Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 3.2 “Playing God: Part Two”

Posted on November 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 Daily Motion.

This week, the hospital is a depressing place.

Episode 3.2 “Playing God: Part Two”

(Dir by Bruce Paltrow, originally aired on September 26th, 1984)

There was a lot going on in this episode.

Sister Domenica demanded that Sister Theresa be taken off of life support and she threatened to sue the hospital if it didn’t happen. This led to Dr. Westphall telling another long and depressing story about his dead wife. I don’t mean to be flippant about anyone’s tragedies but it’s hard not to notice that almost everything seems to lead to Westphall telling a depressing story. Westphall is one of the most saddest television characters that I’ve ever come across.

The nurses are closer to striking. A labor negotiator named Richard Clarendon (Herb Edelman) is brought in by the nurses and it’s hard not to notice that he looks a lot like Helen Rosenthal’s ex-husband. I think I can already guess where this is heading.

A sick child was brought in by a woman (Tammy Grimes) who claimed to be his fairy godmother. This gave Fiscus an excuse to get a consultation from Kathy Martin, who has abandoned the morgue for psychiatry and who is no longer dressing exclusively in black.

At home, Dr. Craig struggled with impotence. At the hospital, Dr. Ehrlich gave an awkward lecture about whether or not one can have sex after heart surgery.

The firefighters are still recovering from their burns.

Clancy got an abortion, despite Morrison’s objections.

And yet, all that drama was overshadowed by the fact that the Dr. Peter White — the drug-addicted rapist who nearly killed more than a few patients due to his own incompetence — is once again walking the halls of St. Eligius. White won his lawsuit. I’m not really sure that I understand what the basis of his lawsuit was. St. Eligius could only ask a select number of residents to return and, even if you overlook the fact that White was accused of rape, it’s not as if Dr. White was ever an especially competent doctor. It would seem that just his struggle with drug addiction would be enough to justify not asking him to return. And yet, somehow, Dr. Peter White is once again a resident at St. Eligius. (The ruling was probably handed down by a Carter judge.)

“You just can’t admit that you were wrong about me!” White snaps at Westphall.

Westphall replies that White is a terrible human being and not worthy of being a doctor and that he will not be allowed to work with any patients at the hospital. And, for once, I wanted to cheer Dr. Westphall. He may be depressing but he understands exactly who and what Peter White is.

Whatever the future may hold for the hospital, I have a feeling that it’s not going to be happy. Two episodes in and the third season has already settled into a pit of melancholy. That said, melancholy is perhaps the right mood for a medical show. When it comes to hospitals, there aren’t many happy endings.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 3.1 “Playing God, Part One”

Posted on November 21, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, we start the third season of St. Elsewhere with some new opening credits!

Episode 3.1 “Playing God, Part One”

(Dir by Bruce Paltrow, originally aired on September 19th, 1984)

The opening of the third season finds that St. Eligius is just as depressing as it’s ever been.

Fiscus leads a group of new residents, including Dr. Elliott Axelrod (played by new series regular Stephen Furst), through the hospital. Fiscus comes across as being an arrogant jackass. I guess that’s the appeal of being a second-year resident. You get to look down on all of the first-years.

Jack is still dating Clancy (young Helen Hunt). When Clancy tells Jack that she’s pregnant, he’s shocked when she says she’s planning on getting an abortion. Jack proposes to her. Clancy says she’s not ready to get married and she’s not ready to have a baby.

Dr. Craig is still yelling at Dr. Ehrlich. Dr. Ehrlich is still annoying the nurses.

Speaking of the nurses, they’re going on strike!

Three firefighters (one of whom is played by Erin Hudson) are injured while on the job and are rushed to St. Eligius with severe burns. Luckily, plastic surgeon Bobby Caldwell (Mark Harmon, without that terrible mustache he wore during season two) is on call.

Dr. Peter White is working in a shady clinic and is still suing for his right to be a resident.

A traffic accident leaves one nun in a coma and apparently brain-dead. Sister Doemnica (Michael Learned) wants to take her off life-support. Westphall (Ed Flanders), who seems even more depressed than usual, disagrees. It looks like there’s going to be some conflict about this. For once, I’m on Westphall’s side. I’m believer in hope.

Auschlander is still battling his cancer.

In other words, it’s another day at St. Eligius. The third season premiere did a good job of re-introducing viewers to the hospital. The snarkiness of Fiscus’s tour nicely balanced all of the more dramatic moments in the episode. If anything has me worried, it’s the possible return of the loathsome Peter White. How is the hospital going to deal with the return of a man who they all know is a rapist, even if he was somehow acquitted? I guess we’ll find out.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.8 “All About Eve”

Posted on July 25, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, everyone’s got the blues.

Episode 2.8 “All About Eve”

(Dir by David Anspaugh, originally aired on December 14th, 1983)

What a depressing episode!

