I was feeling bad about missing tonight’s game between the Rangers and the Reds but then I looked at the score — 14-3, Reds — and I realized maybe it was for the best! Just looking at the numbers, it looks like the Reds put on a hitting clinic and the Rangers had no answer for it.
That’s baseball. You’re going to lose a few. Let’s hope this is just a fluke and not a sign of things to come.
Congratulations, Cincinnati!
Go Rangers!
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, it’s Reb Brown vs Don Johnson!
Episode 3.22 “Viking Bikers From Hell”
(Dir by James Quinn, originally aired on April 3rd, 1987)
Biker Reb Gustafson (Reb Brown) has been released in prison, just in time to seek vengeance for the death of his mentor, The Wire. The Wire was killed in a drug deal gone bad so Reb decides to just track down every dealer that The Wire did business with during the final two weeks of his life and kill every one of them. Working with Lascoe (John Matuszak) and Toad (Sonny Landham), Reb cuts a trail of terror through Miami’s underground. Soon, there’s only one name left on the list …. SONNY BURNETT!
At this point, of course, everyone in Miami should know that Sonny Burnett is actually Sonny Crockett. I’ve lost track of how many time Crockett and Tubbs have gotten their undercover identities blown. Usually, the people who figure out that Sonny and Rico are undercover end up dying almost immediately afterwards. But a few of their enemies have survived and it’s odd that they never seem to bother to tell anyone, “Hey, those guys are actually cops.”
This episode of Miami Vice is violent that it verges on self-parody. (I guess that’s to be expected as the script was written by the great John Milius, Milius was credited as “Walter Kurtz.”) Reb Brown is an amusing actor. He never showed much emotion but he always looked believable whenever he was relentlessly tracking down someone that he wanted to kill. Brown is both this episode’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. As played Brown, Reb Gustasfson barely flinches when he gets shot. He’s a relentless killing machine, the terminator on a motorcycle. That does certainly make him an intimidating figure. At the same time, this episode also features Reb Brown doing his signature yelling and, for me, it was hard to watch this episode without thinking about all the close-up, high-pitched screaming that he did in Space Mutiny.
Tubbs ends up in the hospital in this one. An attack by Reb and his biker pals leaves Tubbs with a concussion. Crockett visits the hospital and there’s a scene where he attempts to have a conversation with a heavily drugged Tubbs. Tubbs’s comments make about as much sense as the last words of Dutch Schultz but it’s still kind of nice to see that Crockett actually does care about his partner. The two of them haven’t always seemed particularly happy with having to work together over the course of the third season.
Biker fans will also be happy to note that Kim Coates has a small role in this one. Crockett and Tubbs beat him up in a biker bar while demanding information about Reb. The odd thing here is that Crockett and Tubbs go into the biker bar and make no attempt to hide the fact that they’re actually cops. And all of the bikers in the bar seem to already know that they’re cops. Seriously, were Crockett and Tubbs the two worst undercover cops in history?
This was an enjoyably over-the-top episode. It was a bit silly but, when it comes to Reb Brown, would you want it any other way?
My Rangers got a wonderful win this afternoon, defeating the Red Sox by a score of 3-2 and winning their first series of the regular season! Today’s game really reminded me why I love baseball so much. It’s also reminded me how much fun it is to watch your team win.
From Jacob deGrom’s six strikeouts to the home runs hit by Adolis Garcia and Wyatt Langford, here are the highlights of a great game!
Oh, I’m in a good mood tonight! Despite some early struggles that gave me heartburn, the Rangers pulled off a 4-3 victory over the Red Sox! And Adolis Garcia got his first home run of the regular season!
Here’s hoping for our first 2025 series win tomorrow!
Go Rangers!
Our regularly scheduled review of Friday the 13th: The Series will not be posted tonight so that we might bring you this special presentation….
My retro television reviews will return next week. For tonight, check out 1984’s Contact For Life, an earnest and actually pretty well-acted short film about teenagers and drunk and driving. Yes, that is William Zabka in the thumbnail below. I imagine that Zabka is the main reason most people would watch this film today. He plays a slightly nicer version of Johnny Lawrence in this film. Be careful about getting too attached to him.
