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!
This week …. ugh.
Episode 3.15 “The Long Road Home”
(Dir by Allan Kroeker, originally aired on February 12th, 1990)
This week’s episode starts where most episodes end. Micki and Johnny retrieve the cursed antique. In this case, it’s a yin-yang charm that allows the owner to swap minds with a recently deceased person. That sounds like a really cool antique and I have to admit that I’m kind of annoyed that this is one of those shows where the antique is recovered early. I would have enjoyed seeing the entire search.
I certainly would have enjoyed it more than having to spend the next 40-something minutes listening to Micki and Johnny discuss whether or not to start a relationship while, at the same time, being pursued by an inbred redneck and his brother. This episode goes off the rails as soon as Micki and Johnny step into a roadside diner that is owned by a family of homicidal hillbillies. In order to save their lives, Johnny had to use the cursed antique himself so that he could enter the body of one of the brothers. That went against everything that the show previously established about the cursed antiques. You’re not supposed to use a cursed antique, not even once. Johnny uses it and everything works out fine for him. It feels like cheating and it was something that Ryan would never have done. God, I miss Ryan.
But I want to get back to this relationship nonsense. Since when is Micki attracted to Johnny? Johnny’s been hitting on Micki since his first appearance and she’s never been interested in the past. Now, suddenly, they’re having a relationship talk? It comes out of nowhere. In the end, Micki and Johnny agree not to have a relationship as long as there are still cursed antiques that need to be found and that’s a good idea. Still, the whole thing just felt tacked on.
This episode was dull. Chris Wiggins wasn’t in it and that’s a shame because this episode needed his steady, no-nonsense presence.
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!
This week, it’s just Jack and Micki!
Episode 3.12 “Epitaph For A Lonely Heart”
(Dir by Allan Kroeker, originally aired on January 22nd, 1990)
Eli Leonard (Neil Munro) is a mortician who uses a cursed embalming needle to bring the dead back to life. Of course, he has to kill someone for the needle to work. Eli has fallen in love with the corpse of a young woman and …. EEK!
The dead woman’s fiancé is Steve Wells (Barclay Hope), a friend of Micki’s who let’s her know that he thinks something strange is happening at the funeral home before he himself is killed by Eli. Micki and Jack investigate! It all ends with a big and convenient fire, which not only kills Eli but also the two women who he has recently brought back to life.
Johnny Ventura was not in this episode and, as much as I’ve complained about the character, he actually is missed. Having Micki just working solely with Jack threw off the show’s balance a little. Jack is so much older than Micki that, in this episode, it felt as if Micki was Jack’s apprentice as opposed to being an equal partner in the search for the cursed items. As a character, Micki works best when she has an impulsive guy like Ryan or Johnny to play off of. Both she and Jack tend be cautious so this episode just felt a bit off.
(That said, there was an enjoyable scene of Jack and Micki having to host a gathering of all the other local antique dealers, none of whom knew that Jack and Micki spend all of their time fighting the Devil.)
The mortician was one of the least sympathetic villains that this show has ever featured. He was lonely but he also an obsessive creeper with no people skills. Fridaythe 13th has often featured villains who were tragically misguided or seduced by the cursed antique. The mortician was just a creep. Neil Munro did a good job playing him, making him into a villain who you couldn’t wait to see meet his fate.
In the end, though, this episode just felt off. I guess this show really does need Johnny screwing up and accidentally giving away the cursed antiques. Who would have guessed?
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!
This week’s episode begins in Manitoba but ends in Toronto.
Episode 2.5 “The Whole Truth”
(Dir by Allan Kroeker, originally aired on October 31st, 1988)
Apparently, with the start of the second season, the producers of T & T decided that the show no longer needed to begin with Mr. T telling us what was going to happen on “today’s episode.” That’s a shame, as Mr. T’s introductions were one of the highlights of the first season.
This episode begins with a title card telling us that the scene we’re about to watch is taking place in St. Louis. I’m going to assume that the show must be referring to the St. Louis in Manitoba because everyone knows that T & T totally takes place in Canada.
