Tag Archives: Ardon Bess

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi: The Next Generation 2.11 “Don’t Believe The Hype”

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 Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015!  The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi.

Degrassi goes there!

Episode 2.11 “Don’t Believe The Hype”

(Dir by Anais Granofsky, originally aired on December 23rd, 2002)

“A hate crime has been committed here,” Snake declares in this episode.  He declares it very seriously.  In fact, he’s a little bit too serious.  His voice and his expression are so grim that the line actually has the opposite effect of what it intended.  The same can be said of this episode itself.  Degrassi was always political but, up until its final seasons, it was usually smart enough to understand that encouraging audiences to look between the lines was preferable to hitting them over the head.  Occasionally, though, this show did give us an episode like this one.

As for the hate crime, it’s the vandalization of a display about Iraq.  It’s International Day and Fareeza (Jessica Rose) made the display to inform people about her home country.  Fareeza is sure that her display was vandalized by Hazel because, earlier, Hazel give Fareeza a fashion ticket because her hijab was judged to be “terrorist chic.”  Hazel also said that Fareeza needed to back off before “Jamaica declared war on Iraq.”

Fareeza replies that Hazel’s last name — Aden — doesn’t sound Jamaican.  (It doesn’t?  Really?)  “You look Somalian,” Fareeza says.

Anyway, it turns out that the displays was vandalized by two unnamed students.  But Mr. Raditch still tells Hazel that she committed a hate crime by joking about declaring war on Iraq.  At first, Hazel is defensive but then she becomes so overwhelmed with guilt that she admits that she isn’t Jamaican.  She actually is Somalian!  Of course, I think one could argue that Fareeza committed a hate crime with her “You look Somalian” comment.  I mean, talk about stereotyping!  It’s like telling me I look Irish just because I have red hair and I’m half-Irish.

(At this point, I should mention that Andea Lewis, who played Hazel, was not Somalian.  In fact, in real life, she’s half-Jamaican.  But then again, Jessica Rose, who played Fareeza, was not from Iraq.)

Now, needless to say, Hazel being a Somalian refugee is one of those plot points that will hardly ever be mentioned again.  And Fareeza will never appear in another episode of Degrassi.  Fareeza showed up.  She taught everyone a lesson.  Having fulfilled her plot obligations, her character is never seen again.

Hazel later gives a presentation about her Somalian heritage and the school loves her.  (We don’t see the presentation that Fareeza gave about Iraq.  Sorry, Fareeza, this is Hazel’s episode.)  Meanwhile, JT’s friends discover that he’s good at sewing and everyone, except for Liberty, makes fun of him.  It’s easy to roll one’s eyes at Liberty’s crush on JT until you remember that JT is destined to end dying on Liberty’s birthday.  But that’s far in the future.  For now, JT is an adorable scamp who has no idea that he’s going to be literally stabbed in the back.

There’s nothing subtle about this episode and the end result is that it feels almost more like a parody of Degrassi than anything else.

 

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.12 “Thief of Hearts”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, Terri’s ex-boyfriend is in town and T.S. is largely indifferent.

Episode 3.12 “Thief of Hearts”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on March 24th, 1990)

Terri’s ex-boyfriend from college, Zack (Patrick McKenna), is in town.  He tells her that he’s in town testifying as an expert witness in a trial but soon, he also reveals that he’s involved in another get-rich-quick-scheme.  He’s looking for investors to fund a search for a treasure that was lost at sea.  While Turner reacts with his usual indifference, Terri worries that Zack is conning all of her friends.

This was a bizarrely inconsequential episode of a show that, by its third season, had pretty much lost whatever reason it once had for existing.  It’s an episode about Terri dealing with her past and her future but since we really don’t know much about Terri — beyond the fact that she suddenly showed up at the start of the third season and everyone on the show has been acting like she’s always been around — there’s not really much emotional resonance to be found in an episode about her having to deal with a former boyfriend who might be a conman.  Watching this episode, I again reflected on how weird it is that no one ever mentions Amy or why she’s no longer on the show.  I’ve always assumed that, since they share the same last name, Terri is meant to be Amy’s sister but it seems odd that her ex-boyfriend wouldn’t even ask how Amy or any other member of Terri’s family is doing.

This episode wasn’t a total loss.  Patrick McKenna gave a pretty good performance as Zack.  And I’ll admit that I did laugh when Detective Hargrove went from trying to arrest Zack to agreeing to invest in his scheme.  For the most part, though, this was an episode that didn’t add up to much.  Mr. T looked even more bored than usual.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out 1.11 “Love on Sale”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

Attention shoppers, tonight’s episode is weird.

Episode 1.11 “Love on Sale”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on December 11th, 1985)

Weird episode.

