Retro Television Review: T and T 3.5 “Decker’s Ex”

Posted on April 19, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, Decker takes the ring.

Episode 3.5 “Decker’s Ex”

(Dir by Ken Girotti, originally aired on February 3rd, 1990)

One night, Beth Knightley (Wendy Lyon, who horror fans will immediately recognize from Prom Night II: Hello Mary Lou) comes home to discover two masked men tearing up her house. They tell her that they are searching for a computer disk that was taken by her deceased husband. They give her 24 hours to find the disk. If she doesn’t comply, she dies. If she goes to the police, she dies. If she tries to leave town …. “you get the idea,” as the main bad guy says.

Having been ordered not to go to the police, Beth instead goes to her ex, who just happens to turn out to be gym owner Decker (David Nerman). Decker asks T.S. to help them out but, when the men show up at the gym, it turns out that Decker doesn’t need any help. Because Turner made the mistake of going to the police and ended up being interrogated by the FBI, it falls to Decker to beat up the bad guys. Decker does just that and he does it rather easily. The Canadian Mob is not sending their best.

(Actually, since this show obviously takes place in Canada, you have to wonder what the FBI was doing north of the border.)

The majority of this episode was taken up with Beth and Decker talking about why their marriage failed. Beth had plans while Decker just had dreams. It really wasn’t anything that I hadn’t heard in a hundred other shows and movies but David Nerman and Wendy Lyon had a likable chemistry and they were convincing as two people who would have once taken a chance on each other. David Nerman was the only member of T and T‘s supporting cast to stick with the series through all three seasons and it’s nice that he was given an episode where he got to be the hero.

(Still, it’s interesting that T.S. apparently didn’t know that Decker was once married, considering that the show previously established them as being lifelong friends.)

Speaking of the show’s supporting cast, this was the second episode of T and T to feature just one T. Again, Kristina Nicoll is featured in the opening credits but the character that she plays, Terri Taler, is neither seen nor mentioned during the show. Just as with last week’s episode, I have to wonder if this was shot before Nicoll was actually hired for the show.

This episode also features no mention of why exactly Amy is no longer working with T.S. The obvious reason for Amy’s absence is that Alex Amini didn’t return for the third season. But, in-universe, it just seems strange that T.S. never mentions her. I mean, T.S. would still be in prison if not for her. Show some appreciation, Turner!

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.4 “Cry Wolf”

Posted on April 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, someone from the past shows up but it’s not Amy.

Episode 3.4 “Cry Wolf”

(Dir by Alan Simmonds, originally aired on January 26th, 1990)

While filming footage for what is sure to be a riveting cinematic essay on urban decay, high school student Martina (Joanne Vannicola) films a drug deal going to down in an abandoned warehouse. (The world of T and T was full of abandoned warehouses where people were either selling drugs or hiding stolen money.) Unfortunately, Martina runs out of film before actually capturing the drugs being exchanged. Everyone who sees the footage says that it doesn’t prove anything.

Martina decides to take justice into her own hands. I’m not really sure why. Martina’s obsession with tracking down the drug dealers and getting them arrested feels somewhat unhinged and it’s a bit disturbing to see coming from a teenager. I mean, Martina doesn’t know the drug dealers. She is apparently not a user of cocaine. She’s just decided that these people deserve to be taken down by her. One gets the feeling that Martina is going to grow up to be a member of the secret police.

Martina’s investigation leads her to a suburban couple who capture her and make plans to eventually kill her. Fortunately, Martina’s best friend is Joe Casper (Sean Roberge) and he is able to enlist his mentor, T.S. Turner, to save Martina’s life.

That’s right! Joe’s back. He was a semi-regular during the second season, appearing in the opening credits even though he rarely got to do anything on the show. Still, the return of Joe would, in theory, be the perfect opportunity for the show to explain what happened to Amy. Amy and Joe were close, after all. It seems like it would be natural for Joe and Turner to say something about missing Amy and perhaps provide us with a clue as to why Amy has been replaced by Terri.

