Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!
This week, the hospital staff is under pressure!
Episode 2.6 “Under Pressure”
(Dir by David Anspaugh, originally aired on November 30th, 1983)
What a depressing episode!
It’s another day at St. Eligius and almost everyone seems to be in a bad mood. Patients are complaining that Dr. Craig is so obsessed with his heart transplant that he’s ignoring them. Dr. Westphall wakes up in a bad mood and continue to be in a bad mood for the entire episode. Dr. Morrison is upset because he’s treating two Irish teens who nearly killed each other because one is Protestant and the other is Catholic. (One of the teens is played by a young Eric Stoltz.) Bobby Caldwell has to figure out how to put together the face of one of the Irish boys. Ehrlich is complaining nonstop. Morrison is missing his wife. Auschlander is dealing with his approaching mortality. (There’s a wonderful moment when Norman Lloyd rolls his eyes while Auschlander listens to Westphall whine.)
Finally, a man calling himself Mr. Entertainment (Austin Pendleton) took over one of the hospital’s elevators and sang to the patients. That cheered some people up. It would have annoyed the Hell out of me. Mr. Entertainment is checked into the psych ward, where he meets the new head psychiatrist, Michael Ridley (Paul Sand). (Hugh Beale apparently no longer works at the hospital. Both he and Dr. Samuels were dropped after the first season, with no onscreen explanation.) The episode ends with Mr. Entertainment singing for a collection of nurses and doctors and bringing some happiness to their lives.
Everyone in this episode is under pressure. That’s fine. That’s realistic. Being a doctor cannot be an easy job. But it just made for a rather melancholy episode and I have to admit that I couldn’t wait for the end credits and that meowing cat.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!
This week, St. Elsewhere observes a holiday.
Episode 2.5 “A Wing and a Prayer”
(Dir by Bruce Paltrow, originally aired on November 23rd, 1983)
It’s Thanksgiving in Boston! While everyone else is watching the Patriots and celebrating with family, 15 residents are stuck at St. Eligius, working during the holiday. To make it even worse for them, Dr. Craig puts himself on the schedule to teach them a lesson about what it means to be a doctor. (It’s also subtly suggested that Craig is looking for an excuse to get out of visiting his in-laws.) When Craig learns that Ehrlich is planning on make a “California-style” turkey, Craig insists on making a turkey of his own.
Meanwhile, Dr. Auschlander is reading a book on “dying with dignity.” It’s a British book, one that makes the case for euthanasia. (Anglicans are so pessimistic!) Auschlander is convinced that this will be his last Thanksgiving. He becomes obsessed with the case of Joe Dempsey (Cory Yothers), a little boy who might have Hepatitis or who could just as easily be suffering from Leukemia. Neither option is great but Joe can recover from Hepatitis. Death-obsessed Auschlander spends the entire episode convincing himself that Joe is going to die. Fortunately, Auschlander is wrong. When the test results come back, it turns out that Joe does have Hepatitis. Auschlander’s hope is renewed. He tosses away his assisted suicide book. He tells his wife he’s looking forward to next Thanksgiving. It’s kind of predictable but Norman Lloyd’s performance sells it.
Did I cry during this episode? Yes, I did. Last year, at this time, I was fighting with an insurance company to keep my dad from getting kicked out of his rehab center. I knew, deep in my heart, that if he was sent home, he would die. The insurance company wanted to kick him out on the 4th of July. I successfully appealed their decision, just as I would appeal several more of their decisions. I won countless battles and I felt pretty proud of myself but ultimately, I lost the war. My Dad was eventually evicted from the rehab center and, as I feared would happen, he died a few weeks later. Every holiday since August of last year has been my first without my Dad. So, yeah, when I watched an episode of a hospital drama with Dr. Asuchlander obsessing on death while Dr. Morrison experienced his first holiday since the passing of his wife …. you better believe I cried.
Can I fairly judge this episode, all things considered? Probably not. Watching it, I could tell that this episode was shamelessly manipulative and there were a few moments that were a bit overwritten. There wasn’t much subtlety to be found. But, dammit, it got to me. The emotions got to me. It earned my tears and, to be honest, I felt a little better after I cried. Joe Dempsey’s going to live. Yay!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!
This week. Dr. Craig finally gets to perform his first heart transplant.
Episode 2.4 “Qui Transtulit Sustinet”
(Dir by Victor Lobl, originally aired on November 16th, 1983)
It’s a busy day at St. Eligius.