Mrs. Cobb (Barbara Hamilton) wants to open up a store in Saudi Arabia so she assigns Howard to give a speech to a group of “Arab investors,” while she spends the night seducing a sheik.  Howard agrees and is told that, if everything works out, he could end up as the President of Cobb’s International.  Going from being the manager of grocery store to an international business tycoon would be quite an accomplishment.  Of course, Mrs. Cobb also expects Howard to dress up like Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia.  This leads to both Edna and Murray punching him out because they initially don’t recognize him in his costume.

Meanwhile, Murray is trying to raise $150 so that he can buy Howard’s old car, which is apparently sitting on a bunch of milk crates somewhere.  Murray is a teenager who doesn’t even know how to drive but he really wants that car.  How can Murray earn $150?

(Just consider that apparently, Murray doesn’t even make $150 a week from his job at Cobb’s.)

After a customer gives Murray a five dollar tip after Murray introduces him to a female shopper, Murray decides that he’ll start hooking up the single shoppers in return for a ten dollar payment.  Howard thinks that this is a fine idea, as long as Murray doesn’t try to hook up anyone who is married.  (Personally, I can’t think of anything that would make grocery shopping more awkward than having a 15 year-old bagboy trying to convince me to date someone while I’m looking over the produce but whatever.)  Soon, Murray is making all sorts of money but then a Vice detective shows up and arrests Howard for running an escort service.

While dressed like Lawrence of Arabia, Howard is thrown in jail.  In his cell, there are two burly men who continually threaten to beat him up, a skinny guy who talks about how he ate someone’s face, and a male lawyer who is wearing hot pink high heels.  Murray, Christian, and Alf show up at the station and explain that they were all involved in getting people dates at Cobbs and, as a result, they’re all tossed in the cell as well.

Somehow, Howard and his employees do get released because, the next day, Howard comes to work and discovers that every swinger in the city is eager to shop at his store and Mrs. Cobb is not upset about Howard missing the meeting with the investors because Mrs. Cobb was able to seduce the sheik.  Howard says that he can’t wait to be in charge of Cobb’s International because then he’ll be able to get a harem, which leads to Edna punching him.

Weird, weird episode.  It’s hard to even review this episode because it really does take place in its own rather surreal reality.  That said, I kind of appreciated the episode’s nonstop jokiness.  There wasn’t a serious moment to be found here and, while some of the jokes fell flat, some of them worked surprisingly well.  It’s an extremely silly episode that doesn’t add up to much but it’s just weird enough to be entertaining.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Friday the 13th 1.3 “Cupid’s Quiver”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 Friday the 13th, a show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990.  The show can be found on YouTube!

Tonight’s episode is directed by a future Oscar nominee and a multiple Genie winner!

Episode 1.3 “Cupid’s Quiver”

(Dir by Atom Egoyan, originally aired on October 12th, 1987)

This week’s cursed antique is a statue of Cupid that shoots neon arrows at women and causes those targeted to fall madly in love with the statue’s owner.  Unfortunately, the curse kicks in when the owner of the statue is then forced to murder the woman who is now in love with him.  Yikes!  What a mean statue.

When we first see the statue, it belongs to a frat boy who uses the statue at a club.  After the frat boy is arrested for murder, possession of the statue falls to a total loser named Eddie Monroe (Denis Forest).  Eddie is a janitor and groundskeeper at a local college.  He’s the type of guy who hardly anyone ever notices and even those who do notice him think that he is a complete creep.  Eddie is obsessed with a student named Laurie Warren (Carolyn Dunn), following her around campus and taking pictures of her.  He’s even built an elaborate shrine to her in his apartment, one where he’s cut the heads off of the people that Carolyn was with and replaced them with his own head.  (Double yikes!)  Laurie, of course, wants nothing to do with Eddie.

Could Eddie’s new statue help him out?  He hopes so and he even takes it to the club to test it on someone else beforehand.  Eddie is determined to force Carolyn to love him, even if he’ll be required to kill her almost immediately afterwards.  Fortunately, Ryan, Jack, and Micki are on campus, searching for the statue.

This episode is often cited as one of the best of the show’s run, largely because it was directed by a future Oscar nominee, Atom Egoyan.  (Amongst Egoyan’s films: Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter, Felicia’s Journey and Where The Truth Lies.)  It’s certainly not a bad episode, as Egoyan approaches the storyline with a sense of humor.  The scenes of the frat boy and then Eddie wandering around with their cupid statue are more than a little silly and Egoyan seems to understand that.  He does a good job contrasting the ludicrousness of the statue with the seriousness of the consequences of using it.  The ultimate message is that both the statue and the men who carry it with them are more dangerous than they look.

I also enjoyed the scenes in which Ryan and a far more reluctant Micki went to a frat house to search for the statue.  The frat house is a stereotypical den of debauchery, full of empty beers can and a black bra hanging from a ceiling fan.  Ryan, not surprisingly, is right at home.  Micki cannot wait to escape and I have to say that, as often happens when I watched episodes of this show, I definitely related to Micki.  Watching Ryan and Micki wander through various frat parties in search of Eddie and his statue, I had to ask myself which is worse, a cursed antique or a fraternity?