Doctor Who — Pyramids of Mars (1975, directed by Paddy Russell)

Posted on October 12, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Did you ever wonder who built the pyramids of Egypt?

It was the aliens, of course!

In 1911, Dr. Marcus Scarman (Bernhard Archard) excavates a pyramid. When he enters a room that has the Eye of Horus over the doorway, he is hit by a beam of light.

Months later, The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Sarah Jane (Elisabeth Slader) materialize at the Scarman Estate in England. They run into Dr. Scarman’s friend, Dr. Warlock (Peter Copley). (Dr. Warlock? Really?) Warlock explains that Scarman has been missing every since he went to Egypt and that his estate is now occupied by a mysterious man named Namin (Peter Maycock).

Namin is eagerly waiting the arrival of Sutekh (Gabriel Woolf), who Namin thinks is an ancient Egyptian god but who is actually the last-surviving member of the Osirian alien race. The Osirians imprisoned Sutekh on a temple on Mars but Sutekh has taken over the body of Scarman and is using him to construct a missile that will free Sutekh from his Martian prison. The possessed Scarman returns his estate, kills Namin, and gets to work.

Pyramids of Mars takes the usual Doctor Who themes of aliens and time travel and mixed them with mummies and ancient Egyptian curses. This serial doesn’t skimp on the horror. Sutekh tries to strangle almost everyone he meets and, once the Doctor and Sarah reach Mars, there’s plenty of scenes of mummies come to life and stalking pyramind to appeal to the most discerning of viewers. Pyramids of Mars is one of the Doctor Who episodes that is perfect for October!

Doctor Who — The Ark In Space, The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, Revenge of the Cybermen, Terror of the Zygons

Posted on October 12, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

The 12th season of Doctor Who got off to a shaky start with Robot, a serial that was ultimately distinguished only by the introduction of Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. The best thing about Robot is that it ended with The Fourth Doctor peeking out of the TARDIS and inviting Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) to join him on his further adventures. By inviting them, he was inviting the audience as well.

The remaining episodes of the 12th season not only established Tom Baker as the Doctor but it also reestablished Doctor Who as being a show about an alien who could travel through time and space. After several seasons of The Third Doctor largely staying on Earth and in the present, the 12th Season reminded everyone that the Doctor could turn up anywhere.

The Ark In Space (1975, directed by Rodney Bennett)

The first place that the Doctor takes Sarah and Harry is to Nerva, a space station that floating above the Earth. The time is 10,000 years into the future. Forced to flee the Earth due to solar flares, the crew of the space station has spent a millennia in suspended animation. During that time, the space station has been invaded by the Wirm, a space insect that has laid its eggs in some of the crewmen. When everyone is revived, the infected crewmen are transformed into creatures that are half-human and half-insect.

The Ark in Space is a classic space opera. When I was a kid and our PBS station first started to broadcast Doctor Who, they started with a four-hour bloc, which included Robot, The Ark In Space, and The Sontaran Experiment. After Robot, with its basic plot and bad special effects, it was a relief to then see The Ark In Space, a serial that lived up to all of the Doctor Who hype. Not only did Tom Baker fully step into the role of the eccentric Fourth Doctor but this serial also featured Elisabeth Sladen and Ian Marter in active roles as well. This serial said that the days of the passive companion were (temporarily) over.

The plot of The Ark in Space does have some similarities to Alien, which came out for years later. I think that’s probably just a coincidence.

The Sontaran Experiment (1975, directed by Rodney Bennett)

Having defeated the Wirm and saved the remaining colonists on the Ark, The Doctor, Harry, and Sarah transport down to Earth to repair a receiver terminal. They discover that the Earth is not as deserted as they assumed. A group of human astronauts returned to the planet earlier but they were captured by Styre (Kevin Lindsay), a Sontaran who has been sent to Earth to prepare it for an invasion so that the Sontarans can use the planet as an outpost in their never ending war with the Rutans.

This serial was only two episodes long but The Sontarans were always good villains. They’re relentless, destructive, and very, very stupid. This story featured one of Tom Baker’s best moments, when he convinced Styre to throw away his weapon because it made him look weak. Styre fell for it because Sontarans will fall for anything.

Genesis of the Daleks (1975, directed by David Maloney)

This is it. This is the first true classic of the Tom Baker era and also the best of the classic Dalek stories. Terry Nation was invited back to Doctor Who to write about his most famous creations and he created one of the show’s most enduring villains in the process.