While Morrison struggles to come to terms with the death of his wife, her heart is transplanted into Eve Leighton. Morrison tells Westphall that he wants to keep working at the hospital and that he doesn’t need any time off. Westphall tells Morrison that he’s too distraught to be trusted with patients and that he has to take some time off. Westphall actually has a point, even if he does come across as being a bit cold when talking to Morrison. Even Peter White, that drug-addicted sleazebag, tells Morrison that he’s needs to take some time. Seriously, I think this is the first time that Dr. White’s been correct about anything since this show began.
Dr. Craig finally gets to perform a heart transplant but afterwards, in a wonderfully-acted scene, he tells Westphall that he feels a bit let down. After all the anticipation and the preparation, Craig isn’t sure what to do now that he’s actually performed the surgery. For once, he doesn’t want to talk to the press, regardless of how much the city of Boston expects him to. It’s a nicely human moment, one that we don’t often get from Dr. Craig.
Nurse Rosenthal attempted to console another breast cancer patient and met with Mark Harmon’s Dr. Caldwell to discuss getting breast reconstruction surgery. Nurse Rosenthal’s breast cancer storyline has consistently been well-acted and well-written and it has also been consistently difficult for me, as someone who lost her mother to cancer, to watch and write about. That was certainly the case for me with this episode.
Meanwhile, Fiscus and Luther pool their money to make an investment in silver but, at the last minute, Fiscus pulls out of their investment. His nerves get the better of him. Luther makes a lot of money. Fiscus doesn’t. Hey, guys — Morrison’s wife is dead. Show some respect and save the comedy for another episode.
This was an intense episode but it ended on a beautiful note, with Dr. Morrison listening to the sound of his wife’s heart beating in someone else’s body. A beautiful note but also a very sad one. I’m worried about Jack Morrison. I’m worried about the recipient of the heart. I’m worried about Helen Rosenthal. I’m worried about the entire hospital!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!
This week, things get dark.
Episode 2.3 “Newheart”
(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on November 9th, 1983)
What a depressing episode!
It doesn’t start out on a particularly depressing note. It opens with a bachelor part for Dr. Vijay Kochar, who is about marry a woman that he’s never actually met. (It’s an arranged marriage.) The bachelor party, which appears to have been held in Fiscus’s apartment, is a bust. Dr. White shows up with a sex doll. Victor Ehrlich shows up with a short film called “Sally Takes a Ride,” which turns out to be not the pornography he was expecting but instead, a short film about astronaut Sally Ride. Vijay mentions that he’s a virgin and soon, with the help Dr. White and Nurse Daniels, the news is all over the hospital. Kathy Martin decides to give Vijay an early wedding gift by having sex with him.
Since this episode aired in 1983, there’s a random aerobic class being held in the hospital, which leads to a lengthy scene of spandex and dancing. It’s a bit of a silly scene for what was, for the first half hour, shaping up to be a silly episode.
Fran and Jerry Singleton finally check out of the hospital. Fran has regained the ability to speak and can stiffly walk. Jerry has learned to stop being such an overbearing jerk. Dr. Morrison is not there to say goodbye to the Singletons because….
…. and here’s where things start to get dark….
….his wife is in another hospital! Jack Morrison’s wife has an offscreen cerebral hemorrhage and, as evidenced by Morrison’s tears at the end of the episode, she does not survive. At the same time that she’s dying, Dr. Craig gets a call telling him that there is finally a heart available for the transplant. And, though it wasn’t explicitly stated, it seems pretty obvious that the heart in question belonged to Morrison’s wife.
AGCK!
Seriously, how much more depressing can one episode get? And for all this to happen to Jack Morrison, who is probably the most decent character on the show, it’s just not fair! I mean, he was literally the only married intern who had a happy marriage. He has a newborn son. And now, he’s going to have to balance being a single father with being a resident.
Poor guy! I hope next week finds some sort of relief for him.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!
This week, St. Eligius gets a new plastic surgeon.
Episode 2.2 “Lust Et Veritas”
(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on November 2nd, 1982)
This episode sees the addition of two new doctors to the hospital’s staff and they’re both played by familiar actors. Elliott Axlerod is played by Stephen Furst. He’s a new resident and obviously terrified of screwing up in the ER. He asks Ehrlich and Fiscus for advice. When told that he’s required to perform a rectal exam on every patient, he asks, “Is it too late to go to law school?” Ehrlich assures him that it is.
