Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.8 “Last Breath”

Posted on 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Some people stand in the darkness …. let’s get back to reviewing Baywatch Nights!  I’ve missed talking about this silly show.

Episode 2.8 “Last Breath”

(Dir by Gregory J. Bonnan, originally aired on November 17th, 1996)

Lifeguards are disappearing!

After hearing the sounds of someone shouting for help in the distance, three lifeguards — including Donna — vanish while investigating.  It’s assumed that they’ve drowned but Mitch has his doubts.  And it turns out that Mitch is correct!  This is an evil haunting the sea and yes, it’s stalking lifeguards.

What type of evil is it?

Is it a sea monster?

Is it a ghost?

Is it an alien creature?

How about a mutant octopus?

Maybe a dinosaur of some sort?

Could it be an unfrozen Viking or a vampire or a time traveler or a….

Well, you get the idea.  And really, it should have been one of those things.  The second season of Baywatch Nights was all about David Hasselhoff and Angie Harmon investigating supernatural ocean stuff.  It was specifically designed to be X-Files on the beach.  We’ve all heard the urban legend of the weeping woman who haunts lakes.  As soon as the lifeguards heard those shouts, I assumed this episode would feature an ocean version of La Llorona.

Well, it turns out I was wrong.  Instead, the lifeguard are being kidnapped by a man who blames them for the death of his family in a car accident.  The madman (Brett Baxter Clark), who is not at all supernatural, is keeping the lifeguards trapped in a cage.  (How do random madmen always manage to have a super-strong cage just lying around?)  He wants to recreate the accident that led to the death of his family.  Can Mitch track the cage down and rescue his lifeguards?

This episode was disappointing on many levels, with the main problem being that there was really nothing to distinguish it from a typical episode of Baywatch.  All it needed was to open with that Some People Stand In The Darkness song for it to be an episode of Baywatch.  When you watch the second season of Baywatch Nights, you’re watching because you want to see David Hasselhoff and Angie Harmon pretending to be Mulder and Scully.  You watch it because you want to see a combination of swimsuits and supernatural phenomena.  Once you take away the supernatural, you take away this show’s main appeal.

That said, if you were a fan of the original Baywatch, you may enjoy certain parts of this episode. Newmie shows up!  At first, I was like, “Don’t you dare kidnap Newmie!” but, fortunately, Newmie was too clever to fall for any traps.

Next week, the supernatural will return to the beach!

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.7 “The Perfect Husband/Volcano”

Posted on 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984.  Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites.  Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

Yay!  It’s finally time to return to the Island.

Episode 5.7 “The Perfect Husband/Volcano”

(Dir by Philip Leacock, originally aired on November 21st, 1981)

This week, it’s Tattoo’s turn to serve as Roarke’s sidekick while Julie is sent off to deal with two weddings and a tour for “the seniors.”

On the one hand, it’s incredibly awkward for Roarke to have two sidekicks and it’s pretty obvious that Julie was only hired to serve as insurance in case Herve Villechaize walked off the set.

On the other hand, it is kind of nice to be reminded of the fact that there’s a lot happening on Fantasy Island.  Fantasy Island is not just a mystical nation that is ruled over by the enigmatic Mr. Roarke.  It’s also a resort that hosts vacations and retirement homes.  Apparently, you don’t have to have a fantasy in order to spend some time on Fantasy Island.  Instead, you can just come to Fantasy Island for a nice tropical vacation.  That’s kind of nice.

But, that said, the fantasies are why we’re here.  We’ve got two good ones this week.

Dorothy Nicholson (Susan Sullivan) is a newspaper publisher who has been feeling unfulfilled ever since her husband was killed by a drunk driver.  She want to find the perfect husband, a man without any flaws whatsoever.  After giving her his customary “You may not like what you find,” warning, Roarke sends her to Paradise Cove.  Operated by the sinister Anton Jagger (Rossano Brazzi), Paradise Cover is a resort where wealthy women are assigned the perfect companion.  Dorothy’s perfect man is Gilbert (Lyle Waggoner).  Gilbert is handsome, suave, charming, and attentive.  Unfortunately, like all of the perfect men at Paradise Cove, he’s also a robot and a part of Jagger’s scheme to cheat women out of their money!  Dorothy figures out the truth after Gilbert doesn’t even flinch after his hand catches on fire.  Can she defeat Jagger’s plans and rescue the real Gilbert?

