Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 1.3 “All Roads Lead To Dayton”

Posted on July 30, 2025 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 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, the Bulls are on the road!

Episode 1.3 “All Roads Lead to Dayton”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 9th, 1984)

The Bulls are playing their second game in Dayton! It’s a road game and Coach Denardo tells all of the players that they are expected to conduct themselves like gentlemen on the road.

“Booooo!” the team replies.

Denardo replies, “I know but the owner’s a broad now….”

Speaking of Dana Barrow, she has a lot to deal with. The Arcola Brothers are still trying to muscle their way into the team’s business. Meanwhile, her ex-husband, Paul (now played by Ben Cooper), is determined to get his team back. At the hotel in Dayton, he and his sleazy lawyer arrange for Dana’s drink to be drugged so that the hotel’s assistant manager can rape Dana while being filmed by a camera hidden behind a two-way mirror. They plan to leak the tape to the press and claim that Dana is a nymphomaniac who shouldn’t be allowed to own an NFL team. Fortunately, quarterback Bob Dorsey stops by Dana’s hotel room to discuss an offer he’s gotten to become a sports commentator and he proceeds to beat the hell out of the assistant manager, shatter the mirror, and give the camera the finger. And he wins the game!

Take that, Dayton!

He even scores an extra touchdown, just so the Mafia won’t make any money on their bets.

Take that, Arcola Brothers!

The episodes of 1st & Ten that are on Tubi are apparently a combination of episodes that were edited for syndication and the original HBO episodes. The version that I saw of All Roads to Dayton was clearly the HBO original, as there was significant amount of cursing and quite a bit of nudity. I get the feeling that those were the two main reasons that 1st and Ten found success when it first aired. It certainly wasn’t for the acting or the storylines, neither of which were especially noteworthy. That said, I’m from Dallas and I’ve heard all the stories about the Cowboys and Jerry Jones so I imagine that this episode’s depiction of a football team on a road trip was probably fairly tame when compared to the real thing.

As for this episode, Dana was a bit too naive to be believed. Delta Burke actually gives a good performance as Dana but the scripts continually let her down. We’re only three episodes in and Roger, the team’s general manager, has planted drugs in her house, caused Bob to get seriously injured during practice, and drugged her so that she could be raped in her hotel room. I would seriously be looking for a new general manager at this point. On the plus side, I do like Geoffrey Scott’s performance as Bob Dorsey. He’s charming without being smarmy about it.

Next week …. more football stuff, I guess.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & 10 1.2 “The Opener”

Posted on July 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the football season begins!

Episode 1.2 “The Opener”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 2nd, 1984)

The opening game of the season is approaching. The Bulls have trader their former quarterback (who was played, briefly, by Robert Logan in the pilot) for a new quarterback, Bob D0rsey (Geoffrey Scott). Bob Dorsey is a notorious womanizer and a veteran player with a strong arm and a bad knee. So, basically, he’s just like their former quarterback except he’s played by Geoffrey Scott instead of Robert Logan.

Dana has decided that Bob will start on opening day, instead of the quarterback that they drafted out of BYU, the ultra-religious Bryce Smith (Jeff East). (Opening Day, quarterback, drafted — look at me using all the football terminology!) Bryce is fine with not starting because he feels that it is God’s will for Bob to start.

However, the Mafia (represented by Michael V. Gazzo and Robert Miranda) is not happy! It turns out that general manager Roger Barrow has been doing business with the Arcola Brothers. He’s been giving them tickets and allowing the Arcolas to scalp them in return for a 20% commission. Dana puts an end to that, saying that all the tickets will now be sold through the box office as opposed to being held for VIPs. The Mafia wants Roger to make sure that Bob does not start. Roger convinces one of the other players to injure Bob during practice so that Bryce will be the starter.

