Another week, another special about boy bands. I watched this 3-hour, two-part documentary on Wednesday and Thursday. Joey Fatone was one of the producers so it’s not a surprise that a major theme of the documentary was that Joey Fatone was a pretty cool guy. This show hit all the usual points — hey, there’s Lou Pealman! — without adding much new insight.
Crime Story (Tubi)
My review will drop this upcoming Monday.
Degrassi: The Next Generation (Tubi)
My review will drop tomorrow night.
Hollywood Demons (HBOMax)
I watched two episodes. The first one was about Stephen Collins (yikes!). The second was about Jerry Springer. Now that Jerry is dead and his show is definitely never coming back, all of his producers are trying to cash in by letting you know that they were anti-Jerry the whole time. It all feels a bit self-serving.
Homicide: Life on the Street (Peacock)
My review will drop tomorrow.
Saved By The Bell (Tubi)
Along with this week’s review episode (which will be dropping shortly), I also watched three Patrick Muldoon episodes on Friday. RIP.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015! The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi.
It’s a nice day for a white wedding!
Episodes 2.12 and 2.13 “White Wedding”
(Dir by Bruce McDonald, originally aired on January 6th, 2003)
Snake and Spike get married!
Of course, there’s some drama on the way. How much drama? Let’s count.
Spike discovers that she’s pregnant and doesn’t tell Snake because she’s not sure if she wants to keep the baby.
Emma is upset when she finds out that Spike is thinking about getting an abortion. She’s even more upset when her perm goes terrible wrong and she ends up looking like Harpo Marx.
Lucy and Caitlin show up to help Spike get ready for the wedding.
Joey throws a bachelor party for Snake. Craig suggests that Joey should hire a stripper, despite Snake not wanting a stripper. Joey agrees because he thinks it will be funny.
Why did Craig suggest that Joey hire a stripper? Because JT and Toby begged him to. However, when JT and Toby dress up like they’re on Miami Vice and show up for the bachelor party, Joey tells them to go home.
Mr. Raditch shows up for the bachelor party. “Oh, cheese balls!” he says when he looks at the food that’s been laid out.
Emma tells Snake that Spike is pregnant. Snake gets mad that Spike didn’t tell him.
Spike tells Emma that it’s her right to get an abortion if she chooses and then says that she’s not going to make the same mistake twice. Uhmmm …. wow, Spike. That’s a really stupid thing to say to your daughter.
Emma eventually forgives Spike. I would not.
Eventually, with everyone at the church waiting, Spike and Snake talk and decide to keep the baby. Then, they get married!
Manny invites Sean to the wedding. Emma freaks out and Manny has to retract the invitation. But then Emma eventually invites Sean herself. At the end of the episode, at the reception, Emma and Sean have their first kiss. Apparently, it was Miriam McDonald’s first kiss as well. Awwww!
This episode is classic Degrassi. It’s also one of the best-known episodes because Nickelodeon used to repeat it constantly. Yay for Snake and Spike! And yay for Emma! Who wouldn’t want their single mother to marry one of their teachers?
Okay, I don’t think anyone would want that. Still, it worked out well for the show.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015! The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi.
Degrassi goes there!
Episode 2.11 “Don’t Believe The Hype”
(Dir by Anais Granofsky, originally aired on December 23rd, 2002)
“A hate crime has been committed here,” Snake declares in this episode. He declares it very seriously. In fact, he’s a little bit too serious. His voice and his expression are so grim that the line actually has the opposite effect of what it intended. The same can be said of this episode itself. Degrassi was always political but, up until its final seasons, it was usually smart enough to understand that encouraging audiences to look between the lines was preferable to hitting them over the head. Occasionally, though, this show did give us an episode like this one.
As for the hate crime, it’s the vandalization of a display about Iraq. It’s International Day and Fareeza (Jessica Rose) made the display to inform people about her home country. Fareeza is sure that her display was vandalized by Hazel because, earlier, Hazel give Fareeza a fashion ticket because her hijab was judged to be “terrorist chic.” Hazel also said that Fareeza needed to back off before “Jamaica declared war on Iraq.”