(Of course, she can.  It’s Fantasy Island!)

Dr. Hal Workman (George Maharis) thinks that he’s figured out a way to detect when a volcano is going to erupt.  He wants to go to Fantasy Island’s own active volcano to test out his methods.  Roarke agrees, even though he worries that Dr. Workman only cares about science and not about people.  (Honestly, who cares?  A volcano detection system sounds like it would be a good thing, regardless of the motives of the man who created it.)  Workman is led to the volcano by a disillusioned former priest named Lauria (Richard Romanus).  However, Workman and Lauria are not the only people at the volcano.  There’s also a shady tycoon, Joseph Butler (Norman Alden), and his girlfriend, Terri (Misty Rowe).  You can probably guess what happens.  Workman falls in love with Terri.  Lauria finds his faith.  And Butler presumably dies when the volcano erupts and a deluge of what appears to be very thin tomato sauce comes pouring down the mountain.

Both of these fantasies were cheerfully ridiculous, which made them a lot of fun.  You may wonder why Roarke would send one of his guests to a resort that’s being run by a madman and that’s a legitimate question.  But the important thing is that the viewer gets a montage of all of the robots malfunctioning at once.  And you may wonder at the wisdom of allowing someone to go to an active volcano but the important thing is that we get a scene of George Maharis and Richard Romanus running away from the least realistic lava flow ever caught on film.  Fantasy Island is a lot of fun when it goes over the top and embraces its beautiful absurdity and that’s exactly what this episode did.

What a wonderful trip to the Island!

Music Video of the Day: Sink or Swim by OneRepublic (2024, dir by Isaac Rentz)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Are we going to sink or swim?

I would be more concerned with all of the random explosions!  That can’t be good.

Remember at the height of the COVID lockdowns, when they tried to fill all of the skate parks with sand to keep skaters from spreading COVID, despite the fact that the people most at risk of dying from COVID were also the people least likely to be hanging out at a skate park?  Seriously, people have mentally blocked out so much of the weirdness that went on from 2020 to 2022.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 2.10 “Return of the Turks”

Posted on 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 Freevee!

After two months, I’m ready to get back on the California highways with Jon and Ponch!

Episode 2.10 “Return of the Turks”

(Dir by Barry Crane, aired on November 25th, 1978)

It’s always bad news whenever Ponch runs into any of his old friends.

In this episode, when he pulls over a van, he’s shocked to discover that it’s being driven by his old friend, Sid (Kaz Garas).  After discovering that former wild man Ponch has now become a cop, Sid spirals into a midlife crisis that leads to him and his friend Rudy (Mark Thomas) playing bumper cars on the highway.  Sid is freaked out by the entire experience but Rudy discovers that he loves intentionally bumping into other cars and forcing them off the road.

This episode featured a lot of car crashes and, as usual with CHiPs, they were well-filmed.  But I have to admit that I found it almost too disturbing to watch.  Usually, I enjoy a good car chase or a spectacularly-filmed car crash.  I like fast cars and I’ve always been aware that, when a car crashes onscreen, it’s being driven by a stunt driver.  But, back in May, was Dad was in a very serious car crash.  He not only broke his shoulder but the crash aggravated his Parkinson’s and the subsequent stay in the hospital and in rehab left him so weak that he died two weeks ago.  As a result, I’m not really in the mood for car crashes right now.  That’s not the fault of this show, of course.  And, under normal circumstances, I would probably be raving about how exciting Rudy’s highway mayhem was.

Ponch is not the only one who meets someone from his past.  Baker runs into Pete (James Houghton), the brother of his former partner.  Pete’s brother died when he crashed his motorcycle on duty.  Pete now puts on his brother’s uniform and pretends to be a member of the Highway Patrol, writing tickets and directing traffic,  Because he stole and copied a page from Ponch’s ticket book, Ponch gets the credit for all the tickets but — uh oh! — it turns out that a lot of the tickets are being contested in court.  Pete is a bit overzealous.  Can Baker and Ponch get Pete off the street before he pulls over the wrong person?  And why is a story about the brother of Baker’s former partner mostly about Ponch?