The film also features a hockey practice where everyone apparently practices getting hurt by deliberately falling on the ice and then slamming against a wall. Ouch! That game will never make sense to me. (Sorry, Leonard.)
Without further ado, here is Contract For Life!
Tonight, the Texas Rangers defeated the Boston Red Sox, 4-11 It was the team’s first victory of the regular season and it also featured the first two Rangers home runs of the regular season! Both of those home runs were hit by Jonah Heim!
The Rangers are now 1-1.
Go Rangers!
No matter what side of the ideological aisle one stands on this speech should be watched, debated and studied not just for the powerhouse acting throughout the monologue but as to its content.
There’s opinions and discussion to be had about differing takes on the first half of the speech, but it’s the latter half when Will McAvoy (played with an equal amount of life-earned cynicism and hope by Jeff Daniels) explains why we as a country has lost its way and how we’ll never get back on track until we realize there is a problem and a problem to be solved not through hate and fear but through understanding and hope.
“We sure used to be. We stood up for what was right! We fought for moral reasons, we passed and struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, and we acted like men. We aspired to intelligence; we didn’t belittle it; it didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn’t scare so easy.
And we were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one—America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.”
I’m sure there’ll be those who will disagree vehemently about the scene’s message and content. Yet, no one seem to be able to find a strong argument as to why they disagree or debunk what was said in the monologue.
The decade since Newsroom aired it’s final episode we see more and more the truth in Will McAvoy’s words and it may take a decade or decades to right the ship.
TSL’s review of Highway to Heaven will not be posted tonight so that we may bring you this special presentation….
My retro television reviews will return next week but until then, enjoy this blast from the past. 1973’s Rookie of the Year stars 11 year-old Jodie Foster as Sharon Lee, who causes some controversy when she joins her brother’s little league team. I picked out this program specifically for my sister, Erin, who loves baseball the way that I love movies!
It’s strange to think, while watching this, that Jodie Foster was just three years away from creating even more controversy with her Oscar-nominated role in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.
And now, here is Rookie of the Year….
It’s Opening Day! The Rangers played their first game of the regular season today, facing off against the Red Sox in Arlington. I watched the game and I was really hoping that we might start the season with a win. It didn’t happen. The Rangers went into the Ninth Inning 2-2 and they ended things trailing by three runs. Congratulations to the Red Sox on their 5-2 victory and especially to Wilyer Abreu on his two home runs. (That second home run brought in three runs in the 9th and won the game for Boston.)
I love baseball but it’s a lot more fun when your team wins! Luckily, it’s only the first game and there’s 161 left to go. There’s not a baseball team in existence that has ever had an undefeated season and that will never change. If a team ever does win 162 games in a row, they should just cancel baseball all together.
I love my team. My heart hurts that they lost but I know it’s going to sing when they get their first win of the 2025 season!
Go Rangers!
Monsters will not be reviewed tonight so that we may bring you this very special presentation of 1983’s Have You Ever Been Ashamed Of Your Parents?
Yes, my retro television reviews will return next week but, until then, enjoy this blast from the past. In this hour-long presentation, Fran Davies (Kari Michaelson) is upset when her mother (Marion Ross) takes a summer job working as a maid for a rich family. At first, Fran thinks that Andrea (Jennifer Jason Leigh), the daughter of her mother’s employer, is a stuck-up snob but she soon learns that Andrea is instead painfully shy and that she has parents who are rich but unloving. Meanwhile, Fran’s parents are …. well, I wouldn’t call them poor. The film acts as if they’re poor but, from all indications, they appear to be comfortably middle class. The point is that they’re not rich but they are loving.
This is worth watching for Jennifer Jason Leigh’s performance as Andrea, a character to whom I could relate. It’s not easy being both shy and beautiful. Fans of great character actors will also be happy to see James Karen, playing Andrea’s father.
Now, without further ado, here is Have You Ever Been Ashamed Of Your Parents?