Fareeza replies that Hazel’s last name — Aden — doesn’t sound Jamaican. (It doesn’t? Really?) “You look Somalian,” Fareeza says.
Anyway, it turns out that the displays was vandalized by two unnamed students. But Mr. Raditch still tells Hazel that she committed a hate crime by joking about declaring war on Iraq. At first, Hazel is defensive but then she becomes so overwhelmed with guilt that she admits that she isn’t Jamaican. She actually is Somalian! Of course, I think one could argue that Fareeza committed a hate crime with her “You look Somalian” comment. I mean, talk about stereotyping! It’s like telling me I look Irish just because I have red hair and I’m half-Irish.
(At this point, I should mention that Andea Lewis, who played Hazel, was not Somalian. In fact, in real life, she’s half-Jamaican. But then again, Jessica Rose, who played Fareeza, was not from Iraq.)
Now, needless to say, Hazel being a Somalian refugee is one of those plot points that will hardly ever be mentioned again. And Fareeza will never appear in another episode of Degrassi. Fareeza showed up. She taught everyone a lesson. Having fulfilled her plot obligations, her character is never seen again.
Hazel later gives a presentation about her Somalian heritage and the school loves her. (We don’t see the presentation that Fareeza gave about Iraq. Sorry, Fareeza, this is Hazel’s episode.) Meanwhile, JT’s friends discover that he’s good at sewing and everyone, except for Liberty, makes fun of him. It’s easy to roll one’s eyes at Liberty’s crush on JT until you remember that JT is destined to end dying on Liberty’s birthday. But that’s far in the future. For now, JT is an adorable scamp who has no idea that he’s going to be literally stabbed in the back.
There’s nothing subtle about this episode and the end result is that it feels almost more like a parody of Degrassi than anything else.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015! The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi.
Whatever it takes, I know I can make it through….
Episode 2.10 “Take My Breath Away”
(Dir by Stefan Scaini, originally aired on December 9th, 2002)
How you respond to this episode depends on how much you know about what’s eventually going to happen to the students at Toronto’s Degrassi Learning Center.
When watched for the first time, it seems like a sweet episode about how crushes can hurt and how they can also pay off. Ellie has a crush on Marco and, after discovering that he likes Edward Gorey just as much as she does, Ellie starts to send him anonymous rhyming emails. However, Hazel also likes Marco and Marco thinks that Hazel is the one sending him the emails. Marco thinks this despite Hazel having never shown any poetic ability and also despite the fact that he just sat down at lunch and discussed Edward Gorey with Ellie!
When Marco receives an anonymous email telling him to meet his crush at the Zen Garden, Marco is shocked to discover Ellie waiting for him. Ellie assumes Marco is disappointed and runs away. Marco later tracks Ellie down and reveals that he wasn’t disappointed at all. Marco and Ellie are now a couple!
Meanwhile, Craig and Manny go on their first date. Craig wants to see a movie. Manny gets excited when she sees a rather childish carnival. Manny later tells Emma and Liberty that the date was wonderful and that she and Craig are totally in love. Craig tells Spinner and Jimmy that the date was awkward and that Manny is still too immature for him. Craig says that Manny reminds him of his five year-old half-sister, Angela. (Angela was played by Alexa Steele, Cassie Steele’s real-life sister.)
The episode ends with Manny telling Craig that he shouldn’t talk to Ashley and asking him what they’re doing on Friday night. Craig replies that they’re not doing anything because he doesn’t like Manny. AGCK!
Again, it’s a good episode. The contrast between Craig’s recollection of the date and Manny’s version is genuinely amusing. Meanwhile, Ellie finally gets a boyfriend….
Of course, veteran Degrassi watchers know that Marco is both gay and deeply closeted and that he’s destined to hurt Ellie before becoming her best friend. (Ellie was always way too forgiving.) Meanwhile, Craig and Manny are going to end up together, with Craig first getting Manny pregnant and then, several seasons later, introducing her to cocaine. Craig is also going to nearly kill Joey while having a manic episode before breaking Ashley’s heart and nearly driving Ellie to suicide in Los Angeles. Yikes!
This is a cute episode that, for veteran Degrassi watchers, is decorated with red flags.