In St. Louis, Manitoba, a teenage pool player named Bobby (Lowell Conrad) is making a lot of money at the local pool hall. But when a man named Mike (James Purcell) steps into the pool hall, Bobby quickly puts away his pool cue and then makes a run for it.
Both Bobby and Mike end up in the city where T & T is set. A title card tells us that this city is apparently named “Metro County,” but again, the viewer only has to look at the snow on the ground and listen to accents of the inhabitants to realize that Metro County is actually Toronto.
Mike and Amy show up at Decker’s gym, where they have a meeting with T.S. (As opposed to the first season, in which Turner worked out of Amy’s law office, it now appears that T.S. works exclusively out of the gym.) Amy says that Mike is a client who needs help. Mike explains that he works for a St. Louis insurance company that is after a juvenile car thief named Bobby Slayton. Despite the fact that everything about Mike — from his suit to his smirk — radiates evil, T.S. agrees to help.
Joe Casper (Sean Roberge), who is apparently now like totally reformed from his flirtation with being a Neo-Nazi in the previous episode, is now living at Decker’s gym. He helps T.S. by walking around Toronto and asking random people, “Have you seen a 16 year-old, about 5’6?” Somehow, this vague description leads him to Bobby, who is once again making a living as a pool hustler.
As you probably already guessed, Mike is not an insurance agent and Bobby is not a car thief. Instead, Bobby is someone who has been on the run ever since he saw Mike murder a convenience store clerk during a robbery. When Mike comes after Bobby, he finds T.S. waiting for him.
“You’re outta gas, brother!” T.S. yells before grabbing Mike.
The episodes ends on a curious note, with T.S., Amy, and Bobby leaving a courtroom and lamenting that Mike was found not guilty on the robbery charge. Bobby says that the system failed to do its job but T.S. tells him that “sometimes, that’s what happens, little brother.” But, T.S. also assures Bobby that Mike will be going to jail on the attempted murder charge. Well, let’s hope so.
So far, this season of T&T seems like it’s attempting to be a bit more serious than the first season. If this episode had aired during the first season, Mr. T would have picked up Mike by his ankles and carried him around Toronto while inviting all of the citizens to jeer him and throw hockey pucks at him. Instead, in this episode, we just get Mr. T grabbing Mike and then waiting for the police to show up. That’s a shame as the first season was at its best whenever it acknowledged the absurdity of Mr. T working as a private detective in Toronto. This is really not a show that has any business taking itself seriously.
As with the previous second season episodes, there was a serious lack of Mr. T quirkiness in this episode. There was no talk of his love for cookies or gospel music. So far, about the only personality that T.S. Turner retains from the first season is his habit of calling everyone “brother.” Otherwise, T.S. has been turned into a typical, streetwise private eye. Seriously, why would you cast Mr. T and then not let him be Mr. T?
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!
This week, Mr. T takes on drug dealers and mad bombers!
Episode 1.5 “The Drop”
(Dir by Allan Kroeker, originally aired on February 8th, 1988)
“In this episode,” Mr. T tells us, “a kid’s life is shattered when he’s arrested for dealing drugs. Amy and I try to pick the pieces, with some unexpected help from Renee!”
This episode begins with one of my favorite cop show clichés. A suspected drug courier is grabbed by two cops. They open the envelope that he was carrying and discover a white powder. One of the cops puts some of the power on her fingers and then sticks her fingers in her mouth.
“High grade crack!” she announced.
Hey, just be happy it wasn’t anthrax!
In this case, the accused courier is a 14 year-old named Norm (Gerry Musgrave), who says that he has no idea what was in the envelopes and he was only carrying them because he answered a classified ad asking for delivery people. However, the prosecution is determined to send a message by trying Norm as an adult! Fortunately, Norm is friends with T.S.’s goddaughter, Renee (Rachael Crawford). Renee brings T.S. and Amy onto the case.
“Loosen up, brother, you already convinced us,” T.S. tells Norm, “Now we just got to the convince the court.”
Norm moves into T.S.’s home, where he is looked after by the gospel-singing Aunt Martha (Jackie Robinson). While Jackie helps Norm get settled in, Renee approaches T.S. and says, “I’ve seen the ads on crack. I know what it does.”