A Time Lord appears to the Doctor and his companions and tells them that they need The Doctor to change history. (This goes against all Time Lord law, which is why they gave the job to a known renegade like The Doctor.) The Daleks have been determined to be too much of a threat. The Doctor is to go back to the time of their creation and “interfere.”

The Doctor, Harry, and Sarah Jane find themselves on Skaro, where the war between the Thals and the Kaleds have left the planet ravaged and inhospitable. The Thals and the Kaleds each live in a domed city and spend their days shooting missiles at each other. Terry Nation often said that the Daleks were meant to be a stand-in for the Nazis and he makes that clear in this episode with the Kaleds wearing SS-style uniforms and spouting theories about racial superiority.

In this episode, Nation introduces Davros (Michael Wisher), the horribly scarred and crippled scientist who will ultimately be responsible for transforming the Kaleds into the Daleks. (The Kaleds who don’t want to be Daleks are wiped out by those who do.) Davros would appear in every subsequent Dalek episode of classic era Doctor Who and his effectiveness would be diluted by repetition. In his first appearance, though, he immediately establishes himself as a frightening and truly evil Doctor Who villain. If their first appearance suggested that the Daleks retreated into the shells for survival in their nuclear-ravaged world, this episode shows that it more about Davros wanting to play God.

A six-episode serial, Genesis of the Daleks more than justifies its epic length. The heart of the serial is a moment when the Doctor, on the verge of wiping out the Daleks forever, stops to wonder if he has the right to do so. This was a key moment in the development of The Fourth Doctor. The Fourth Doctor may have been an eccentric but he was an eccentric with a conscience who realized that even the worst creatures deserved a chance at redemption. In the end, The Doctor does not destroy the Daleks, though he does set back their evolution by an undetermined number of years. As the Doctor explains it, good will always rise up to counter the evil of the Daleks.

This episode features the apparent destruction of Davros but you can never keep a good villain down. Both Davros and his creations would return.

Revenge of the Cybermen (1975, directed by Michael Briant)

After a classic Dalek story, I guess it was inevitable that Doctor Who would feature a Cyberman episode.

Following the events of Genesis of the Daleks, the Time Lords return The Doctor, Sarah Jane, and Harry to the Nerva space station. They arrive several centuries before the events in The Ark In Space. Without the TARDIS (it’s traveling back through time to meet them), The Doctor and his companions discover that the majority of Nerva’s crew is dead and that the remaining members are using the station as a space beacon to warn people about a drifting planetoid. The planetoid is made of gold and the Cybermen show up at Nerva because, being uniquely vulnerable to gold dust, they want to destroy it.

If Genesis of the Daleks re-imagined the Daleks, Attack of the Cybermen proves to be just a typical Cybermen story and a disappointing one. The best thing about this episode is that it gave Tom Baker a chance to once again prove his Doctor bonafides by defeating a classic Doctor Who villain.

Terror of the Zygons (1975, directed by Douglas Camfield)

Terror of the Zygons was the first seral of the thirteenth season but, since it’s also Harry Sullivan’s final appearance as a regular member of the TARDIS crew (though he would return in a later episode for a one-off appearance), it still feels like a twelfth season episode.

Having been reunited with the TARDIS, the Doctor, Sarah Jane, and Harry return to present-day Earth. The Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney) and UNIT are investigating attacks on oil rigs by a giant sea creature. Sea Devils, again? No, this time it’s the Zygons, who are far less sympathetic.

This was a typical UNIT story, the type of thing that Jon Pertwee did regularly. Tom Baker’s more mischievous version of the Doctor feels slightly out-of-place with UNIT but it is still a pleasure to see Nicholas Courtney and John Levene again and this episode finally explains what everyone has been seeing in Loch Ness over the years. This episode ends with Harry returning to UNIT while Sarah Jane and the Doctor returned the TARDIS. Harry Sullivan was a strong character and producer Philip Hinchcliffe later said it was a mistake to write him out of the series.

Ian Marter, who played Harry Sullivan, continued to be associated with Doctor Who as one of the better writers of the Doctor Who novelizations. He also wrote two stand-alone novels featuring Harry’s adventures without the Doctor. Ian Marter died of a heart attack when he was just 42 but Harry Sullivan lived on, frequently being mentioned in both the classic series and the revival.