This was a rather melancholy episode.  It’s easy to laugh at any episode that features people talking about how Ponch used to be a delinquent because Erik Estrada’s goofy performance doesn’t exactly lend itself to that interpretation.  But, in the end, Sid, Pete, and even Rudy were all suffering from a general sort of malaise.  They all regretted the way that their lives had turned out and they were all using the California highways as a way to live out their dreams.  Unfortunately, by doing so, they put other people’s lives at risk.  Fortunately, Baker and Ponch were there to keep the highways safe …. though only after two spectacularly-filmed pile-ups.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Hal Ashby Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, the Shattered Lens celebrates what would have been the 95th birthday of Hal Ashby, one of the most important (and, sadly, one of the most overlooked) directors of the 1970s.  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Hal Ashby Films

Harold and Maude (1971, dir by Hal Ashby, DP: John A. Alonzo)

The Last Detail (1973, dir by Hal Ashby, DP: Michael Chapman)

Bound for Glory (1976, dir by Hal Ashby, DP: Haskell Wexler)

Being There (1979, dir by Hal Ashby, DP: Caleb Deschanel)

Scenes That I Love: Keanu Reeves in John Wick

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, we wish a happy sixtieth birthday to the one and only Keanu Reeves!

Today’s scene that I love comes from the film that made Keanu an icon for a whole generation of moviegoers who had blocked The Matrix sequels from their collective memories, John Wick.  In this scene, Keanu explains that it wasn’t just a dog that he lost.

There’s not a pet owner in the world who doesn’t understand exactly what John Wick is saying here.  And it must be said that Keanu, who has definitely grown a good deal as an actor over the years, really sells the emotions in this scene.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.20 “Payback”

Posted on 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!

After taking a two-month hiatus, I think it’s time to finally get back to the reviews.  Thank you for your patience, everyone.  Now, let’s head to down to Miami for some Vice!

Episode 2.20 “Payback”

(Dir by Aaron Lipstadt, originally aired on March 14th, 1986)

A low-level drug dealer named Jesus Moroto (Roberto Duran) wants a meeting with the detective who arrested him and sent him to jail.  When Sonny Crockett arrives to see what Moroto wants, Sonny is shocked when Moroto commits suicide in the visitation room.

Sudden and violent deaths are a recurring thing in Miami but the death of Moroto haunts Sonny.  As Sonny explains to Tubbs, it doesn’t make any sense for Moroto, who was only looking at a few years in jail, to have killed himself.  Sonny wonders why Moroto died in front of him.  Tubbs suggests that Sonny instead focus on their current assignment, trying to get close to the elusive drug lord, Mario Fuente (played by famed art rocker, Frank Zappa).  As a lot of drug lords do on this show, Fuente lives on a yacht and it’s next to impossible to see him.  Using their undercover identities as Burnett and Cooper, Crockett and Tubbs have so far only been able to meet with Fuente’s second-in-command, Reuben Reydolfo (Dan Hedaya).

Crockett and Tubbs find themselves assigned to work with two DEA agents, one whom — Kevin Cates (Graham Beckel) — claims that he can get Crockett and Tubbs onto Fuente’s boat.  Crockett and Tubbs are reluctant to work with anyone but it soon turns out that Cates is apparently better at his job than Crockett and Tubbs gave him credit for.

Except, of course, everyone’s got a secret.  Before he went to jail, Moroto stole several million dollars from Fuente.  It turns out that Internal Affairs is convinced that Crockett helped Moroto steal the money and Fuente, who knows that Burnett and Cooper are actually Crockett and Tubbs, believes the same thing.  The only person who can truly prove that Crockett is innocent is Kevin Cates and that’s because he’s the one who stole the money!

It doesn’t matter that the twisty plot of this particular episode is not always easy to follow.  It also doesn’t matter that this episode leaves you wondering just how exactly Crockett and Tubbs have managed to maintain their Burnett/Cooper personas for so long without everyone in Miami’s underworld figuring out the truth.  (Personally, I wonder that after every episode.)  This episode works due to the atmospheric direction of Aaron Lipstadt and the performances of Don Johnson, Edward James Olmos, Frank Zappa, and especially Graham Beckel.  Beckel gives a performance that will keep you guessing at just who exactly Kevin Cates is working for and whether or not he can be trusted.  That he makes Kevin into a somewhat likable character makes it all the more disturbing when he turns out to not be quite the honest law enforcer that he made himself out to be.  If the main theme of Miami Vice often seemed to be that Crockett and Tubbs were fighting a war that there was no way to win, this episode shows why their work often felt so futile.  In this episode, Crockett not only has to battle a drug lord but he also has to battle Internal Affairs.  No one trusts anyone.

