Doug Stevenson | Through the Shattered Lens

Terry Franken (Dwight Schultz), the arrogant director of a new musical that is playing out of town tryouts on the way to Broadway, is shot and killed at the theater. Recently fired stage manager Johnny Whitcomb (Jim Metzler) is arrested for the crime but Perry knows that Johnny is innocent. At the same time that Terry was getting murdered, Perry was in a hospital room recovering from knee surgery. He looked out the hospital window and saw Johnny across the street. Despite Perry providing an alibi, Johnny is still charged with murdering Terry. Broadway legend Amanda Cody (Debbie Reynolds) asks Perry to take Johnny’s case.

This Perry Mason movie featured Perry on the stand, testifying to having seen Johnny. The District Attorney (Valerie Mahaffey) tried to humiliate Perry by suggesting that he was on too many pain killers to be sure what he saw. Never try to humiliate Perry Mason! He’ll not only beat you in court but also make you look like a fool by getting the real murderer to confess while on the stand.

The key to proving Johnny’s innocence was finding the security guard (Rick Aiello) who worked at the theater the night that Terry was killed. Ken (William R. Moses) and his annoying girlfriend Amy (Alexandra Paul) handled that part of the case. Ken is still no Paul Drake, Jr. and his bickering with Amy is like nails on a chalkboard.

I actually remember watching this movie with my aunt when it came on Hallmark one weekend. My aunt enjoyed it. She liked Debbie Reynolds. This one was better than the previous movie. Along with Debbie Reynolds, the cast includes Jerry Orbach and Lori Petty. Dwight Schultz was great as the victim. I still miss William Katt and David Ogden Stiers, though. Perry doesn’t have the same connection to Ken that he had to Paul. David Ogden Stiers was great because, even though he always lost the case, he still seemed like he was a good enough lawyer that he could have won if things had gone differently. These new district attorneys never even have a chance against Perry.

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 Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, a vampire comes to California!

Episode 2.9 “Night Whispers”

(Dir by Reza Badiyi, originally aired on November 24th, 1996)

The mysterious Francesca (Felicity Waterman) is being held in police custody as a suspect in the murder of a jogger. The jogger was found with his throat slit. Ryan, who was there when the body was found, suspects that Francesca might be vampire.

Why? Ryan has her reasons.

Francesca speaks with the same type of unplaceable Eastern European accent that all vampires tend to speak with.
Francesca wears sunglasses inside and says she can’t go out during the day because her eyes are just too sensitive to the sunlight.
Francesca occasionally wears a cape.
Francesca wears gloves to hide her vampire hands.
Francesca’s gown was splattered with the dead guy’s blood.
Francesca does not cast a reflection in her apartment’s mirror.

(Why do vampires even own mirrors?)

Ryan seems like she has a pretty good case but Mitch is skeptical. Mitch doesn’t believe in any of that supernatural stuff, despite the fact that he’s spent the past few months dealing with sea monsters, ghosts, and government conspiracies. Just a few episodes ago, he stepped into a house and was transported through time!

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I understand skepticism. For the most part, I’m a skeptic too. But the main reason that I’m such an adamant skeptic is because I haven’t ever had anything supernatural happen to me. Now, if I started meeting ghosts and sea monsters on a regular basis, I would probably become less of a skeptic. I would reexamine all of my prejudices and I would say, “Hey, maybe something is out there.”

Not Mitch, though! Mitch listens to Ryan explain why she thinks Francesca is a vampire and he laughs it off. What’s odd is that it takes Ryan forever to get around to mentioning that Francesca does not cast a reflection. Instead, she fixates on Francesca wearing gloves in California. Trust me, the whole mirror thing is a lot more convincing than the glove thing. Some people wear gloves and some people don’t but everyone (except for the undead) casts a reflection. Ryan also points out that Francesca doesn’t have a birth certificate and ….. SHE’S NOT REGISTERED TO VOTE!

A trip to the police station to visit Francesca goes terribly wrong when Francesca gets out of her cell and proceeds to stalk Mitch, Ryan, a detective, a pimp, and two prostitutes through the building. Though Francesca is willing to drink anyone’s blood, it becomes obvious that she’s obsessed with capturing the Hoff and really, who can blame her? I imagine she would be quite popular with her co-workers if she was the one who turned the Hoff into a vampire.

This is a deeply silly episode but the same can be said of just about every episode of Baywatch Nights. There’s no reason to take this show seriously. The important thing is that the action movies fairly quickly, Felicity Waterman appears to be having a ball as the vampire, and the Hoff and Angie Harmon get to show off the chemistry that made Baywatch Nights a lot more fun than it had any right being. This may not be a classic vampire tale but it’s an entertaining one.