Welcome to Late Night 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 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, everyone’s trying to get laid.

Episode 5.9 “Gunn and Bullette”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on December 13th, 1989)

Johnny Gunn tracks down Sunset West (Rebecca Ferratti), the daughter of one of Gunn’s friends in prison.  Sunset is now working as a stripper.  Her boss is an evil gangster guy named Achmed (Aharon Ipale).  Achmed tells Johnny that, as a quarterback, he can have anyone at the strip club except for Sunset.  Johnny wants Sunset.  I wonder how Johnny’s prison friend would feel about Johnny becoming obsessed with his daughter.

In the end, it doesn’t add up to much.  Sunset decides to go to the police about Achmed’s criminal activities.  Achmed is arrested.  Sunset goes into the Witness Protection Program.  Johnny remains single.  Who cares?  It’s always funny to me how 1st & Ten will devote a show to some character we’ve never even met before and we’re suddenly supposed to have some sort of emotional stake in their story.

This episode’s second storyline featured Jenny (Shari Shattuck), a cheerleader who finds herself in trouble when Playpen Magazine publishes nude pictures that were taken years earlier by her boyfriend.  Westwood offers to protect Jenny’s job if Jenny sleeps with him.  Jenny gets revenge by inviting Michael to her apartment, dressing him up in a corset and stockings, and then having Bubba and Jethro snap some pictures.  Westwood flees.  It later turns out that Kristy is actually the one who came up with the idea of setting Westwood up.  Kristy arranges for Jenny to get a new job in New York and Jenny gives Kristy the pictures.

The third and final storyline featured Kristy wanting to trade Dr. Death.  Denardo convinces her to give Dr. Death another chance.  Dr. Death has to have a good game to save his job.  Dr. Death has a good game and he saves his job.  Hey, that was easy!

The main thing that stood out about this episode was just how badly acted it was.  I mean, I’m not surprised to see OJ Simpson and Shannon Tweed giving less than great performances.  But even the usually reliable Christopher Meloni seemed to sleepwalk through this episode.  The worst performance came from Aharon Ipale, who turned Achmed into the least intimidating gangster that I’ve ever seen.

This episode didn’t add up too much.  Are the Bulls even trying to make the playoffs this year?