Retro Television Review: Malibu CA 2.23 “The Houseguest”

Posted on July 24, 2025 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999. Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Yes, this is from the first season. I don’t care. I refuse to waste my time looking for a second season advertisement.

This week, it’s competition to see who can be the worst character.

Episode 2.23 “The Houseguest”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on April 29th, 2000)

A recurring theme for these reviews is that Lisa (the character, not me) is the worst. Amazingly, in this episode, she’s only the third worse.

The second worse is Jason. When Murray announces that he’s going to be spending the week at a convention for surfers, he leaves the key to his apartment with Lisa at the Surf Shack so that Lisa can give the key to the house sitter. Jason and Scott, wondering why they’ve never been invited to Murray’s apartment, steal both the key and the note that Murray left. Along with Lisa, they go to his apartment and break in. It turns out that Murray, who is the son of a multi-millionaire, has a really nice apartment that has a hot tub in the living room! In other words, he’s a rich guy with a rich apartment.

Now, there’s a few things to consider, when it comes to deciding who is the worst of these three. First off, all three of them are breaking into Murray’s apartment despite the fact that he’s made it clear that he doesn’t want them there. Secondly, thanks to Jason and Scott, Murray’s house sitter is now out of a job because they didn’t get the key or the note telling them where the apartment was located. Third, Jason decides to move into the apartment and pretend that he owns it because he has a crush on the lingerie model living next door.

When Murray comes back unexpectedly, Jason tells Murray that Peter’s aunt just died and Peter would appreciate it if Murray spent a week living at the Collins house. Jason then tells Peter and Scott that Murray’s aunt died and that he needs a place to stay for a week. This is the dumbest freaking thing I have ever seen. Why would Jason come up with two lies that would definitely fall apart as soon as Murray or Peter or Scott, for that matter, had any sort of casual conversation?

Regardless of his logic (or lack of it), it’s all enough to position Jason as being worse than both Scott and even Lisa.

And yet, of all the character in this particular episode, Jason is only the second worse. Alex (Suzanne Davis) is even more terrible than Jason in this episode. When soap opera star Traycee says that she needs to hire an assistant, Alex volunteers for the job. At first, Traycee tells Alex to fill in for Lisa at the Surf Shack so Traycee can take Lisa to the new Matt Damon movie. (I hope they enjoyed The Talented Mr. Ripley.) Then Tracyee orders Alex to “detail” Peter’s car. That all made me laugh but then Alex insisted on helping Traycee out on the show. Traycee lets Alex read the latest script for her show. Alex gets offended by the script, telling Traycee that, since she’s playing a doctor, she needs to stand up for herself and tell the producer that she’s not going to wear a bikini in all of her scenes. Even though Traycee doesn’t want to, she tells the producer exactly what Alex told her to say. And Traycee gets fired.

Why is Alex the worse? Alex is correct that the soap opera is exploitive and sexist and not a realistic portrayal of life in hospital. However, Alex is not the one on the show. Traycee is one on the show and she’s happy with her job and she’s certainly making more money as an actress on a soap opera than Alex is making as lifeguard or Lisa is making as a waitress. It’s not Alex’s place to tell Traycee to refuse to do a scene, especially when Traycee herself doesn’t have any objection to anything in the script. Traycee does get her job back, on the condition that she fire Alex. “Okay,” Traycee said, “you’re fired.” YAY, TRAYCEE!

(To be honest, there’s something a little hypocritical about Malibu CA criticizing a show for featuring women in bikinis when every episode of Malibu CA might as well have been shot with ogle cam.)

This was a bad episode but, to give credit where credit is due, Brandon Brooks and Priscilla Inga Taylor once again showed that they were the only two consistently good things about Malibu CA. Even though they were playing caricatures, both Brooks and Taylor brought a lot of energy and sincerity to their performances. It made Murray and Traycee the only likable characters on both this particular episode and the series overall.

Only three more episodes to go! My nightmare will soon be over.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.14 “Backup”

Posted on February 13, 2024 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!

This week, Eddie Kramer returns!

Episode 1.14 “Backup”

(Dir by Charles Bail, originally aired on February 24th, 1996)

Visiting his former home for re-certification, former Baywatch lifeguard Eddie Kramer (Billy Warlock) is patrolling the ocean when he comes across a boat that’s on fire and sinking. Two people on a dinghy yell that someone is still on the boat. Eddie boards the boat and doesn’t see anyone. The two people on the dingy continue to insist that someone is on the boat, even as Eddie dives off of it.

Along with Baywatch regular Newman (Michael Newman, the real-life model for Mitch Buchanan), Eddie searches the now sunken boat. And, to his shock, he finds a dead man on the boat. Eddie does a classic “Nooooooooo!” but, being underwater, no one can hear him.

With everyone blaming him for the accident, Eddie continues to insist that no one was alive on the boat when he first checked. Eddie’s old friend and mentor, Mitch Buchanan, decides to investigate the case himself and he soon figures out the truth. The dead man did drown but he was already dead by the time the boat sank! But who wanted to kill him?

