Tag Archives: Barbara Tarbuck

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.8 “All About Eve”

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 Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988.  The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!

This week, everyone’s got the blues.

Episode 2.8 “All About Eve”

(Dir by David Anspaugh, originally aired on December 14th, 1983)

What a depressing episode!

With tension rising between Boston’s Catholics and its Protestants, threats are being called into the hospital because young Protestant Eddie Carson (Eric Stoltz) is still a patient.  (Last week, I assumed Eddie was Catholic but apparently, he’s supposed to be a Protestant.  I also assumed his parents were blown up in the pub bombing.  In this episode, it was made clear that the victims were his aunt and uncle.)  A group of masked, IRA-style terrorists break into Joan Halloran’s home.  Joan’s gone at the time but Bobby Caldwell is in the shower and he ends up getting beaten into unconsciousness.

(Wow, did someone on the writing staff have an issue with Irish Catholics?)

Meanwhile, Dr. Westphall has to explain to his several autistic son Tommy (Chad Allen) that their beloved housekeeper has quit and moved away.  Westphall’s daughter says she’s going to skip college and stay home to help take care of her brother.  While I’ve always known that the widowed Westphall had an autistic son, this was the first episode to actually show us Westphall interacting with Tommy.  And, with no disrespect meant to the autistic community, I can understand why Westphall always seems so depressed.  Tommy runs and hides in a corner.  Tommy hits his father.  Tommy demands to know if everyone is going to leave him.  By the end of the episode, Westphall was exhausted and I was even more exhausted from watching him.

But Westphall’s angst was not the most depressing thing about this episode.  On top of everything else, Eve Leighton died!  She didn’t die as a result of the heart that Dr. Craig transplanted into her.  The heart was working fine.  Instead, the rest of Eve’s body gave out.  Being in the hospital initially saved her life but it also shut her off from everything that inspired her to keep living.  Dr. Craig was in surgery when Eve coded.  By the time he was able to get to her room, she was already gone.  And with Eve’s death, that also means that the heart that once belonged to Morrison’s wife is gone as well.

I mean, seriously …. GOOD LORD!  It was a well-acted episode.  Both William Daniels and Ed Flanders broke my heart.  But I seriously had to rewatch Happy Gilmore after watching this show.  That’s how depressed it left me!

But that’s life and death in a hospital.  Every hospital is home to hundreds of different stories and the majority of them do not have happy endings.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.3 “Rapscallions”

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 Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network!  It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

It’s another day in L.A.

Episode 2.3 “Rapscallions”

(Dir by Gary Winter, originally aired on September 7th, 1996)

There’s a lot happening in Santa Monica or wherever it is this stupid show takes place.

Mr. Baron (Tom Towles) has hired two thugs to run all the tenants out of a building so it can be turned into a drug den.  TC and Cory help the tenants.  TC encourages one of them, Travis (Anthony De Longis), to be a big old hero.

The lifeguards challenge the bicycle cops to a street hockey game.  Victor goes crazy trying to recruit good players.  The lifeguards bring in a professional player who apparently works as a lifeguard during the summer.  The bicycle cops still manage to hold the lifeguards to a tie.  Their goalie collapses at the end of the game, apparently as a result of getting hit in the face by the puck a hundred times.  So, I guess he’s dead now.  Oh well.  At least the bike cops can feel like heroes before facing another day of people laughing about how dorky they look on their bicycles.

Palermo has a new girlfriend (Marisa Urkovich), which upsets his 16 year-old daughter, Jessie (Johna Stewart-Bowden).  Jessie wants her parents to get back together but Palermo has to explain that the divorce is final.  He is never going to remarry Jessie’s mother.  Palermo’s heart belongs to the bicycles now.

There was a lot happening in this episode and I have to admit that I really didn’t care about any of it.  After this episode ended, I started thinking about the show’s main characters and I asked myself whether or not any of them were actually likable.  I mean, let’s consider this:

Jim Davidson plays TC Callaway, who doesn’t even have a consistent backstory.  When we first met him, he was being pressured to quit his job and become an executive at his family’s business.  TC was wealthy when we first met him but we haven’t heard anything about his family or their company since then and TC certainly doesn’t act like someone who grew up with money.  Sometimes, TC has a regular girlfriend who lives with him and sometimes, it appears that he does not.  Of course, the main problem with TC is that it’s hard to keep him straight from either Victor or Palermo.  Once he puts on his riding helmet and his sunglasses, TC basically looks about as generic as someone can.  A huge part of the problem is that TC never has any facial expressions or anything that would suggest any sort of personality at all.

Darlene Vogel plays Chris Kelly, who is still whining about being on the bike patrol.  When the show started, she was obviously meant to have a will they or won’t they thing with TC but the total lack of chemistry between Darlene Vogel and every performer on the show pretty much ended that.  For someone who was originally meant to be one of the main characters, Chris never really seems to have much to do on the show.  She spent this episode smirking whenever anyone asked to see Palermo.  Everyone’s had that friend that they secretly can’t stand and that’s pretty much who Chris is on this show.

Marcos A. Ferraez plays Victor Del Toro, who at least has a bit of a personality in that he’s always getting angry about something and he always stops and stares whenever he sees anyone wearing a bikini.  (Since this series takes place on a beach in California, you can imagine the amount of time that is taken up by this.)  Victor is impulsive and competitive but he’s also a bike cop so it’s still hard not to feel like he’s overcompensating because of his job.

Paula Trickey plays Cory McNamara.  Cory is as close to being a likable character as you’re going to find on Pacific Blue and Paula Trickey, at least by this point in the series, is definitely the best member of the ensemble.  Unfortunately, the show itself seems to only be interesting in either finding excuses for her to get sprayed with water or having her get menaced while wearing a tank top.

