The Prize Winner”

Posted on March 25, 2026 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 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!

Come aboard, we’re expecting you….

Episode 7.12 “Dee Dee’s Dilemma/Julie’s Blind Date/The Prize Winner”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on December 3rd, 1983)

A detective (Don Gordon) tells Isaac and Gopher that he suspects a woman named Doris will be boarding the boat. She’s supposed to testify in a high-profile divorce case and she’s been dodging the process servers. The detective mentions that there’s a reward for turning Doris in. That definitely get Gopher and Isaac’s attention.

And Doris (Markie Post) is on the boat! Except she is pretending to be a teenager named Dee Dee and she’s speaking in an annoying squeaky voice. Jerry Howard (Clark Brandon) meets Dee Dee and develops a crush on her. Meanwhile, Jerry’s father, Phil (Geoffrey Scott), meets Doris and develops a crush of his own! In the end, Doris falls in love with Phil and Jerry …. well, Jerry gets his heart broken but he claims not to care. Phil is amused. As for the divorce case, it’s settled so Doris doesn’t have to testify after all!

(And no, there’s no reward for Isaac and Gopher. In fact, Stubing threatens to fire them.)

While that’s going on, author Daniel Baker (Tom Poston) wants to enjoy a romantic cruise with his wife (Abby Dalton) but he’s being blackmailed by his assistant, Wendy (Leslie Easterbrook). Wendy knows that Daniel plagiarized sections of his book and she threatens to reveal the truth unless Daniel has an affair with her. This is one of those storylines that would have worked better if some different casting choices had been made. As it is, noted sex symbol Tom Poston feels miscast.

Finally, Julie has a blind date boarding the boat. He turns out to be a nerdy, overweight guy named Leonard Gluck (Walter Olkewicz). Julie has nothing in common with Leonard and is planning on dumping him. But then Leonard dumps her first and Julie has a crisis of confidence. This story had the potential to reveal a new side of Julie but, in the end, Leonard revealed that he only dumped Julie to make her like him and Julie’s confidence was restored, along with her rule about not dating fat guys.

This was not a great cruise. It took me two minutes to get sick of Dee Dee’s voice. Oh well — not every trip can be a winner!

The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1958, directed by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 10, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent. That’s the title of this one and it’s far too long for a 67-minute drive-in feature. Maybe Roger Corman thought he could fool people into thinking the movie was better than it was by giving it a pompous sounding title.

A group of Viking men leave on a voyage and never come back. After waiting nearly a year, the remaining Viking women vote to set sail and look for them. Leading them is Desir (Abby Dalton) and she even welcomes the bad-tempted Enger (Susan Cabot) onto their boat. The last remaining male Viking, Ottar (Jonathan Haze), also joins the quest.

The Viking women (and Ottar) have barely set sail when a “giant” sea serpent rises out of the water and strands them on an island. The Viking women discover that their men are being held prisoner on the island. Even if they can rescue their men from King Stark (Richard Devon), the sea serpent still waits for them to try to return.

The Saga of the Viking Women and yadda yadda yadda is a remarkably cheap-looking epic. A major film about the Vikings was scheduled to be released by United Artists and Corman, determined to get his movie into theaters first, shot the film in ten days and for $65,000. Irving Block and Jack Rabin, two special effects experts, promised Corman an amazing sea serpent and instead delivered what appeared to be a water-proof puppet. The Sea Serpent only appears in two scenes and Corman doesn’t allow us a very good view of it. It looks like something you could have picked up at Toys ‘R Us back in the day.

There’s nothing convincing about the movie, from the costumes to the combat to the serpent. This was one of Roger Corman’s early misfires though, released on a double bill with the Astounding She-Monster, it still made money. People love Vikings.

MAVERICK (TV Series) – starring James Garner – S2, E19: “Duel at Sundown” (Guest star – Clint Eastwood)

Posted on May 30, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Bret Maverick (James Garner) stops off and visits his old friend Jed Christianson (Edgar Buchanan). Jed is desperate to break up the hot and heavy romance between his beautiful and wild daughter, Carrie (Abby Dalton), and a good for nothing gunslinger named Red Hardigan (Clint Eastwood). He asks Bret to stay for a while and help break them up. Not really wanting to get involved, Bret changes his tune when he’s offered $1,000 to hang around for a week. There is one serious problem, though, and that’s the fact that Red has a reputation for being extremely fast and accurate with a gun, and he’s not afraid to use it. When Bret actually sees a demonstration of Red’s shooting skills, he knows he’s going to have to come up with a plan to drive Red away that avoids a gunfight at all costs. And that’s exactly what he does. I won’t give away exactly what he does, but it involves his brother Bart (Jack Kelly) and a notorious gunslinger named John Wesley Hardin, and it’s genius!

As we continue to celebrate the birthday of Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood, I decided I’d watch his 1959 guest starring appearance on the TV series MAVERICK with James Garner. I recently watched Eastwood and Garner work together in the enjoyable “geezers in space” movie SPACE COWBOYS (2000), which came out about 40 years after this. With that fresh in mind, I especially enjoyed seeing them work together while they were both in their prime. “Duel at Sundown” is the first episode I’ve watched of the MAVERICK TV series, and I must say that I had a ball with it. James Garner’s effortless charisma and laid back demeanor as Bret Maverick make his character right down my alley. Nothing seems to rattle the man, and he’s as funny as hell! As of the time of this review, all five seasons of the series are streaming on PlutoTV, so I’m planning on catching some more episodes as I can. As far as the young Clint Eastwood, who was 29 when this show premiered, he definitely looks the part of a future star. Maybe I’m just being influenced by what he’s accomplished over the last 60 years, but his steely intensity, his great head of hair, and his way with the ladies are all on display. And even though his character of Red is a hot headed gunslinger who’s driven by jealousy, there are a couple of times when he flashes that million dollar smile, and you can’t help but like him. For me, it’s fun to watch these megastars in roles when they were just working actors trying to build a career. You can usually see the qualities that will make them the most popular actors in the world, but they’re still going to lose to the star of the series at the end. It’s a rite of passage.

Overall, “Duel at Sundown” is an excellent introduction to the MAVERICK TV series for me. It’s funny and actually quite clever, as evidenced by the scheme that Bret Maverick comes up with at the end to keep from having to face Red in a gunfight. But the true highlight is seeing Garner, in one of his signature roles, working with a young Eastwood who’s destined for stardom. I highly recommend it!