However, that doesn’t happen. In fact, Turner acts as if he barely knows Joe, despite the fact that he practically adopted him during the second season. “Why are you kids always here?” he growls when he sees Joe and Martina in Decker’s gym. And seriously, why is everyone always in Decker’s gym? The place is a dump! And is there no one at the gym who could tell T.S. that the hot pink bodysuit that he wears while boxing looks kind of silly?

Anyway, T.S. goes down to the suburbs and saves Martina. As usual, it doesn’t take much effort because the drug dealers are all kind of wimpy whereas T.S. Turner is Mr. T. It was only as things ended that I realized that Terri didn’t even appear in this episode. With Amy gone and Terri not being all the important, T and T is feeling more and more like T.

This episode was pretty dumb but I did appreciate that the drug dealers were essentially just two suburbanites who had no idea what they were doing. That was a nice twist. But otherwise …. yeah, pretty dumb.

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.1 “Cracked”

Posted on March 22, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the final season of T and T begins with some changes!

Episode 3.1 “Cracked”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on January 6th, 1990)

The first episode of the third season begins with all new opening credits. We no longer hear about T.S. Turner’s backstory. I guess it no longer matters that Turner was framed for a murder that he didn’t commit and that crusading lawyer Amy Taler got him out and put him in a suit and tie to work as a private investigator.

That’s not all though. Amy herself is no longer listed in the opening credits. Instead, there’s a new T in T & T. Kristina Nicoll joins the cast as “Terri Taler.” Judging by her last name, it’s easy to guess that she is meant to be Amy’s sister. Of course, if the credits didn’t specifically tell you that Terri’s last name is Taler, you wouldn’t have the slightest idea who she was. This episode begins with Terri already well-established as a neighborhood activist and as Turner’s partner. Amy is not even mentioned. It’s as if she just vanished and suddenly, there was Terri.

I have to admit that really bothered me. It’s true that Amy didn’t get to do much during the second season and I can understand why Alex Amini might have wanted to do other things than just stand in the background while Mr. T growled. But Amy was still technically the co-lead and it just feel wrong to not even have someone say, “Hey, what happened to Amy?”

(Joe Casper is also gone without explanation but Joe was never that important of a character to begin with.)

As for the episode itself, the neighborhood is sick of being home to a crack house. While Terri encourages everyone to protest in front of the house and to take pictures of anyone going inside (which sounds like a good way to get some people killed, to be honest), T.S. tracks down the owner of the house and demands that he work with the police to get the crack dealers out of there. T.S even goes undercover as a drug dealer so that he can get into the house himself….

Seriously, in what world, could Mr. T ever go undercover? I mean, even in-universe, it’s established that T.S. is one of the people protesting the crack house. How are the dealers not going to recognize T.S. Turner? And before anyone says it’s because they’re smoking crack, let me just say that I have some doubts as to whether or not they actually were using that house as a crack house. Seriously, it was the neatest and cleanest crack house that I’ve ever seen.

(Not that I’ve seen many crack houses, mind you. I once lived across the street from someone who stole copper wiring for a living and his house was a mess so I assume a crack house would be even worse.)

Eh. The third and final season is not off to a great start, you all. Hopefully, next week, we’ll get an explanation as to why there’s now a different T in T and T.

Retro Television Review: T and T 2.20 “A Natural Death”

Posted on March 15, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the second season comes to an end!

Episode 2.20 “A Natural Death”

(Dir by Patrick Loubert, originally aired on May 22nd, 1989)

When a patient nearly dies at a hospital, the blame is placed on a nurse named Eloise (Elizabeth Hanna). Eloise is accused of falling asleep at her station. However, Eloise has never fallen asleep at her station in the past and she has a reputation for being a good nurse. Eloise retain Amy Taler to defend her at a board hearing and Amy sends T.S. to the hospital to investigate.

T.S. discovers that the patient is a retired gangster and he starts to suspect that maybe Eloise was set up by someone who wants him dead. But when Eloise herself announces that she no longer wants to to work at the hospital, T.S. comes to suspect that there’s even more to the story.