I watched an episode of this classic detective series on Tuesday. Maury Chaykin was a great Wolfe and Timothy Hutton was a wonderful Archie Goodwin. The late James Tolkan also appeared in the episode, wearing an eyepatch.
Saved By The Bell (Tubi)
My review of Saved By The Bell will drop in 30 minutes.
Show Me A Hero (HBO Max)
“….and I’ll show you a tragedy.” I rewatched this 2015 HBO miniseries on Wednesday. The miniseries dealt with the fight over low-income housing in Yonkers, New York and it starred Oscar Isaac as Nick Wasicsko, who went from being elected mayor at the age of 28 to committing suicide 6 years later. Supporting roles were played Catherine Keener, James Beluhsi, Peter Riegert, Jon Bernthal, Winona Ryder, Alfred Molina, and Carla Quevado. The show was written by David Simon and each episode was directed by Paul Haggis. Not surprisingly, several actors from The Wire popped up in small roles.
Show Me A Hero really impressed me when it originally aired. Rewatching it, it still held my attention but I could see that the miniseries was a bit more heavy-handed than I remembered and that Simon and Haggis were clearly more interested in the political storyline than they were in the stories of the people who eventually moved into the new housing developments. Some of the performances were better than other. Catherine Keener and Winona Ryder both overacted while, cast as the show’s three mayors, Belushi, Isaac, and Molina all gave strong performances. Carla Quevado was exceptionally good as Isaac’s wife.
In the end, Show Me A Hero works best as a portrait of an ambitious politician who peaked too young, suffered due to things out of his control, and then spent the rest of his life trying to regain his lost promise. Some people feel that Nick Wasicsko was a hero. This miniseries ultimately focuses on the tragedy.
Jeff and I watched an episode of this old 80s music program on Friday night. John Kassir, who played the kicker on 1st and Ten and who would later voice the Crypt Keeper on Tales From the Crypt, was one of the hosts. He was a bit hyperactive.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015! The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi.
Don’t watch this episode if you have a weak stomach.
Episode 2.9 “Mirror In The Bathroom”
(Dir by Paul Fox, originally aired on July 18th, 2003)
This is the one where Toby decides that the only way to get people to notice him in school is to join the wrestling team. However, when he discovers that he and Sean are in the same weight class (and there’s no way that Toby could ever beat Sean), Toby decides to lose a lot of weight in a very short amount of time.
Yep, this is the episode were Toby starts taking laxatives and throwing up his lunch.
Ugh. Yes, I know that eating disorders are serious. It’s nice that Degrassi did an episode about a guy doing something stupid instead of a girl. If there’s anything I get sick of, it’s the assumption that some people have that any woman who isn’t fat must have an eating disorder. Seriously, you can’t win. If you gain weight, you endanger your health. If you don’t gain weight, everyone assumes you’re throwing up everything you eat. This episode featured a guy struggling with body issues and I appreciated the change of pace.
That said …. ugh! Toby using laxatives! Ugh, ugh, ugh!
While Toby is losing weight, Terri is using her weight to get rich as a plus-sized model. Good for her, I guess. Terri’s kind of a boring character so, for now, it’s difficult to really care about her storylines. In season 3, she’ll start dating Rick Murray and everything will change. But we’ve still got a while to go.
Anyway, as always happens when someone gets an eating disorder, Toby ends up fainting in front of the entire school. He’s off the wrestling team but at least he’ll never take another laxative.
Tubi showed me a random episode on Thursday. Arnold and his stupid friend Dudley took up smoking. Dudley’s father went to the hospital to have a lung removed. I think there was a message in there somewhere.
I watched two episodes of Nero Wolfe on Tuesday. These episodes featured Maury Chaykin as Nero Wolfe and Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin. Seymour Cassel was in one of the episodes. I enjoyed the episodes, even if I did have a hard time following the twists and turns of the mysteries.
Night Flight (NightFlight+)
On Saturday, I watched an episode of this old music video program. It was a countdown of the top music videos of 1983. I like the music of the 80s. It was very energetic.