Uh-oh! Bob injures his knee. Bryce is going to have to play …. except, right before the team hits the field, the team doctor suddenly says that Bob’s knee is at 80% and he can play if he wants to. Of course, Bob wants to! Bob takes the field and, after several minutes of stock footage, we’re told that the Bulls have won the game.

This show feels so strange. On the one hand, I get the feeling that this episode probably was realistic about the physical toll that playing football takes on a player. Bob is 35 and can barely walk. I imagine that the episode’s portrayal of the locker room being a mx of stupidity and testosterone was probably accurate as well. I’ll even give the episode credit for showing that all of the players resent the team’s owner and that Coach Denardo uses that to his advantage when it comes to motivating them. Everyone — well, almost everyone — resents their boss. (Not me! I love everyone I’ve ever worked with!)

On the other hand, the first two episodes have been so low-budget that it appears there’s only five or six players on the team and the mix of comedy and drama feels rather awkward. Dana’s friend Mona (Ruta Lee) starts drinking in the morning and tossing out pithy one liners. Meanwhile, the Mafia is threatening to kill Roger. It really doesn’t fit together. The whole thing just looks and feels cheap.

But, hey, the Bulls won! Good for them!

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 1.1 “By The Bulls”

Posted on July 16, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For a few years now, first Prime and now Tubi have been recommending that I watch a sitcom called 1st & Ten.

My initial reaction, upon looking the show up online and discovering that it was about a football team that was owned by a woman and coached (from the second season on) by OJ Simpson, was to say, “Why would I want to watch this?” And, to be honest, that’s still kind of my reaction. Football is not my thing. The only thing that is less my thing than football is soccer.

(“But in the rest of the world, soccer is called….” Yeah, yeah, I know. I don’t care.)

But then I read on and discovered that this is actually a historically significant show in that it was HBO’s first attempt to produce an original sitcom. It was later sold into syndication, with all of the cursing and nudity edited out. (Apparently, most of the episodes that are currently on Tubi are the edited syndication versions.) That piqued my interest. I may not care about football but I love historical footnotes.

So, without further ado, let’s get things started.

Episode 1.1 “By The Bulls”

(Dir by Rod Daniel, originally aired on December 2nd, 1984)

The show begins as wealthy Diane Barrow (Delta Burke) comes home to her mansion and discovers her husband, naked in their bedroom with another man. “This is Ty Tylor,” her husband says, “he’s a tight end.”

“I bet he is!” Diane replies.

Later, while talking to her divorce lawyer (Earl Boen), Diane announces, “I want his Bulls!”

“You want his….?” the lawyer replies, glancing down at his crotch.

No, Diane doesn’t want his balls She wants the Los Angeles Bulls, the football team that he owns. When the lawyer replies that Diane’s husband loves the Bulls, Diane announces that if she doesn’t get the football team, she’ll let the world know that her husband’s gay.

(It’s the 1980s, folks.)

Diane gets the Bulls and she also gets a lot of attention due to being apparently the only woman to ever own a football team. Everyone doubts her but Diane is determined to prove herself. However, her sniveling general manager (and her husband’s nephew), Roger Barrow (Clayton Landey), tries to end her ownership before the season even begins by planting cocaine in her mansion, His plan is that, during the pre-season party, one of the players will snort the cocaine and …. I don’t know. I guess he’s hoping some will call the police or something. It doesn’t seem like much of a plan, to be honest.

Fortunately, veteran Coach Ernie Denardo (Reid Scott) hears about the plan from a friend of his so he rushes over to the party and gets rid of the cocaine, though not before letting Diane know that she has powerful enemies. That was nice of him since Diane previously fired him for being incompetent. Needless to say, Denardo gets his job back.

And that’s it! We did get to see a few snippets of the players, who all seem to be wild and wacky. Carl Witherspoon (Sam Scarber) shows up at the party with his lawyer and demands a lot of money. Another player, Kyle Brody (Robert Logan), tries to hit on Diane. I checked with the imdb and this is Logan’s only appearance on the show so I’m not really sure what the point of him being at the party was. It’s a pilot so I imagine that a lot of the background people in this episode will never be seen again.