Oddly enough, there isn’t more to the story. A doctor who owes money to the mob drugged Eloise’s coffee and caused Eloise to fall asleep. The doctor then agreed to help Eloise find work at another hospital in return for dropping her appeal. When the gangsters shows up and demand that the doctor personally kill the patient, he agrees but — surprise! — he was just pretending to agree until T.S., Amy, and the cops could show up.

What a weird episode with which to end the second season. The mystery isn’t much of a mystery. T.S. Turner doesn’t beat anyone up. For whatever reason, both Amy and T.S. appear to be annoyed with the world in general for much of this episode. Amy rolls her eyes when Decker says that he wants to become a better businessman so his gym doesn’t go bankrupt. Turner rolls his eyes when Amy tells him that she wants him to investigate the hospital. Joe, the orphan who Amy and Turner more-or-less adopted at the start of the second season, is nowhere to be seen. This does not, in any way, feel like a season finale and it wouldn’t surprise me to discover that it had been meant to air earlier in the season.

What to say about the second season? It definitely wasn’t as good as the first season. If the first season was fun and energetic, the second season often felt dour. The cast often seemed to just be going through the motions and there was little of the intentional humor that occasionally distinguished the first season. Turner’s quips were a bit less amusing and the show didn’t seem to have the slightest idea what to do with Amy.

Speaking of Amy, this episode was also the finale for her character. Season 3 finds Tuner working for a new lawyer. We’ll find out more next week when we start looking at the final season of T and T.

Retro Television Review: T and T 2.19 “Family Honour”

Posted on March 1, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s ninja time!

Episode 2.19 “Family Honour”

(Dir by Ryszard Bugajski, originally aired on May 15th, 1989)

First things first, I have to admit that I smiled when I saw the title “Family Honour” flash on the screen. T and T was a Canadian-produced show that always desperately tried to convince viewers that it was actually taking place in the United States. But that “Honour,” which no one on the production staff probably even gave a second thought to, totally gives the game away. It’s like when a Yankee trying to pretend to be from the South says that they’ve been waiting “in line” instead of “on line.”

(Of course, Texans like me also have little tells that give away our place of origin. Me, I drop the g’s on “ing” so casually that I don’t even realize that I’m doin’ it half the time.)

Anyway, this episode begins in medias res. Mrs. Shimada (Brenda Kamino) has invited Amy and T.S. to her home so that she can thank them by serving them tea. Apparently, Amy arranged for a centuries-old Samurai sword to be returned to the Shimada family. T.S., meanwhile, has been guarding the sword because of how valuable it is. Still, that doesn’t stop a ninja from breaking into the house and trying to kill Kim (Lisa Jai), the ten year-old to whom the sword has been gifted. Fortunately, Turner is there to run him off.

Mr. T vs. ninjas!? Hell yeah!

Unfortunately, there aren’t really many scenes of Mr. T fighting the ninjas. There’s one scene where he gets flipped onto his back by an apprentice ninja. And there’s another where T.S. grabs a sword out of a ninja’s hand and then knocks him out with one punch. That was pretty cool. But, considering the potential here, it’s hard to be disappointed by the fact that Mr. T himself never put on a ninja outfit or flew through the air.

Instead, T.S. confronts Kim’s uncle, Ikuta (Denis Akiyama). Having left Japan after bring shame onto the family, Ikuta relocated to Canada and opened up his own ninja training academy in Toronto. T.S. thinks that Ikuta wants the sword for himself and he also thinks that Ikuta is trying to kill his own niece so that he can be rewarded with special ninja powers. (Uhmm …. okay, then.) Ikuta says that’s ludicrous and it turns out that T.S. was too quick to judge Ikuta. It’s not Ikuta who is trying to steal the sword. It’s Ikuta’s main student, James (David Orth)! Ikuta proves his worth by defending Kim from James. Turner, more or less, just observes.

That seems to be a pattern with the last few episode of T and T. As of late, Turner hasn’t been as active a participant as in the past. Instead, it’s hard not to feel that he’s mostly just there so that the show can introduce new characters, all of whom could potentially be spun off into another series. This episode felt much like a backdoor pilot for a show that would have followed Ikuta as he regained his honour. That said, this was still a marked improvement over last week’s episode. You really can’t go wrong with ninjas.