I wrote about Korey and Cory this week. On Tuesday, I watched as they won the Silver Medal in a match with Sweden and I have to admit that I was depressed for the rest of the day. That’s nothing against the Swedish team. They did a good job and they earned the win. It’s just that I had gotten so invested in Korey and Cory that it was hard for me to accept that 1) it was over and 2) it ended with them coming in second.
I’ve watched the Olympics off-and-on since then but I have to admit none of the other athletes have really captured my attention the way that Korey and Cory did. I do like our hockey teams, because they’re all blue collar and they don’t talk badly about my country. Our skiers appear to be a bunch of spoiled rich kids.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015! The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi.
This week, Emma is annoyed about something.
Episode 2.5 “Weird Science”
(Dir by Bruce McDonald, originally aired on November 11th, 2002)
Emma is still upset that Mr. Simpson is dating her mother. This episode opens with an extremely awkward “family” dinner, in which Mr. Simpson asks that Emma call him “Archie” at home and Emma responds by calling him “Mr. Simpson.” (At least he didn’t ask her to call him Snake.) I could actually relate to Emma in this scene, if just because, when I was Emma’s age, I was an absolute brat towards anyone who tried to date my mom. If anything, Mr. Simpson should be happy that all he has to deal with is Emma glaring at him. He wouldn’t have been able to survive me and my sisters.
It’s science fair time! Emma’s experiment takes a look at whether or not having a healthy breakfast can be help someone perform better at school. She takes first prize but, because Mr. Simpson is one of the judges, she’s not sure that she earned it. And, after Manny accidentally sends an email to the entire school in which she mentions that “Mr. Simpson loves Emma’s mom,” second-place finisher Liberty isn’t so sure that Emma deserves the prize either.
Liberty says that Emma should withdraw her experiment and give the first prize trophy to Liberty. Liberty, as I’ve mentioned in the past, is the absolute worst. Emma confronts Mr. Simpson and he explains to her that all of the judges voted for Emma to get first prize. Emma apologizes and promises to be nicer to Mr. Simpson.
(This, of course, frees Mr. Simpson to later knock up and marry Spike before cheating on her with Ms. Hatzilakos but that’s an entire season away.)
Meanwhile, Spinner is freaking out because he keeps getting erections at awkward moments — hey, Degrassi goes there! (Seriously, that was Degrassi’s slogan for a while.) Spinner blames it on Emma forcing him to eat bananas as a part of her experiment. Jimmy thinks that Spinner is crazy and eventually they ask Sheila the Cafeteria Lady if certain foods could be to blame for Spinner being perpetually at attention. Sheila says that it’s just a part of growing up. Spinner and Jimmy are relieved but I’m concerned that, in Canada, it’s apparently left to the cafeteria workers to explain these things.
This episode is largely remembered for the Spinner subplot, with Spinner panicking and getting embarrassed in Ms. Kwan’s class, so much so that I’m always surprised to discover that it’s mostly about Emma getting mad at Mr. Simpson. Emma, of course, is destined to eventually marry Spinner at the end of Degrassi Takes Manhattan. The Spinner/Emma marriage has often been criticized because Spinner and Emma hardly ever interacted in the seasons leading up to their sudden decision to get married. But this episode shows that Emma apparently felt close enough to Spinner to experiment on him.
On Monday, I turned over to Fave TV so that I could binge Bar Rescue and I discovered that Fave TV no longer exists! It’s been replaced by Outlaw TV, a western channel. I was disappointed so I watched the Pirate Bar episode of Bar Rescue online. I hope One-Eyed Mike was able to find another job about the tavern went out of business. He was cool.
Watching the Grammy Awards on Sunday, I realized just how boring modern music has become. I can’t wait for someone new to come along and hopefully remind us of what it’s like to be surprised.
This week, I binged the second and third seasons of this classic cop show. It made for oddly calming background noise. Poor LaRue, he was always getting in trouble.
I’ve been enjoying curling! Go Korey and Corey! I also enjoyed watching the Parade of Nations. I had the volume down so I didn’t hear the booing that people have been talking about. If I had heard the booing, I would have shrugged it off. Other countries will always hate America, for the same reason that some people are still resentful towards the rich kids from high school. When you consider what certain countries are on the record as supporting, it’s almost an honor to be booed by them.
Through the Shattered Lens 