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 Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The entire series can be found on YouTube!

Another Friday, another cursed antique….

Episode 3.10 “Mightier Than The Sword”

(Dir by Armand Mastroianni, originally aired on January 8th, 1990)

Micki’s been possessed again!

This time, it’s the result of a writer named Alex Dent (Colm Feore, who appeared in quite a few episodes of this show, always as a different villain) using his cursed pen to write about Micki becoming a serial killer.  That’s how Alex makes his money.  He writes about people becoming serial killers and then, when they do exactly what he has written, Alex publishes a true crime book about them.

Johnny is a huge fan of Alex’s books.  Micki says that she’s seen enough death in real life without having to read about it.  Johnny doesn’t seem to take her seriously, which is odd.  Sometimes, Johnny seems to forget that he and Micki spend all of their time dealing with cursed antiques and battling the Devil.  I mean, has Johnny forgotten about the time that he spent in prison after he was wrongly convicted of murdering his father?  Johnny seems to go from being streetwise to naive rather abruptly, all depending on what the episode’s story requires of him.  It’s also a bit of an odd coincidence that Johnny would just happen to be a fan of someone who has one of the cursed antiques but, then again, this wasn’t the first time this happened on Friday the 13th and I imagine it will happen a few more times as well.

This episode had an interesting premise, though I do have to wonder how Alex found out about the curse in the first place.  It doesn’t seem like the most practical of curses.  Alex must write, sell, and publish his books in record time.  Micki always seems to be getting possessed, which usually leads to her posing in a doorway and delivering her lines like a 40s noir heroine.  (In this episode, she also takes up smoking.)  Fortunately, Robey always did a good job pulling off the whole suddenly possessed thing.  I imagine it must have been pretty traumatic for Micki but at least Johnny learned a lesson about reading trashy true crime paperbacks.

As for this episode, Colm Feore was a good villain, there was plenty of noirish atmosphere, and the episode didn’t take itself particularly seriously.  It kept me entertained!  Really, what more can you ask from a show?