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.17 “T.S. Turner For The Defense”

Posted on February 16, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it’s time for …. another clip show? Didn’t we just do a clip show last week? Far be it for me to complain about having an easy review to write but how does any show get away with doing two weeks straight of clip shows?

Episode 2.17 “T.S. Turner For The Defense”

(Dir by Patrick Loubert, originally aired on May 1st, 1989)

“Things don’t look too good for Amy when, after upsetting the law society, she gets threatened with disbarment. But even I got nervous when she doesn’t show up for the hearing and it’s left to me to defend her.”

Oh yay! For the first time since the start of the second season, an episode of T and T opens with Mr. T offering up a synopsis of the episode’s plot. It’s been so long since this weird but fun trick has been employed by the show that I originally assumed that this episode was originally meant for the first season. But then I spotted the character of Joe Casper in the background of a courtroom scene and Joe didn’t become a regular character until the second season. Who knows why Mr. T introduced this episode. I’m just glad that he did.

As for the episode itself, Amy’s adventures with T.S. Turner have finally led to her facing disbarment proceedings. Unfortunately, right before heading with Amy to the hearing, Amy’s attorney has a heart attack. Amy blows off the hearing to go to the hospital with her friend and, for whatever reason, it doesn’t occur to her to call Turner or anyone else at the hearing and let them know what’s going on. I mean, her lawyer had a heart attack. Under normal circumstances, this is the sort of thing that would lead to the hearings being postponed.

So, with Amy missing, T.S Turner takes it upon himself to defend her at the hearings. Keep in mind, T.S. is not a lawyer. Amy did not hire Turner to defend her. If there’s not much reason for the hearing to proceed without Amy or her actual attorney, there’s even less for the “law society” to allow T.S. Turner to serve as her counsel. Maybe they do things differently in Canada but seriously, none of this makes any sense.

Maybe I’m overthinking things. Like last week’s episode, this is a clip show and obviously, the main concern of the writers was to find an excuse for everyone to talk about Amy’s previous adventures on the show. Unfortunately, Amy’s adventures have never been as interesting as Turner’s so the clips pretty much all fall into the same three categories: Amy gets mad, Amy gets captured, and Amy flirts with some loser to get information. It all gets repetitive fairly quickly.

Halfway through the episode, Turner calls Joe to testify. “What about you, Joe?” T.S. asks Joe on the stand, “Have you ever gotten in trouble? Tell the court about it, Joe.” Joe proceeds to talk about how he first met T.S. and Amy and it’s hard not to notice that Joe’s entire story centers on T.S. but not Amy. Perhaps realizing that Joe hasn’t been of any help, Turner takes the stand himself and talks about …. himself. We get several flashbacks of Turner beating up criminals and it’s hard not to feel bad for Amy, who isn’t even the center of attention at her own disbarment hearings.

“Every legal indiscretion she has committed is justified,” Turner says as Amy finally steps into the courtroom, “because she has helped so many.”

That’s all it takes for the Canadian Legal Society to decide that Amy can continue as a lawyer. Yay!

Retro Television Review: T and T 2.16 “Substitute Teacher”

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, T.S. Turner has a lesson to teach.

Episode 2.16 “Substitute Teacher”

(Dir by Patrick Loubert, originally aired on February 27th, 1989)

When the regular teacher of a middle school social studies class is taken ill, T.S. Turner is sent to fill in. Uhmm, okay….

There some dialogue as the start of the episode that suggests that Amy is responsible for Turner getting the job but I’m not sure why Amy would have that power. As well, Amy drops Turner off at the school. That may not seem like much but there’s a surprise twist at the end of this episode that makes you question a lot of what you previously assumed about Amy.

As for the show itself, it’s a clip show. Turner’s class wants to hear about his exploits so Turner says something like, “You got to be able to depend on your friends,” and then we get a brief montage of Turner talking to various friends (the majority of whom vanished after one episode). Turner says that violence should only be a last resort. Turner also raps about halfway through his lesson and it goes on for a while.