That’s it for the 12th season, the season that truly made Tom Baker the Doctor and which was one of the best of the classic series. As these were the first episodes of Doctor Who that I ever saw, I have a lot of nostalgia for them. The Ark In Space, The Sonatarn Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, and even Terror of the Zygons still hold up well to this day.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 4.10 “Full Moon”

Posted on October 12, 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, Kellerman and Lewis head to a motel.

Episode 4.10 “Full Moon”

(Directed by Leslie Libman and Larry Williams, originally aired on April 5th, 1996)

If you go back and look over my reviews of Homicide, you might notice that the dates don’t always add up. Last week’s episode aired at the start of January of 1996. This week’s episode aired in April. That’s because, when this show originally aired on NBC, the network did not adhere to the production order. For instance, the show’s producers intended for Blue Moon to be the 10th episode of season 4. NBC, however, decided to air it later in the season, as the 17th episode.. For the purposes of these reviews, I am following the production order as opposed to NBC’s order.

(Production order is also the order the was used when Homicide was released on DVD,)

As for this episode, it’s a bit of a change of pace. For one thing, the episode centers on Lewis and Kellerman, with some assistance from John Munch. The rest of the squad goes unseen as Lewis and Kellerman investigate a murder at a cheap motel on the outskirts of the Baltimore city limits. As a result, the vibe of this episode is a bit less intense than the Pembleton/Bayliss episodes. Lewis and Kellerman were far different detectives from Pembleton and Bayliss. Whereas Pembleton and, at times, Bayliss often seemed to be on a holy crusade, Lewis and Kellerman were just doing their job.

That works for this episode, which is really more of a mood piece than a typical detective show. An ex-con is shot and killed at a motel. Lewis and Kellerman investigate the crime and meet the collection of eccentrics who work and live at the motel. A large family of illegal immigrants lives in one small room. A prostitute swims naked in the pool. (Of course, Kellerman finds time to talk to her.) The motel night clerk is studying for a better life. The Reverend Horton Heat appears as a preacher. The victim’s next door neighbor is an ex-con who stays at the motel because it feels like a prison. This episode is full of slow and moody images and it’s far more of an examination of life on the fringes than a standard episode of Homicide.

Lewis does talk about his youth, growing up in the projects of Baltimore. At the end of the show, he watches as the apartment building where he grew up is destroyed by controlled demolition. The watching crowd cheers. Lewis says, “Wow,” and then grabs a brick. Meanwhile, the desperate characters at the motel go on with their eccentric lives.

This episode was a welcome change-of-pace, a noirish mood piece that showcased the teamwork of Clark Johnson and Reed Diamond as Lewis and Kellerman. After the intensity of the sniper storyline, it was nice to just sit under the moon and watch things unfold.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Good Morning Miss Bliss 1.13 “The Mentor”

Posted on October 11, 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 Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which ran on the Disney Channel from 1988 to 1989 before then moving to NBC and being renamed Saved By The Bell. The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

This week, we close out the Miss Bliss years.

Episode 1.13 “The Mentor”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on March 18th, 1989)

For some reason, Miss Bliss’s mentor — James Lyman (Robert Donner) — shows up at the school to visit his favorite student, Carrie Bliss. (Apparently, the very British Miss Bliss grew up in Indiana. I’m not saying it’s not possible, as her parents could have come over when Miss Bliss was still young. That said, it just seems odd that no one — not even her students — ever mention anything about Miss Bliss being British. It would seem like something Miss Bliss would have mentioned during all of those lessons about the Constitution and American history.) Mr. Lyman is retired but he agrees to substitute for Miss Bliss while she spends a week doing paperwork. (Most teachers would probably just have to suck it up and both teach and do paperwork during the week but not our Miss Bliss!)

This is one of those annoying episodes where Mr. Lyman is the unconventional teacher who gives the kids free hall passes and takes them on extended field trip without getting permission beforehand. Mr. Lyman makes learning fun! (Gag!) Miss Bliss gets upset because Mr. Lyman isn’t following her lesson plan and Mr. Lyman basically accuses Miss Bliss of being a sellout. For once, I’m on Miss Bliss’s side here. Mr. Lyman is a substitute. His job is to follow the lesson plan. If Miss Bliss doesn’t want him to handing out hall passes, that’s her right. It’s her class! And this whole thing of trusting the students not to abuse the hall pass? I would have totally abused a free hall pass. Everyone would abuse a free hall pass! I would laughed at any teacher dumb enough to give me a free hall pass. It’s almost as if the people who wrote this episode had absolutely no knowledge of how teenagers think. In the end, Mr. Lyman comes across as being an unlikable crank. The episode ends up with dressing up like Abraham Lincoln and showing up, unannounced, in Miss Bliss’s classroom. Seriously, someone call the cops on their weirdo.