The episode ends on an ambiguous note, with Crockett technically cleared but still unable to truly prove his innocence.  (Kevin Cates, the only man who can truly prove Crockett’s innocence, is naturally gunned down during the show’s final few minutes.)  Crockett is warned that Fuente is still going to be coming after him.  (Unfortunately, Zappa was in poor health when he filmed this episode and Fuente would never return.)  This episode is Miami Vice at its most cynical and its most effective.

Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us For The Man From Hong Kong and Death Becomes Her!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasion ally Mastodon.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We snark our way through it.

Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be The Man From Hong Kong, starring George Lazenby!  The film is on Tubi!

Then, on twitter, #MondayMuggers will be showing Death Becomes Her!  The film is on Prime and it starts at 10 pm et!

It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in.  If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up The Man From Hong Kong on Tubi, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!  Then switch over to twitter, pull Death Becomes Her up on Prime, and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag! 

Enjoy!

Celebrate Labor Day With These 14 Films!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have no idea what this day is supposed to celebrate but I hope everyone has a good one.

There doesn’t seem to be any agreed upon way to celebrate Labor Day.  A few people have the day off and they’re the reason why I decided to hold off on going up to Lake Texoma until this upcoming, holiday-free weekend.  Personally, I think the best way to celebrate any holiday is with a film festival so here are my suggestions for your Labor Day viewing:

  1. Red Menace (1949) — In this wonderfully atmospheric film noir, a former GI named Bill Jones (Robert Rockwell) finds himself seduced by the Communist Party.  After he witnesses the head of the party murder a man who questions the wisdom of Marx, Jones and his lover go on the run.
  2. Big Jim McClain (1951) — John Wayne takes on the commies!  And you better believe that no one is more determined to keep America and its workers safe from communist influence than the Duke!  This film features some lovely Hawaiian scenery and enough over-the-top propaganda to make any American proud.
  3. I Was A Communist For The FBI (1951) — Based (I imagine very loosely) on a true story, I Was A Communist For The FBI is about an agent who spent nine years undercover as a communist.  As a result, he lost his friends and almost his family but he also serves his country.  Featuring a scene where a strike turns violent, there’s nothing subtle about this film but, as with Big Jim McClain, that’s a large part of what makes the movie so watchable.
  4. On The Waterfront (1954) — Marlon Brando won his first Oscar for this film about union corruption.
  5. Dr. No (1962) — In his very first film outing, James Bond shows what a good job a true professional can do.
  6. The Godfather (1972) — “It’s strictly business.”
  7. Blue Collar (1978) — In this gritty film from Paul Schrader, three auto-workers (played by Yaphet Kotto, Harvey Keitel, and Richard Pryor) discover that their union is even more corrupt than management.  Consider this film to be an antidote to Norma Rae.
  8. F.I.S.T. (1978) — After the success of Rocky, Sylvester Stallone played a thinly-disguised version of Jimmy Hoffa in this epic historical film.  The film is poorly paced and doesn’t quite work but it’s interesting to see Stallone, post-Rocky, playing a character who isn’t necessarily all-that heroic.
  9. Convoy (1979) — The film celebrate the independent trucker, the hard-working driver who doesn’t want to be tied down by either the unions or the law.  Convoy is infamous for being an out-of-control production and yes, it is a bit self-indulgent.  But who cares?  When that convoy forms, you have to heartless not to cheer a little.
  10. Alien (1979) — One of the best films about how much it sucks to have to work for a living, Alien follows a group of blue-collar workers whose lives are deliberately put in danger by a big, faceless corporation.
  11. Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989) — A labor strike leaves a Brooklyn neighborhood reeling.  This film is not for the faint-hearted.
  12. Hoffa (1991) — Jack Nicholson stars as Jimmy Hoffa in this uneven but watchable film.  This movie is unabashedly pro-Hoffa and therefore, it provides an interesting contrast to films like F.I.S.T. and Blue Collar.
  13. Office Space (1999) — And don’t forget to sing along to the copier scene!
  14. The Irishman (2019) — Despite all the criticism that it received when it was first released, The Irishman is one of Martin Scorsese’s finest films.  It takes a while to get used to the de-aging but Al Pacino’s performance as Jimmy Hoffa was brilliant.  This film is one of the best looks at how the American labor movement lost its way.