(It’s never too late!)
Secondly, Mark Harmon joins the cast as plastic surgeon Bobby Caldwell and not even a porn star mustache can obscure the fact that young Mark Harmon was amazingly hot. (Actually, old Mark Harmon isn’t that bad either. He aged well.) Bobby, we learn, was brought to St. Eligius by Dr. Craig. He’s cocky and confident and it’s obvious that he loves being lusted after by Dr. Armstrong and Nurse Daniels. However, he already has a secret lover as this episode finds him showering with Joan Halloran, the city hall bureaucrat who spends most of her time arguing with Dr. Craig about whether or not to shut down one of the hospital’s non-profit programs.
Dr. Craig is nervous because he’s waiting for a heart to become available so he can perform his first transplant on Eve Leighton (Marian Mercer), a teacher who wants to get back into her classroom as soon as possible. Ehrlich is nervous because Craig is taking all of his frustrations. and his nervousness out on him.
Meanwhile, Jerry Singleton (Alan Arkin), the demanding husband of stroke-victim Fran (Piper Laurie), continued to push his wife to recover until finally, at the end of the episode, she yelled that he was pushing her too hard. It was a heart-breaking moment. Jerry thinks that he’s helping his wife but, as this episode showed, he’s actually been torturing her with his overbearing demands that she hurry up and get better.
Finally, a former resident named Barry Dorn (Peter Horton) returns to the hospital to try to convince Dr. Cavanero to change her negative evaluation of his job performance. Everyone acts as if Barry was a character on the show during the previous season, even though he wasn’t. It’s even revealed that he is Wendy Armstrong’s former boyfriend. When Cavanero refuses to change her evaluation, Armstrong accuses her of not having any feelings. (Seriously, Armstrong is the worst!) Even worse, when Cavanero heads to the doctor’s lounge, she finds Barry waiting for her. Barry punches her, busting open her lower lip. Armstrong stitches up the cut and then says that Cavanero is lucky because now, she’ll have an excuse to meet Dr. Caldwell! Armstrong then offers a half-hearted apology for previously accusing Cavanero of being heartless. (Again, Armstrong is the worst!!!!)
This wasn’t a bad episode. Mark Harmon and Stephen Furst seem like they’ll be good additions to the show’s ensemble. The Barry story felt a bit odd, just because Barry was apparently present but 0ff-camera during the entire first season. It sounds like Barry went through a lot of the same things that Peter White went through during the first season and Peter was not present in this episode. There’s a part of me that suspects that Barry was originally meant to be Peter but the show’s producers obviously decided they wanted to keep Peter around for a bit longer.
Next week …. well, I have no idea how things are going to develop. There’s a lot going on in this hospital. We’ll see what happens.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!
This week, we start season 2!
Episode 2.1 “Ties That Bind”
(Dir by Bruce Paltrow, originally aired on October 26th, 1983)
The second season is here and there are changes to be found in the opening credits.
David Birney and G.W. Bailey are no longer listed in the opening credits. I’m not sorry to see Birney go as Dr. Samuels was never that interesting of a character. I will miss Bailey’s performance as Dr. Beale.
Norman Lloyd is now listed in the credits, appearing right after Ed Flanders. Ellen Bry, Kim Miyori, and Eric Laneuville are also now listed in the opening credits. That’s good. Last season, Shirley Daniels (played by Ellen Bry) was one of the most important characters on the show and it always seemed strange that she was left out of the opening. Mark Harmon, sporting a mustache, appears in the credits, though he didn’t appear in this episode. The final addition to the opening credits is Nancy Stafford, who does appear in this episode.
Stafford plays Joan Halloran, the new city budget advisor who has been assigned to cut St. Eligius’s budget. She tells Westphall and Auschlander that St. Eligius is not popular downtown. “They call you St. Elsewhere,” she says. Joan wants to do away with the animal research lab, which is a part of the hospital that has never been mentioned before. (And with good reason. Boo, animal research, boo!) Westphall finally agrees, on the condition that the city fund Dr. Craig’s attempt to perform a heart transplant on teacher Eve Leighton (Marian Mercer).