While this is going on, another teacher (Steve Brinder) keeps showing up and claiming that he’s supposed to be the substitute. Turner finally gets tired of him, especially after the teacher takes a swing at him. But then Decker shows up and announces that — whoops! — Turner’s at the wrong school.

Did Amy take him to the wrong school? What the Hell!?

Episodes like this make my job easy because there’s nothing to say about them. It’s a clip show and the final message appears to be that Amy is really incompetent. Duncan Waugh of Degrassi Junior High fame plays one of Turner’s students. One thing about binging Degrassi, T and T, Friday the 13th, and Check It Out! all at the same time is that you see a lot of familiar faces popping up from show-to-show.

Anyway, this was a clip show. Look at all the clips. Hopefully, next week will not be a clip show.

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.15 “Jump Start”

Posted on February 3, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Wait a minute! This isn’t Friday afternoon! This is Saturday morning! Why am I posting my review of this show now?

I’m only human. After a long week, I was so exhausted on Friday that I couldn’t even find the strength to former coherent thoughts about a show as simple as T and T. So, I put off the review until this morning. Of course, I’m still tired. All of this thinking is exhausting. Roll the opening credits so I can take a 90 second nap.

Episode 2.15 “Jump Start”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on February 20th, 1989)

In a rare nod to maintaining some sort of continuity from episode to episode, this week’s episode of T and T opens with a flashback to a previous story. We once again witness how two hapless crooks — Fritz (Dominic Cuzzocrea) and Finn (Ron Gabriel) — tried to pull a gun on T.S. and Decker, just for the clip to fall out of the weapon. At the time, my feeling was that the two crooks were both too incompetent to be viewed as a legitimate threat and this follow-up episode proved me right.

Fritz and Finn are back on the streets, having had their criminal charges dismissed on a technicality. They want revenge on Turner for sending them to jail so they decide to steal his car. However, because they’re both incredibly incompetent, they have to ask Max (Kathleen Laskey, who also played Marlene on Check It Out!) to steal it for them. Just as with so many episodes of Check It Out!, Laskey was this episode’s saving grace. She brought so much badass attitude to the character that you couldn’t help but cheer Max on as she stole Turner’s car.

Unfortunately, Laskey really isn’t in much of this episode. For that matter, Alex, Decker, and even Turner have reduced roles. The majority of the episode is devoted to Fritz and Finn and their total and complete incompetence. I get that it was meant to be comedic but these two characters were so stupid and so foolish and so obviously doomed to failure that there was absolutely no tension as to whether or not Turner would be able to get his car back. As far as I could tell, Turner didn’t even bother to report that his car had been stolen. He just tracked the two guys down and took it back. That’s the power of T and T!

Anyway, this was a throw away episode. I’m not sure why, out of all the villains that have been on this show, T and T decided to bring back the least impressive of them. Episodes like this leave little doubt that all of the serious criminals left Toronto as soon as Mr. T showed up.

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.14 “The Contender”

Posted on January 26, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, T.S Turner returns to the ring!

Episode 2.14 “The Contender”

(Dir by Alan Simmonds, originally aired on February 13th, 1989)

T.S. Turner meets Kevin Hart!

No, not that Kevin Hart.

Instead, the Kevin Hart in this show is a boxer and he’s played by an actor named Phillip Jarrett. (Kevin Hart, I immediately, noticed was very handsome for someone who made his living getting punched in the face by professionals. I checked with the imdb and I was not surprised to learn that Phillip Jarrett was a model before he went into acting.) Kevin Hart is a contender for the championship but his trainer has vanished. With the big fight coming up, Hart’s manager asks T.S. Turner to train him for the fight.

Kevin Hart turns out to be a boxer with an attitude. He shows up at Decker’s Gym with his entourage and is miffed to discover that Turner is running late. “What does T.S. stand for?” Hart demands to know, “Too Stupid?”

“Temporarily Sorry,” Turner says as he steps into the gym.

“Temporarily?”

“Yeah,” Turner growls, “I was sorry but now I’m not.”