And finally, Rick Rossovich is Lt. Palermo.  Palermo is strict and no-nonsense, which is actually what you want from a boss.  Unfortunately, for the by-the-book boss thing to be compelling, someone in the group has to be a rule-breaker and that’s not really a description that applies to anyone on Pacific Blue.  Rossovich was not a bad actor but, at least at this point in the series, Palermo still spends way too much time telling people that bicycle cops are real cops.  If you haven’t been able to convince them yet, you never will.

In short, this episode of Pacific Blue didn’t work because the cast was boring and putting them on bicycles did not help.  Hopefully, things will change as I continue to watch the series or else it’s going to be long couple of seasons.

A Blast From The Past: Testing Dirty (dir by Lynn Hamrick)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Our regularly scheduled review of Degrassi High will not be posted tonight so that we can bring you this special presentation.

My Retro Television Reviews will return on Monday but for now, check out this 1990 program called Testing Dirty!  In this short film, Christopher Daniel Barnes (best known for playing Greg Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie) is a high school athlete who tests positive for drugs despite not using them.  As he tries to clear his name, the adults in his community debate whether or not random drug tests are actually fighting or helping the problem.  That’s an important topic but, for the most part, this film is best-known for a cameo appearance by Adam Sandler as a drug dealer.

And now, without further ado …. it’s time for Testing Dirty!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Highway to Heaven 3.17 “A Night To Remember”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, Jonathan and Mark go back to high school, just in time for prom!  I went to four proms over the course of my high school years and I loved every one of them.  There is no greater American tradition!

Episode 3.17 “A Night To Remember”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on January 28th, 1987)

It’s time for the prom!

Danny (Mitchell Anderson) wants to ask out Melanie (Kimberly MacArthur) but can’t bring himself to do it because he’s feeling insecure about the fact that his father lost his engineering job and is now working at a gas station.  Danny makes extra money working at the local pizza joint but he loses his job when he throws a punch at bully Richard Davies (J. Eddie Peck, future star of Lambada).

Sammy (Joel Hoffman) wants to ask his lifelong friend, Kate (Susan Savage).  But Sammy feels insecure because he’s short.  When he tries to buy lifts to make himself taller, Richard calls him out right when he’s about to ask out Kate.  Sammy is an aspiring stand-up comedian and he’s on the verge of dropping out of school all together.  “I can be a comedian or a teenager but I can’t be both!”

Don’t worry, though.  Jonathan is their new social studies teacher.  And Mark is the coach of the girl’s volleyball team because every assignment is designed, in some way, to humiliate Mark.  In this case, Mark takes a volleyball to the nose and spends the entire episode worrying that it’s broken.  Mark really can’t catch a break (heh) on this show.  He has to drive everywhere.  He’s usually the one who has to do all of the hard physical work while Jonathan just appears wherever he wants.  Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a union for human angel helpers but then again, it’s not like Mark ever seems to get paid for all of his hard work.

Anyway, the stakes aren’t particularly high in this episode.  Both Danny and Sammy eventually find the courage to ask their dates to the prom, though Danny doesn’t do it until he’s actually at the prom.  And both of them take some time to tell off Richard.  “Still wearing your mother’s underwear?” Sammy asks and Richard turns a dark shade of red as if Sammy has accidentally guessed his greatest secret.

I actually always like these episodes where Jonathan and Mark become teachers.  They’re not as depressing as the ones where they end up working at a shelter or a retirement home.  This episode was just about giving the students the best prom ever and that’s okay.  Not everything needs to be a huge drama!  Sometimes, you just need a night to remember.

The Death of the Incredible Hulk (1990, directed by Bill Bixby)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

David Banner (Bill Bixby), still hoping to find a cure for the condition that causes him to turn into the Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) whenever he gets injured or stressed out, heads up to Portland.  Pretending to be a simple-minded janitor named David Bellamy, Banner gets a job working in the lab of Dr. Ronald Pratt (Philip Sterling).  Banner hopes that Dr. Pratt’s research holds the secret that can release him from being the Hulk.  When Dr. Pratt learns Banner’s secret, he and his wife (Barbara Tarbock) work with Banner to try to cure him and to understand the Hulk.

David Banner is not the only person who has infiltrated the lab.  KGB agent Jasmin (Elizabeth Gracen) has also been sent to the lab with orders to steal Pratt’s research.  Jasmin hates working for the KGB but she’s been told that her sister will be killed unless she complete one final mission.  When Jasmin meets and falls in love with David, she starts to reconsider her loyalties.  When the KGB finally makes their movies, Jasmin is going to have to decide who to help and the Hulk is going to have to come through and save the day one final time.

David Banner’s saga finally comes to a close in The Death of the Incredible Hulk, the third and last of the Incredible Hulk television movies.  It’s also the best of the three, though that might not by saying much when you consider the quality of the first two.  While the other two movies both served as backdoor pilots for other heroes and the Hulk was barely even present in the 2nd movie, The Death of the Incredible Hulk keeps the focus squarely on David Banner and the Hulk.  (Though Jasmin does seem like she could be a version of the Black Widow, I think the similarities between the two characters are a coincidence.  Beautiful and conflicted KGB agents were a popular trope in the 80s and early 90s.)  Both Bixby and Ferrigno get to show off what they can do in their signature roles.  Bixby is especially good at capturing Banner’s tortured and lonely existence and his performance helps to make The Death of the Incredible Hulk something more than just another cheap sci-fi TV movie.

Though the film stays true to its title and ends with a mortally wounded Banner saying that he’s finally free, it was not intended to be the final Hulk film.  There were plans to bring David Banner back to life and presumably, the Hulk would have come back with him.  Unfortunately, Bill Bixby himself died in 1993, before shooting could begin on The Return of the Incredible Hulk.