It’s actually not much of a mystery as there are only two suspects and it is established early on that they’re working together. In fact, they talk about how they committed the murder before Mitch even figures out that it was a murder so say goodbye to any suspense. The truth of the matter is that the storyline was less about the mystery and more about trying to boost the ratings by reminding everyone that this was a Baywatch show. It might have been more effective if the show had made use of a top-tier Baywatch co-star (David Charvet, Pamela Anderson) as opposed to bringing back Billy Warlock, who hadn’t been on the show for a few seasons before his guest turn here. But then again, bringing on a “current” co-star would have begged the question of “Why do we need a new show to watch a story from the old show?”

There’s a second storyline, in which a man (Barry Pearl) is concerned that his mistress (Valerie Wildman) has hired a hitman to kill him. Garner, Ryan, and Lou all stakeout the mistress and discover that she doesn’t actually want to go through with the plot and that her original plan was to kill the man’s wife. The man is so overjoyed to discover that his mistress wanted to kill his wife that he literally jumps for joy. This was a weird storyline but at least it featured the characters doing real detective work for once.

This was a breezy and entertainingly dumb episode. This is perhaps the first episode to feature every member of the main cast doing something and there was a nice feeling of comradery amongst the regulars. That said, the episode ended with Mitch pointing out that they had solved all the cases and then asking, “What do we do now?” Uhmm …. how about you go to your other job, Mitch?

Seriously, I don’t know how Mitch balances everything.

Back to School Part II #10: Grease (dir by Randal Kleiser)

Posted on August 25, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When it comes to reviewing Grease on this site, the film and I have a long and twisted history. There have been several times when I was tempted to review Grease but one thing has always stopped me:

I absolutely hate this film.

Grease is one of my least favorite films and, to be honest, just thinking about it causes me pain. Just about everyone that I know loves Grease. They love the songs. They love the music. They love the performances. They want to see it on stage. They want to see it on the big screen. They watch every time it pops up on AMC.

Growing up as a theater nerd means being surrounded by people who love Grease. I cannot begin to count the number of times that I forced to watch this movie in school. So many theater teachers seemed to feel that showing Grease in class was some sort of reward but, for me, it was pure torture. And the fact that I was usually the only one who disliked the film made the experience all the more unbearable.

Back in 2014, when I was doing the first set of Back To School reviews, I was planning on reviewing Grease. But I just could not bring myself to voluntarily relive the film. Instead of putting myself through that misery, I decided to watch and review Rock ‘n’ Roll High School instead. It was the right decision and I stand by it.

Jump forward two years and here I am doing Back to School again. And again, for some reason, I had put Grease down as a film to review. It’s just a movie, right? And yet, after I finished writing my excellent review of Animal House, I again found myself dreading the idea of having to even think about Grease.

So, I said, “Fuck this,” and I promptly erased Grease from the list and I replaced it with Skatetown USA. Then I watched Skatetown and I’m glad that I did because that was an experience that I can’t wait to write about! And yet, I still had this nagging voice in the back of my mind.

“You’re going to have to review Grease at some point,” it said, “If not now, when?”

The voice had a point. However, I was soon reminded that there was an even more important reason to review Grease. A little further down on my list of Back to School films to review was a little film called Grease 2. How could I possibly review Grease 2 if I hadn’t already reviewed Grease? My OCD would not allow it!

And so, here I am, reviewing Grease.

Grease, of course, is a musical about teenagers in 1958. Danny (John Travolta) is in love with Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) and Sandy is in love with Danny. But Danny’s a greaser and Sandy’s Australian! Will they be able to work it out, despite coming from different worlds? Of course they will! Danny’s willing to dress up like a jock in order to impress Sandy while Sandy’s willing to wear black leather to impress Danny! Yay! They go together! And they’ve got a flying car, too! YAY!

And then Satan arrived…

Of course, there’s other subplots as well. For instance, Frenchy (Didi Conn) nearly drops out of school but she’s visited by Satan (Frankie Avalon) and he manages to change her mind. And Rizzo (Stockard Channing) might be pregnant because Kenickie (Jeff Conaway) hasn’t bought any new condoms since the 8th grade. Comparing the sensitive way that teen pregnancy was handled on a show like Degrassi: The Next Generation with the way it’s handled in Grease is enough to make you want to sing “O Canada” every day for the rest of your life.

Here’s what I do like about Grease: Stockard Channing is great as Rizzo, though it’s hard not to feel that she deserves better than a doofus boyfriend like Kenickie and a boring bestie like Sandy. I also like You’re The One That I Want. That’s a fun song.

But as for the rest of the movie … BLEH! I mean, it is so BORING! It takes them forever to get to You’re The One That I Want. Olivia Newton-John is so wholesome that she literally makes you want to tear your hair out while John Travolta pretty much acts on auto pilot. As for the supporting cast, most of them appeared in the stage production of Grease and they still seem to be giving stage performances as opposed to film performances. They’re still projecting their lines to the back of the house. Worst of all, it’s obvious that director Randal Kleiser had no idea how to film a musical because the dance numbers are so ineptly staged and framed that, half the time, you can’t even see what anyone’s doing with their feet. If you can’t see the feet, it defeats the whole purpose of having an elaborate dance number in the first place!

So, no, I don’t like Grease.

Sorry, everyone.

However, I’m sure I’ll enjoy Grease 2….