, out of the hope that they might cheer me up and give me a break from worrying.  And they did.  I enjoyed the episode with Mr, Burns’s son.  I enjoyed the episode with Poochie.  There was also an episode in which Homer enrolled in clown college.  That made me smile.