Turner works hard to train Hart. Or, at least, it appears that he works hard. For the most part, we just see a montage of Hart doing physical stuff while Turner yells at him. Despite Turner’s efforts, Hart doesn’t even seem to care about the fight. He does care when someone takes a shot at him in the gym. Pressured by Turner, Hart finally confesses that he agreed to take a dive. He also says that all of his other fights were fixed as well. That’s why his former trainer ran away. He didn’t want to be involved with a boxer who was owned by the Canadian Mafia.

Turner doesn’t have any time for that attitude. He tells Hart that he has the talent to win the fight on his own. He also tells Hart that it’s time to fight like a man and win. Inspired by Turner’s words, Hart does just that. By the end of the show, Hart is the champ. I imagine he’s got the mob after him now but oh well. I mean, Sonny Liston reportedly upset the mob and he still managed to live a full and exciting life until his mysterious death at the age of 40. So, I’m sure boxing’s Kevin Hart will be fine and maybe, some day, he’ll change his mind about hosting the Oscars.

The way to make watching this episode entertaining is to pretend that Mr. T was playing Clubber Lang and not T.S Turner. Apparently, in an early draft of his script for Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone wrote a scene in which it would be revealed the Lang changed his ways and became a preacher after losing his rematch with Rocky. So, this episode of T and T — and really, the entire series — works best as Clubber Lang fan fiction. As Rocky said at the end of Rocky IV, “Everybody can change!”

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.13 “Hunted”

Posted on January 19, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, someone takes a contract out on T.S. Turner’s life!

Episode 2.13 “Hunted”

(Dir by Richard Oleksiak, originally aired on February 6th, 1989)

Someone has hired a hitman to take out T.S. Turner!

Fortunately, Hickson (Timothy Webber) is not a very good hitman and he somehow fails to shoot Turner despite having a high-powered rifle and, during the initial attempt on Turner’s life, the advantage of surprise. (Technically, he misses because T.S. moved to get a parking ticket off of his car’s windshield at the exact moment that Hickson fires his rile but still, it’s not like T.S. is a small target. The hitman just isn’t that good at his job.)

Despite the fact that someone has just tried to kill him, Turner doesn’t want to go to the police. This actually makes sense when you consider that Turner spent years in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit. He has every reason to distrust the police. He has personally experienced how they can screw up a case. That said, Amy decides to go to the police on her own. This leads to Detective Deakin (Matt Birmin) being assigned to keep Turner from leaving Decker’s Gym.

Turner is not happy about this and actually, it turns out that Turner’s instincts are correct. Deakin is the man who hired the hitman! It turns out that Deakin’s younger sister was an innocent bystander who was injured during a high-speed chase involving Turner and a bunch of criminals. Turner may have caught the criminals but Deakin’s sister slipped into a coma and died. Deakin has spent years obsessing on Turner and he is determined to get his revenge.

What’s interesting that, when Turner finds all of this out, he actually feel very guilty about what happened to Deakin’s sister, to the extent that he doesn’t blame Deakin for wanting him dead. One thing about action shows like this is that there are always innocent bystanders who witness every car chase or shoot-out but it’s rare that we ever hear about how they were effected by suddenly being exposed to so much violence. How does the person who witnesses a bad guy being shot just a few feet away from them react? How does it effect their lives? Myself, I would totally be freaked out and I would probably have trouble sleeping afterwards. Often times, shows like this concentrate so much on the action that they ignore the human aspect of it all. T and T deserves some credit for at least acknowledging that Turner’s actions, even when he’s fighting on the side of the law, have consequences.

That said, Deakin is still technically the bad guy and, when he and Hickson corner Turner in a water treatment plant, Turner points out that, as soon as Hickson shoots Turner, Deakin is going to shoot Hickson to cover up his involvement. This leads to Hickson turning on Deakin and the two of them end up shooting each other. Turner survives and hopefully, he’ll be a better drive from now on.

This was a surprisingly good episode. Matt Birmin gave a good performance as Deakin and the water treatment plant was a properly atmospheric location for a final stand-off. The second season of T and T has been hit-and-miss but this episode definitely worked.