David Labiosa | Through the Shattered Lens

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.

This week, two vigilantes disturb the peace, Cory meets a special guest star, and everyone continues to look stupid on their little bicycles.

Episode 3.13 “Avenging Angel”

(Dir by Terence H. Winkless, originally aired on December 14th, 1997)

This episode was dumb.

Cory is haunted by nightmares involving her mother, who died when Cory was 10. In her latest nightmare, she runs into her mother at a crime scene and her mom shoots her! Chris thinks that’s an odd dream and she’s right. Cory explains that her mom is just trying to get her attention. Cory believes that her mom is her guardian angel. Chris doesn’t know how to react to this because Cory is expressing an emotion that doesn’t involve being snarky or self-righteous.

When Cory is injured while chasing two Korean brothers (we’ll get to them in a minute), she has to go to rehab. Luckily, Olympic track medalist Florence Griffith Joyner is a patient at the same rehab clinic. Joyner takes Cory under her wing and encourages her to work hard and get her knee back into shape. When Cory says she’s thinking of leaving the force, Joyner tells her not to. “Thanks, FloJo,” Cory replies.

(Yes, Florence Griffith Joyner played herself. As an actress, she was a good athlete.)

As for the two Korean brothers, they are vigilantes who are beating up criminals on the boardwalk and becoming celebrities in their own right. Palermo views them as being a threat to the peace and he’s determined to catch them. Meanwhile, the Mob is determined to kill them and a very annoying talent agent is determined to sign them.

Ugh, what a stupid episode. Usually, I’m a sucker for episodes that deal with people coming to terms with the death of a parent. That’s something to which I can relate. I have no doubt that my mom is also looking over me. But, as much as I wanted to fully embrace Cory’s story, I couldn’t get past the fact that she went to rehab and just happened to meet an Olympic athlete. Maybe if Joyner has been a better actress, this storyline would have worked but, as it was, it just felt forced. There was really no reason why Joyner should have been so wrapped up in whether or not Cory decided to remain with the force.

As for the stuff with the brothers, the entire plotline felt like filler. The brothers couldn’t act. The actors playing the gangsters who wanted to kill the brothers couldn’t act. The talent agents who kept popping up and talking about how much they wanted to sign the brother, they also couldn’t act.

This episode was just painful and all the rehab in the world isn’t going to change that.

Jailbait takes place in Hollywood, the city of dreams. It opens with one of those long treks down Hollywood Boulevard that should be familiar to anyone who has seen a direct-to-video 90s film. Street performers try to cheat tourists out of their cash. Hookers look for customers. Pimps look for new girls. Vice cops look over the scene and say, “I’m too old for shit.” A Greyhound bus pulls into the station and the city’s newest inhabitant, 17 year-old Kyle Bradley (Renee Humphrey), steps off.

Kyle’s from Nebraska and she’s come to Los Angeles because she wants to be a professional dancer. By the standards of Nebraska, Kyle may be streetwise but she soon discovers that nothing is easy in Hollywood. She wants to find her half-sister, Merci (Krista Errickson) but Merci is nowhere to be found. Soon, Kyle is living on the streets, stealing food to survive and faking a heroin addiction to get a bed at the local rehab center.

What Kyle doesn’t know is that Merci is a high-class hooker. After one of her clients is murdered, Merci is framed for the crime. Merci’s on the run, though she still finds time to sing in a band. Heading up the investigation into the crime is Sergeant Lee Teffler (C. Thomas Howell). Teffler thinks that Merci’s innocent and believes that the murder is connected to a human trafficking ring that is run by his childhood friend, Roman (David Laboisa). When he meets Kyle, he takes her back to his apartment to keep her safe. Teffler swears that nothing can happen between them because she’s only seventeen. Kyle says that age shouldn’t matter and, because this is a 90s Cinemax film, he decides that she has a point.

In the late 80s and 90s, there were a countless number of films about innocent girls getting corrupted as soon as they got off the bus in Hollywood and Jailbait is certainly one of them. Jailbait, however, is one of the better examples of the genre because, from the start, Kyle is tougher than the naive, aspiring starlets who usually populated these films. Though Hollywood turns out to be an even harsher place than she was expecting, Kyle still comes across like she can take care of herself. That she’s not portrayed as being a wide-eyed or easily manipulated innocent makes Kyle’s relationship with Teffler feel less problematic than it would be otherwise. All of the characters, not just Kyle, are written and performed with more depth than you would normally expect to find in a film like this. Teffler is not just a renegade cop and Roman is not just an evil pimp. Because of their former friendship, they are portrayed as being two sides of the same coin.

It also helps that Jailbait is better acted than the standard straight-to-video film, with Renee Humphrey and Krista Errickson bringing a lot of depth to their roles. Even C. Thomas Howell, who often seemed to be sleep walking in his 90s films, is effective as the conflicted Teffler. Visually, Jailbait does a good job of capturing the glitzy grime of Hollywood. Though it may not be as well-know, Jailbait is a worthy companion to films such as Angel and Vice Squad.