“And you want to help Norm,” T.S. says, “Don’t get involved! People dealing drugs are very dangerous!”
Renee does not take T.S.’s advice and instead, approaches the school drug dealer, Bob Douglas (Jeremy Ratchford). She compliments Bob on his red trans am and Bob invites her to meet up with him at a local disco. Renee’s friends tell her that she might be making a mistake but Renee snaps that she can’t look the other way like everyone else at school.
While Renee skips class so she can meet up with Bob at the most depressing nightclub I’ve ever seen (seriously, there’s just one very sad disco ball hanging over the dance floor), T.S. meets with Fat Sam, who is not fat and who is played by future television director Clark Johnson! (As an actor, Johnson is probably best-known for playing Meldrick Lewis on Homicide and later Gus Johnson on The Wire.)
“Fat Sam,” T.S. says, “you’re the coolest dude I know!”
“As long as the dice keep rolling my way,” Fat Sam replies, “Rumor on the street has it that you’re looking for a specific crack dealer.”
“Be honest with you, Fat Sam,” T.S. replies, “I want to bust all the crack dealers but I want this one first.”
Fat Sam makes some phone calls and tells T.S. that the crack dealer he’s looking for is …. BOB DOUGLAS!
“Thanks, Fat Sam, I owe you one,” T.S. replies.
Meanwhile, Bob Douglas has taken Renee to his loft apartment! When Bob discovers the Renee has been searching his apartment while he was distracted, Bob has a paranoid breakdown, accuses Renee of being a narc, and makes a run for it. Fortunately, T.S. and Amy show up in time to catch him and clear Norm’s name! Yay!
This episode suffered a bit because, for all the build-up, it turned out that all Amy and T.S. needed to do to prove Norm’s innocence was to get Fat Sam to make one phone call. It felt a bit anticlimactic, to say the least. This is a case where the limits of that 30-minute running time really worked against the story the show was trying to tell. That said, Mr. T growling against crack is always enjoyable to watch.
Episode 1.6 “Something In The Air”
(Dir by Allan A. Goldstein, originally aired on February 15th, 1988)
“In this episode,” Mr. T tell us, “a radio DJ is the target of an angry phone caller. While Amy fights to keep the D.J. on the air, I get to make a few calls of my own.”
After radio DJ PJ Reynolds (Lee Curreri) encourages his listeners to “take it to the streets,” one of his listeners blows up a mailbox. The district attorney wants to take Reynolds off the air! Fortunately, Reynold is a client of Amy Taler’s! When Louney (Neil Munro), the smarmy D.A. tries to convince Amy and T.S. to deliver a court summons to the DJ, T.S. replies, “Sorry, brother. We ain’t a delivery service!”
Because there’s only one explosives dealer in all of Canada, Turner confronts his friend Whisperer (Martin Donlevy) and demands to know who he has been selling to. Whisperer says that he sold a timer to a man who said that he wanted to take down Reynolds. “He sounded like someone who was used to getting what he wants.” Somehow, T.S. figures that this means Louney is behind the bombings. Turner needs Louney to call the show again but Reynolds has voluntarily taken himself off the air.
“Let’s talk responsibility,” Turner snaps at the DJ, “That’s the big talk!”
Convined that he has a responsibility, Reynolds goes back on the air and Louney can’t help but call him. Though Louney hangs up before the police can trace the call, T.S. is staking out Louney’s house and, as soon as Louney steps outside with a briefcase bomb, Turner goes after him. It leads to a car chase that ends with T.S. capturing Louney and forcing to Louney to defuse his latest bomb right before it detonates.
A grateful PJ promises that, from now on, he’s going to be “Mr. Mellow” on the air. When Amy says she doesn’t think it’ll happen, PJ says, “You’ll have to tune in and see.”
“Not me, brother,” T.S. replies, “I’m going to stick to my TV …. it’s my favorite medium!”
I liked this episode because it stood up for free speech. Any show that exposes a power-crazed bureaucrat, I’m going to enjoy.
Next week, Amy and T.S. search for …. THE SILVER ANGEL!
Through the Shattered Lens 