With tension rising between Boston’s Catholics and its Protestants, threats are being called into the hospital because young Protestant Eddie Carson (Eric Stoltz) is still a patient. (Last week, I assumed Eddie was Catholic but apparently, he’s supposed to be a Protestant. I also assumed his parents were blown up in the pub bombing. In this episode, it was made clear that the victims were his aunt and uncle.) A group of masked, IRA-style terrorists break into Joan Halloran’s home. Joan’s gone at the time but Bobby Caldwell is in the shower and he ends up getting beaten into unconsciousness.

(Wow, did someone on the writing staff have an issue with Irish Catholics?)

Meanwhile, Dr. Westphall has to explain to his several autistic son Tommy (Chad Allen) that their beloved housekeeper has quit and moved away. Westphall’s daughter says she’s going to skip college and stay home to help take care of her brother. While I’ve always known that the widowed Westphall had an autistic son, this was the first episode to actually show us Westphall interacting with Tommy. And, with no disrespect meant to the autistic community, I can understand why Westphall always seems so depressed. Tommy runs and hides in a corner. Tommy hits his father. Tommy demands to know if everyone is going to leave him. By the end of the episode, Westphall was exhausted and I was even more exhausted from watching him.

But Westphall’s angst was not the most depressing thing about this episode. On top of everything else, Eve Leighton died! She didn’t die as a result of the heart that Dr. Craig transplanted into her. The heart was working fine. Instead, the rest of Eve’s body gave out. Being in the hospital initially saved her life but it also shut her off from everything that inspired her to keep living. Dr. Craig was in surgery when Eve coded. By the time he was able to get to her room, she was already gone. And with Eve’s death, that also means that the heart that once belonged to Morrison’s wife is gone as well.

I mean, seriously …. GOOD LORD! It was a well-acted episode. Both William Daniels and Ed Flanders broke my heart. But I seriously had to rewatch Happy Gilmore after watching this show. That’s how depressed it left me!

But that’s life and death in a hospital. Every hospital is home to hundreds of different stories and the majority of them do not have happy endings.

Summer School (1987, directed by Carl Reiner)

Posted on June 30, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Summer School was the movie that made flunking out look like fun.

Freddy Shoop (Mark Harmon) is a relaxed, fun-loving gym teacher who is looking forward to spend his summer in Hawaii until he’s assigned to spend the summer teaching remedial English in summer school. (His girlfriend goes to Hawaii without him.) Freddy’s not happy about giving up his summer and he’s prepared to just spend his days taking his students to the beach, the amusement park, and the zoo. But when he finds out that he’s going to lose his job unless his students pass the big test at the end of the summer, he gets serious and discovers what teaching is supposed to be all about.

When I was growing up, Summer School seemed to be on television all the time. If it wasn’t on HBO, it was on one of the local stations, usually right before summer began. The summer school kids seemed to be having too much fun for kids stuck in school. I don’t think my classmates in Baltimore would have been as happy about losing their summer as the students in this film. Everyone who has seen this film remembers Dave and Chainsaw (Gary Riley and Dean Cameron) making jokes and showing everyone The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They also remember Anna-Maria (Fabiana Udenio), the Italian exchange student who took summer school to work on her English. They remember Freddy letting one of his students move in with him, which doesn’t seem like a good idea even if she was played by Courtney Thorne-Smith. Myself, I remember Robin Bishop, the teacher next door, who was played by an extremely sexy Kirstie Alley. (This was one of the many 80s films in which Kirstie Alley made being uptight seem sexy.) Of course, Robin was dating the snobbish principal who was trying to get Freddy Shoop fired.

I’m not going to sit here and say that Summer School is a great film. It’s a dumb comedy with an uplifting message about what a good teacher can accomplish. However, Summer School is a very likable film, an enjoyable 80s teen romp that suggests summer school was the place to be in the late 80s. Mark Harmon, Kirstie Alley, and all the students give good performances. How many future horror nerds were inspired by Dave and Chainsaw? Legendary nice guy Carl Reiner directed and the movie itself is amiable and amusing enough to be watchable.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 5.18 “His Girls Friday/A Wife for Wilfred/The Girl Who Stood Still”

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

Love, exciting and new …. come aboard, they’re expecting you….

Episode 5.18 “His Girls Friday/A Wife for Wilfred/The Girl Who Stood Still”

(Dir by Robert Scheerer, originally aired on February 13th, 1982)

Wilfred (Tom Smothers) is a single guy who tells the crew that he’ll pay $10,000 to whoever helps him find a wife on the cruise. The members of the crew each introduce Wilfred to a different woman and soon, Wilfred has five women following him all over the boat. However, when Isaac hears Wilfred bragging about how he conned the crew into doing all the work for him and how he was lying about the $10,000, the crew hires Marilyn (Connie Stevens), who runs the ship’s flower shop, to pretend to Wilfred’s wife.

Ha! Joke’s on Wilfred! No wait, the joke’s on the crew. Marilyn and Wilfred fall in love. Meanwhile, Julie remains single.