Wisely, Dr. Craig gets a lot of screentime in this episode. If the first season seemed to often be unsure of just how abrasive the show should allow Craig to be, the second season premiere would seem to suggest that the show’s writers realized that the more abrasive Craig is, the better. Of course, Dr. Craig has good reason to be in a bad mood. As he confesses to Nurse Rosenthal, he caught his son doing drugs. Craig explains he kicked him out of the house and now, he wants nothing to do with him.
Speaking of drugs, orderly Luther (played by Eric Laneuville) finally manages to capture the thief who has been stealing all the drugs from the hospital. Dr. White is no longer under suspicion! Yay, I guess. I don’t know. Dr. White wasn’t in much of this episode but he still cames across as being a jerk. I have to admit that I groaned a little when I saw he was still on the show. A part of me is hoping he’ll get a redemption arc this season but, from his behavior during rounds, he still seems to be a jackass.
Speaking of jackasses, when Jerry Singleton (Alan Arkin) discovers that his wife, Fran (Piper Laurie), has had a stroke, he responds by crashing his car into the ER and then refusing to leave the doctors along while they try to save his wife’s life. Jerry is convincing that he knows everything and he’s very demanding. Naturally, Fran’s doctor is Jack Morrison because Morrison always gets the really depressing cases. Fran does wake up from her coma but she neither speaks no seems to hear anything anyone says to her. I can’t imagine this is going to end well, mostly because she’s Morrison’s patient and things never seem to go well when Morrison is involved. (What’s really sad is that Morrison, unlike Peter White, is a good doctor! He just has rotten luck.)
Shirley Daniels finds out that Fiscus is cheating on her with Kathy Martin, who spends most of this episode promoting cryogenics. Shirley responds by dumping Fiscus and telling him that he’s a pig. Fiscus tells Kathy that they no longer have to sneak around, just for Kathy to say that the sneaking around was the whole point. She promptly dumps Ficus.
Finally, Dr. Ehrlich meets a woman, Bobbi (Jean Bruce Scott) at the laundromat. They go back to her apartment. She strips down to her underwear. She has Ehrlich tie her to the bed. Ehrlich realizes that he has to get something from his car so he runs outside and …. gets locked out. And then he nearly gets arrested while trying to use his credit card to open the building’s door. However, the next day, Bobbi shows up at the hospital for her “encounter group,” and the two of them are reunited. Again, I have a feeling this is not going to end well, just because it involves Dr. Ehrlich.
Hey, this episode was pretty good! It moved quickly, it reintroduced us to the cast, and all of the stories were actually fairly interesting. It’s obvious that show’s producers paid attention with what didn’t work during season one and they made an effort to improve things with season two. Compared to the majority of this first season’s episodes, the pace was quicker, the humor was sharper, and just about everyone got a moment or two to shine. I’m looking forward to next week!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!
This week, the first season comes to a close.
Episode 1.22 “Addiction”
(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on May 3rd, 1983)
“To life,” Dr. Auschlander toasts towards the end of the finale of St. Elsewhere’s first season and the sentiment could not be more called for.
While Auschlander has spent the episode hanging out with a friend of his and getting into fights with disrespectful street punks, Dr. Morrison’s wife has been giving birth to their son. While someone breaks into the supply room and takes off with a huge supply of drugs, Dr. White is sobbing and telling his estranged wife that he knows he has to get help for his addictions. While one drug addict (Ralph Seymour) commits suicide by injecting an air bubble into his veins, Dr. Craig’s cocky son, Stephen (Scott Paulin), visits from medical school and turns out to be quite a weed-smoking, pill-popping drug user himself. Ehrlich, assigned to show Stephen around the hospital and teach him what it’s like being a resident, considers telling Dr. Craig that his son has a drug problem but apparently decides not to. Dr. Craig is very proud that his son is going to follow the family tradition of becoming a surgeon. Meanwhile, Dr. Fiscus cheats on Shirley Daniels with Kathy Martin. Fiscus, you idiot.
Life goes on at St. Eligius. That’s was the theme of the finale and it’s also been the theme of the first season. For all the bad things that happen, there are also good things. Some patients die. Some doctors are incompetent. But babies are born and doctors like Morrison and Ehrlich and Chandler haven’t given up and are still trying to make the world a better place. Dr. Auschlander may be terminally ill with cancer but he embraces life and we should all do the same.