Meanwhile, Nikki worries that boys don’t see her as being feminine. Lisa teachers her how to wear makeup. Next year, maybe Nikki and Zach….

Oh, wait a minute. Sorry, Zach, Mr. Belding, Screech, and Lisa are all moving to California. Nikki, Mickey, Miss Bliss, Ms. Palladino, Mylo are staying in Indiana. The Mentor was the final episode of Good Morning, Miss Bliss. The Disney Channel canceled the show but producer Peter Engel took some of the cast over to NBC and launched Saved By The Bell. The Miss Bliss episodes would later be repackaged for syndication with Zach saying, “I remember this time in Junior High…..” I remember changing the channel whenever I realized a Miss Bliss episode was starting.

We’ll start Saved By The Bell next week. Finally, the tyranny of Miss Bliss is over.

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

Posted on October 11, 2025 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?

Horror On TV: Hammer House of Horror #10: Guardian of the Abyss (dir by Don Sharp)

Posted on October 11, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s episode of Hammer House of Horror features antiques and cults! It’s a like a very British version of Friday the 13h: The Series. This episode is not necessarily one of my favorite episodes of this series. I always find the ending to be disappointing. The said, it does feature an intriguing story and a cast of Hammer veterans.

This episode originally aired on November 15th, 1980.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS (TV Series) – S1, E25: “There was an Old Woman,” starring Estelle Winwood and Charles Bronson!

Posted on October 11, 2025 by Bradley Crain

For a little bit of historical perspective, Charles Bronson was an up and coming young character actor when he appeared in the 25th episode of season 1 of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, “There Was an Old Woman,” which originally aired March 18, 1956. Having already shared the screen with the likes of Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster, Bronson had an interesting face that would allow him to comfortably play a wide range of roles in 1950’s Hollywood, from Native Americans (DRUM BEAT and APACHE), murderous criminals (CRIME WAVE and BIG HOUSE USA), compassionate doctors (the TV series MEDIC), and even deaf mutes (HOUSE OF WAX). In the mid-1950’s, Bronson was alternating between character parts on the big screen and guest starring roles on the small screen. For someone like me, it’s fun looking back at these early years and roles when Bronson was a hungry, young actor just trying to keep working. Not blessed with matinee idol looks, he attacked his roles with a gusto that, with the benefit of hindsight, would form a foundation that would eventually lead to him becoming the most popular actor in the world a decade later.

In “There Was an old Woman,” down-on-their-luck married couple, Frank Bramwell (Charles Bronson) and Lorna Bramwell (Norma Crane), are desperate for cash. While finishing off their breakfast at the local cafe, they overhear a private conversation between a milkman and the counter guy concerning the vast wealth of a local old woman named Monica Laughton (Estelle Winwood), an eccentric widow who lives alone in a grand, outdated Victorian house. The Bramwell’s think they’ve won the lottery and soon they’ve hatched a scheme to work their way into Mrs. Laughton’s home in hopes of relieving her of all that money. Once inside her home, the young couple gets much more than they bargained for when they discover that the kind and proper old woman lives in a fantasy world of imaginary people, imaginary dinner parties, and imaginary funerals. They play along with her delusions for a while and set about looking for the money, but when they can’t find it, Frank pulls out his knife and threatens to kill Mrs. Laughton and all her “guests” if she doesn’t give them her money. Needless to say, Mrs. Laughton may be nutty, but she has a few tricks up her sleeve and the Bramwell’s just may be on their way to being permanent guests!