Meanwhile, Howard Ethan (Dick Van Patten) boards the ship with his loyal and superefficient secretary, Doris (Rue McClanahan). Doris is a great secretary but when Howard finds out that Cindy Nevins (Judy Landers) is looking for a secretarial job, he tries to figure out how to get Doris to quit so that he can hire Cindy. Maybe he and Doris could just fall in love. Myself, I wonder why people were always doing work while on The Love Boat. Isn’t a cruise supposed to be a vacation? And yet, every episode seemed to feature someone determined to spend the cruise in their cabin and getting some work done. I appreciate the spirit, I guess. I mean, I write film reviews while I’m on vacation so I guess I can relate. But still, if you’re going to pay for a luxury cruise, wouldn’t you at least want to use it as an excuse to forget about your responsibilities on the mainland?

Finally, Bess Hensinger (Vera Miles) boards the boat with her daughter, Abigail (Denise Miller). Abigail is stunned to learn that Bess invited a boy that Abigail likes to join them on the cruise. How will Jim (James Osmond) react if he discovers that Abigail has …. scoliosis!? This storyline was actually the best of the episode, if just because it was the only one where the male half of the romantic pairing didn’t come across as being totally sleazy. Jim was a genuinely nice guy and, needless to say, he didn’t care that Abigail has scoliosis. Denise Miller give an excellent performance as the insecure Abigail. As an asthmatic teenager, I always dreaded the thought of using my inhaler in front of other people so I could relate to what Abigail was going through. I may not have cared about the other two stories but I was happy things worked out for Jim and Abigail.

One good story out of three is usually not something brag about but Abigail and Jim were such a winning couple that they really did make this episode worth the trouble. Despite Wilfred and Howard, this was a good cruise.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 1.2 “First Shoot”

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, the bicycle cops continue to expect to be taken seriously.

Episode 1.2 “First Shoot”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on March 9th, 1996)

It’s a busy time for the bicycle cops of Santa Monica.

Elvis (David Lander), the bicycle repairman who speaks with an indecipherable accent, is paranoid because a group of Bulgarian men are wandering the beach and asking if anyone knows where they can find him. It turns out that the men are not dangerous but instead, they are the members of Bulgaria’s Olympic bicycling team. They want Elvis to be their official team repairman. However, Elvis previously had an affair with the girlfriend of one of the Olympians so he declines the offers. He prefers the glamour of California.

Meanwhile, a pickpocket is robbing people on the boardwalk. When he makes the mistake of grabbing the wallet of an old Italian man named Mr. Tataglia (Joseph Campanella), Tataglia goes to Lt. Palermo and explains that he wants the wallet back because it contains a picture of his wife. He would consider it a matter of personal respect if Palermo retrieved the wallet and he promises to repay the favor. Fortunately, the brave bicycle cops do catch the pickpocket. Mr. Tataglia watches from a distance and nods. I guess Mr. Tataglia is meant to be a mobster. Believe it or not, not all Italians are in the Mafia. I’m a fourth-Italian and I’m fairly sure that side of my family is not mob-related.

While that’s going on, Chris and Del Toro ride their bikes out to a film set and provide security for a spoiled movie star named Scott Magruder (Bojesse Christopher). Chris is the one who has a crush on Magruder but it’s Del Toro who is seduced by the prospect of fame. When Magruder gives Del Toro a line in the movie, Del Toro has visions of movie stardom in his head. But then the scene gets cut. Sorry, Del Toro, looks like you’re just going to have to spend the rest of your life riding around the beach on a Schwinn like a dumbass. Scott later gets arrested in a bar fight but it turns out it was a publicity stunt. Chris is saddened to learn that celebs aren’t as likable in real life as they are in the gossip pages. Myself, I’m just wondering why Chris has gone from being the smart and driven character that she was in the pilot to being a total airhead just one episode later.

Finally, Cory and the bike cops help the real cops bust a group of drug dealers. Cory shoots an aspiring rapper named Rasheed (Jeremiah Birkett). Rasheed claims that he didn’t have a gun. Cory is determined to prove that he did. Apparently, this was the first time that Cory ever shot anyone. Strangely, it doesn’t seem to rattle her at all that she nearly ended someone else’s life. I mean, it seems like most people would have a more emotional reaction to nearly killing a man, even if that guy was a criminal with a gun. Cory, however, is cool and calm and kind of creepy about it. It’s established that Cory comes from a family of cops so maybe that’s why the shooting doesn’t faze her.

There was a lot going on in this episode. Actually, there was probably too much going on. This is only the second episode of the show and it’s not like any of the characters have really developed much of an individual personality. Everyone is still pretty much interchangeable. As a result, none of the action in this show carried much of an emotional impact. The characters are all still strangers to me.

Maybe things will improve next week.

(Seriously, let’s hope so! I’ve got a lot of episodes to make my way through before I’m done with Pacific Blue.)