It’s a good ending for an overall good first season. There were a few weak episodes. Dr. Samuels was a pretty annoying character and I’m a bit relieved to see that David Birney left the show after this season. Ed Flanders can be a bit overly somber as Dr. Westphall and Howie Mandel is still one of the least convincing doctors that I’ve ever seen. That said, Morrison, Ehrlich, Chandler, Nurse Daniels, and even Dr. White are interesting characters and I look forward to seeing what happens with them during season 2. The season’s stand-out was definitely William Daniels as the pompous yet still likable Dr. Craig. Other than the terrible storyline where he cheated on his wife (and I still claim that was a dream episode, like almost all of the stuff with Dr. Samuels), Dr. Craig was this season’s standout character.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!
This week’s episode is a much better Dr. Craig episode than last week’s.
Episode 1.21 “Baron von Munchausen”
(Dir by Victor Hsu, originally aired on April 19th, 1983)
Anthony Rizzo (Louis Giambalvo) seems like a nice guy. He’s admitted to the hospital with complaints of stomach pain and a high fever. Dr. Morrison can’t find anything wrong with him but he does notice that Rizzo has a lot of scars. Rizzo explains that he’s had a lot of surgeries over the course of his life and he’s got a story to go with each one of them. Morrison brings in Ehrlich for a consult. Ehrlich, who loves to perform surgery, suggests opening Rizzo up and doing an exploratory. Morrison thinks it’s too early for that, Rizzo, however, loves the idea. Rizzo then proceeds to die on the operating table.
Ehrlich is shaken. Morrison is angry. However, Westphall and Craig take one look at the case and deduce that Rizzo suffered from Munchausen’s Syndrome. For whatever reason, he was addicted to going to the hospital and having surgery. He knew all the tricks, from using a light blub to make it look like he had a fever to pricking his finger with a needle to convince the doctors that there was blood in his urine. It turns out that he died because of the drugs that he had been taking to help him fake his symptoms. Both Morrison and Ehrlich are relieved to learn that Rizzo’s death was not their fault.
“So, Ehrlich lost his first patient today,” Craig says to Westphall. “It won’t be his last.”
This was a good episode for Dr. Craig, especially after all that nonsense last week. When Westphall finds himself in need of a doctor to speak to a group of inner city medical students, he is horrified to discover that Mark Craig is the only one available. Craig accepts, saying that Westphall should have asked him earlier.
Westphall’s concerns are justified. Dr. Craig is opinionated, wealthy, and more than a little prejudiced against …. well, everyone. “My ancestors came here on the Mayflower!” Craig is quick to say. And yet, the students love him, specifically because he doesn’t pretend to be anything that he isn’t. Unlike Westphall, who tries give an inspiring pep talk, Craig is open about the reality of practicing medicine in what this episode refers to as being “the ghetto.” When asked if his medical student son will be working in a ghetto clinic, Craig replies, “Why would he?” Craig gets a standing ovation from the students, which felt like a bit much but whatever. It was nice, for once, to see the show admitting that Craig’s blunt honesty can sometimes be more effective than Westphall’s noncommittal style of encouragement.
Afterwards, in a wonderfully acted scene, Craig asked Westphall why people don’t seem to like him, Westphall shrugs and then says that Craig can be arrogant, rude, prejudiced, intolerant of other worldviews …. “Thank you, Donald,” Craig cuts him off.
Meanwhile, back at the hospital, a crazy woman (Micole Mercurio) is sent to the psych ward after threatening to kill Nurse Daniels. (No, leave Shirley alone!) Dr. Wendy Armstrong, who is one of the worst characters on this show, promptly discharges the woman and lets her leave the hospital. “She threatened to kill me!” Shirley says while Wendy shrugs, unconcerned. Fiscus also proves to be of no help, as he is once again feeling attracted to Kathy Martin.
Finally, Dr. White goes to a drug addict support group and walks out when things get too emotional. Booo! Dr. White is even worse than Dr, Armstrong!
This was a good episode. Next week, the season finale!
In 2010’s The Client List, Jennifer Love Hewitt stars as Samantha Horton.
Samantha’s a former beauty queen whose mother (Cybill Shepherd) always hoped would go on to win Miss Texas and then maybe appear in movies and on television. Instead, Samantha got knocked up by her boyfriend, Rex (Teddy Sears). Rex was a football star at UT so marrying him didn’t seem like it would be a dead-in but then Rex blew out his knee. Now, they’re living in small town Texas, they’ve got three children, and they’ve got a bank threatening to foreclose on their home. When Samantha and Rex head down to the bank, their loan officer spends the entire time staring at Samantha’s chest while Samantha reveals that she has a photographic memory.