Overall, my feeling about the pilot was that it …. well, it sucked. The humor fell flat. The acting was terrible. Delta Burke showed some potential as Diane but I didn’t like how, after demanding, “I want his Bulls!,” Diane suddenly became this passive character who needed Denardo to tell her about the cocaine in her mansion. But you know what? It’s always unfair to judge a show by it’s pilot. The Office, for instance, had a terrible pilot. In the end, this particular pilot did what it was supposed to do — it introduced us to the main character and it set up the premise of the show.

We’ll see if things get better in the weeks to come.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Gun 1.1 “The Shot”

Posted on October 3, 2023 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 Gun, an anthology series that ran on ABC for six week in 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

Produced by filmmaker Robert Altman, Gun was an anthology series that followed one gun from person-to-person. Each week would feature a new cast and a new story. The show itself didn’t catch on but, because of Altman’s prestige, is still managed to attract some prominent and interesting guest stars during it’s 6-episode run.

The first episode, for instance, brings the gun together with Daniel Stern, Ed Begley, Jr., and model Kathy Ireland.

Episode 1.1 “The Shot”

(Dir by James Foley, originally aired on April 12th, 1997)

The first episode of Gun opens with an unnamed dumbass purchasing a pearl-handed, .45 semi-automatic pistol. When he takes it home, his kids are impressed but his wife threatens to kick him out if he ever fires the gun in the house. Next thing you know, the dumbass is pretending to be Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver and pointing the gun at the television. The final shoot-out from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly leads to the TV getting shot. The dumbass returns the gun. Later, that night, someone breaks into the gun store and steals the gun.

Who stole it? It turns out that it was just a guy who spends his time holding up convenience stores. Unfortunately, his next attempt at a convenience store robbery does not go well, largely due to one aggravated customer. Harvey Hochfelder (Daniel Stern) is already in an agitated state before the robbery even begins. He just wants to leave Los Angeles for Virginia but, before he can leave, he had to stop off at the slowest convenience store in L.A. Harvey loses it as soon as he realizes that the robbery is going to mean his escape to Virginia is going to be even further delayed. When Harvey’s wife (Kathy Baker) enters the store, the robber is startled into first shooting at Harvey and then dropping the gun. The robber runs outside and tries to steal Harvey’s car, with Harvey’s son and dog in the back seat. Harvey grabs the gun and chases the robber down. The robber crashes the car and Harvey holds him at gun point until the police arrive.

Harvey becomes a celebrity. He even appears on the cover Newsweek, with the simple headline, “American Hero.” Hollywood wants to make a made-for-TV movie about what happened in the convenience store, with Harvey playing himself and Kathy Ireland playing his wife.

Unfortunately, the friends of the robber are not happy that Harvey “fingered our homie” (yes, that’s actual dialogue) and they decide that they want to get revenge on Harvey. When they force his car off the road and then pull guns of their own on him, Harvey diffuses the situation by offering them roles the movie. Everyone wants to be a star!

Finally, the day of filming has arrived. Under the guidance of the film’s director (Ed Begley, Jr.), Harvey prepares to climb into bed with a lingerie-clad Kathy Ireland….

Suddenly, Harvey is back in the convenience store, getting shot multiple times by the robber and expiring as a security camera records his final moments. His entire time as a Hollywood star was just a dying fantasy which, honestly, was kind of obvious just by how cartoonish all of the Hollywood scenes were.

Well, as far as first episodes are concerned this was really, really …. bad. Anthology shows are always a bit hit-and-miss and this episode was definitely almost all miss and no hit. As good a character actor as he may be, Daniel Stern overacts to such an extent in this episode that it’s difficult to really have much sympathy for Harvey and the episode’s final twist largely fell flat.

The first episode of Gun is an almost entire …. dare I say it? …. misfire.