If you enjoy entertainment that features black comedy, ironic twists of fate, and deadly danger in the most unexpected of places, you’ll enjoy this macabre gem of an episode. “There Was an Old Woman” sets the Bramwell’s up to think that they’re the ones in charge, until it’s revealed in an instant that they are in way over their head with the eccentric Mrs. Laughton. Bronson and Norma Crane are good as the married couple with bad intentions. I guess it would be more accurate to say that Bronson’s character has the bad intentions while Norma’s character just seems to have picked the wrong man. Bronson is in his amoral, bully-thug mode here, a type of role he played very well in the early years of his career. I thought Norma Crane projected a sort of innocent sweetness, and I felt sorry for her as events spiraled out of control. But the real star of the episode is Estelle Winwood as the delusional “old woman” of the title. She steals the show as Monica Laughton, delivering a fun and deceptively cunning performance as the grande dame who’s much more aware of the dangers around her than she lets on. She may be eccentric, but she’s nobody’s fool. Estelle Winwood is perfect in the role, a testament to a woman who was 73 years old when this episode aired and who would go on to work for over 20 more years, with her final role on an episode of the TV series QUINCY, M.E. that aired in 1980. One of the joys of watching older TV shows and movies is discovering more about some of these talented actors and actresses who starred in them. Winwood had an incredible, five decade career, and she would pass away in 1984 at 101 years of age.

Overall, I recommend “There Was an Old Woman” to any person who appreciates Alfred Hitchcock, vintage TV, black comedy, Charles Bronson, Norma Crane, and Estelle Winwood. It’s interesting and fun stuff!

Great Moments In Television History #39: The Wolverines

Posted on October 11, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

50 years ago tonight, the first episode of Saturday Night Live opened with Michael O’Donoghue giving a language lesson to John Belushi.

Previous Moments In Television History:

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 1.1 “In Deep”

Posted on October 11, 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 Baywatch, which ran on NBC and then in syndication from 1989 to 2001. The entire show can be purchased on Tubi.

This week, Hobie’s a snitch!

Episode 1.1 “In Deep”

(Dir by Peter H. Hunt, originally aired on September 22nd, 1989)

Hobie, you idiot!

Mitch’s young son is spending the summer with his father and he’s supposed to be concentrating on summer school. Instead, he hanging out with two older guys, Scott (Christopher Murphy) and Ron (Lance Gilbert), and basically letting himself be used as a slave in return for jet ski lessons.

Mitch is not a fan of jet skis. They’re unregulated and they’re dangerous, he says. As if to prove Mitch’s point, Scott collides with a windjammer! The woman on the windjammer is killed. (Craig and Eddie pull her body out of the ocean, which is the type of sad thing that Baywatch would eventually stop featuring.) Hobie, realizing Scott is guilty, tries to find the evidence to prove it and nearly gets himself killed as a result. Fortunately, Mitch is able to save him and Scott is arrested. I have to say that, after this episode, I kind of found myself agreeing with Mitch’s ex-wife. The beach is too dangerous!

Meanwhile, Craig caught Eddie sleeping in his lifeguard tower and realized that Eddie, who I assume is getting paid to be a lifeguard, doesn’t have a home. Did he ever have a home? Has he been sleeping on the beach all this time? How did he apply for Lifeguard School without an address? Anyway, Craig takes Eddie back to his Venice loft, where Craig’s wife (now played by Holly Gagnier, replacing the pilot’s Gina Hecht) decides that they should let Eddie rent their storage room. It’s even got a view of the beach, if you ignore all the other buildings in the way and instead just find that one unobstructed alley to look down. (Actually, Eddie finding and looking down that alley was cute and likable. He was so excited!) I have to say that, for a lawyer, Craig’s loft really sucked. It was pretty impressive for a lifegaurd, though.

The other big development this week is that Garner Ellerbee (Gregory Alan Williams) made his first appearance as the beach cop who hates sand. (Then why become a beach cop?) He and Mitch appear to be old friends. Little do they know that they will eventually open up a detective agency together.

This episode was predictable but the cast was super likable. The earnestness of it all carried the day.

Hell No: The Sensible Horror Film, Short Film Review by Case Wright

Posted on October 11, 2025 by casewright

This is fun!!! Technically, this short film does not have an actual story, BUT it is still a well done and fun short film. But Case, you’re so hard on everyone and this year you’re being so lenient! Fair critique, but I argue that this is within the parody genre and is exempt from my usual rules. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was one of the first films to do a feature length send up of many different movies and this short is in that vibe.

They go through the tropes: they stop at an abandoned cabin and say – F THAT!, a cop who WAITS for backup, and a boy who finds the Hellraiser puzzle and just plays with his iPhone instead and then does something hilarious to the box. If you want a quick laugh when you’re in line or anything other time you have about 3 minutes to kill, it is great choice. Life can be challenging and good laugh is better than a good cry.