Desperately needing a job and with Rex drinking away his troubles, Samantha gets a job at a massage parlor the next town over. Naively, Samantha assumed that her job would actually just be to give men massages. Instead, it turns out that the massage parlor is actually a brothel where the workers continually tell each other that it “beats the heck out of waitressing.”
(They don’t say “heck” but I gave up cursing for Lent.)
At first, Samantha is disgusted by the idea of working as a prostitute. But, with Rex drinking too much and the house about to bet taken away, Samantha goes back to the parlor and soon becomes the most popular person working there. She works herself to exhaustion but one of her clients has just the solution for that. “I’ve never even smoked weed before,” Samantha says while looking at the baggie of cocaine. I’m sorry …. you dated someone who went to UT without ever smoking weed? I don’t buy that.
Samantha can now stay awake for hours, going to work and buying her family a lot of Christmas presents. Samantha’s clients include some of the most powerful men in the county. When one of her co-workers confesses to having doubts about the job, Samantha sends her to a church group so she’ll have someone to talk to. Soon, words gets out that the massage parlor is a house of prostitution and Samantha is getting arrested and led out of the parlor in her underwear while TV cameras roll. “That looks kind of like your wife,” someone says to Rex.
The Client List caused quite a stir when it aired on Lifetime back in 2010. (It also led to a TV series where Jennifer Love Hewitt starred as a different character.) It’s an enjoyably sordid story, one that embraces the melodrama and mixes morality and sex in a way that would have made Cecil B. DeMille proud. The film takes place in my homestate and, fortunately, it stars a lot of Texas-born actors so the accents are authentic, even if the dialogue was obviously written by a Yankee. (“She’s as busy as popcorn,” a character said at one point and I nearly went blind from rolling my eyes.) That the film actually carries some emotional weight is totally due to the lead performance of Jennifer Love Hewitt, who I’ve always liked because we’re both Texas girls and we’ve both got big boobs so I feel like we share the same struggle. Hewitt gives an authentic and heartfelt performance here, leaving no doubt that everything that Samantha does, she does for her family. The Client List is a true Lifetime classic.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!
This week, Judith Light has got a gun!
Episode 1.18 “Dog Day Hospital”
(Dir by Victor Lobl, originally aired on March 22nd, 1983)
Finally, Dr. Ehrlich is performing his first solo operation. Dr. Craig is assisting but Ehrlich is in charge. He gets to play his music in the OR. He gets to decide what type of retractor to use. It’s a simple hernia operation. The patient (Sam Anderson) is awake and babbling through the whole operation.
Unfortunately, there’s also an angry woman in the OR and she has a gun. Barbara Lonnicker (Judith Light) is eight months pregnant, despite her husband claiming that he got a vasectomy at St. Eligius. As she already has several children to deal with, she wants to see the doctor who screwed up the vasectomy but she’s just as willing to shoot any other doctor to get her revenge. The operation continues while Dr. Craig and Dr. Westphall negotiate with her.
I have to admit that I did find a lot of this episode to be amusing. Ehrlich’s excitement over getting to do his first operation, Dr. Craig’s stuffy annoyance with being interrupted by a woman with a gun, and the patient’s nonstop rambling all made me smile more than once. And Judith Light, not surprisingly, was great as the woman with the gun. I loved the her husband was played by Tom Atkins. You never know who you might see at St. Eligius! That said, after the episode ended, I couldn’t help but think about how dumb the whole thing actually was. How are people always managing to get guns into St. Eligius? How did Barbara manage to get into an operating room without being stopped beforehand? (Luther does tell her that she can’t be back there but he’s the only one who seems to notice her before she bursts into the OR.) How come no one in the hospital seems to be more upset about the fact that there’s a woman waving a gun around an operating room? At one point, Barbara shoots Ehrlich’s radio and hardly anyone seems to react. The plot is played for laughs and that’s fine. But, in this case, the story was a bit too implausible for its own good.
Meanwhile, Nurse Rosenthal returned to work after her mastectomy and struggled to get back into her routine. Carolyn Pickles did a great job portraying Rosenthal in this episode. And Fiscus and Shirley Daniels visited an old woman in a nursing home. The subplots were handled well but, for the most part, this episode still felt as if it was trying a bit too hard.
Through the Shattered Lens 