Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.14 “The Snow Queen: Part Two”

Posted on July 30, 2026 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, the story of the snow queen comes to a close.

Episode 1.14 “The Snow Queen: Part Two”

(Dir by Richard Colla, originally aired on March 30th, 1985)

The second part of The Snow Queen saga opens with a stylish action sequence. As Huey Lewis sings I Want A New Drug on the soundtrack, we watch as both Molinas (Dennis Franz) and Hunter approach, from opposite sides, the boat where Sally LaPone is hiding out with one of her friends. Molinas is approaching the boat so that he can murder Sally for the mob bosses in New York. Hunter, on the other hand, is approaching the boat to try to save Sally’s life. The guards that surround the boat have no idea what’s going on and they end up getting into a gunfight with both Molinas and Hunter. Molinas, being the sleaze that he is, pretends that he drew his gun to help Hunter as opposed to killing Sally.

Meanwhile, at a club, a smitten Vic Terranova (Dennis Farina) pushes McCall, who is working undercover, to take the stage. Shots of McCall performing are mixed with shots of Molinas and Hunter shooting people and Sally once again escaping.

Molinas wants to kill Sally while McCall wants to use Sally’s testimony to take down Terranova and his drug-fueled empire. Hunter wants to stop Molinas from killing anyone else and Sally just wants to be left alone. The episode does a good job of switching from one character to the next, capturing the desperation of everyone involved. One especially memorable sequence features Dennis Franz showing Sally’s pictures to a group of teenagers outside of a punk club. Just from the reactions of Franz and the punks, one gets the feeling that the sequence wasn’t actually scripted. There’s a gritty authenticity to the action in this episode and it makes for compelling viewing.

Of course, this is an episode of Hunter so everything does eventually lead to another shoot out. Both Vic and Molinas go down in a hail of bullets and it’s actually kind of a shame. Both Farina and Franz did such a good job in these two episodes that it’s unfortunate that their characters won’t be able to return in the future. Franz, in particular, was brilliantly sleazy as the loathsome Molinas. If only he hadn’t pulled that gun on Hunter, Molinas could have been one of those recurring villains that audiences would love to hate.

Still, all things come to an end and, since this is Hunter, they end in gunfire instead of arrests. Sally survives but the final shot of the episode reveals that she’s been traumatized beyond belief by everything she’s seen and experienced. McCall’s hope was that Sally would get immunity in return for testifying against Vic. But, with Vic dead, Sally really doesn’t have any leverage that she could use to avoid jail.

Seriously, this was a dark episode! But it was a compelling one and I’m glad that, for once, Hunter showed that not everyone just shrug off violence and move on. Not everyone is Rick Hunter.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.13 “Snow Queen: Part One”

Posted on July 23, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we have part one of a two part story.

Episode 1.13 “Snow Queen: Part One”

(Dir by Tony Mordente, originally aired on March 23rd, 1985)

This week’s episode features two tough guys who are both named Dennis.

Dennis Farina appears as Vic Terranova, a gangster who owns a nightclub and who loves country music. McCall is working undercover as a country-western singer in order to take both him and his cocaine-dealing operation down.

Meanwhile, Dennis Franz appears as Sgt. Jackie Molinas, a sleazy detective from New York who comes to Los Angeles to extradite Sally LaPone (Lycia Neff), a former New York drug dealer who relocated to Los Angeles after she witnessed a murder in the Big Apple. Sally is now the exclusive drug dealer for rock star Darby Slash (Brendan Hughes). When she’s arrested at a raid on one of Terranova’s clubs, Molinas demands that she be turned over to him. Correctly assuming that Molinas is planning on killing her, Sally escapes his custody. Molinas’s search for Sally leads to him apparently killing both Darby Slash and also one Hunter’s informants.

Hunter can’t prove that Molinas is the killer but he suspects it. It seems like he could just ask his Mafia relatives if Molinas is working for the Mob but this show has kind of forgotten that Hunter has relatives in the Mafia.

This episode was part one of two so this review is going to feel incomplete. When the episode ended, McCall had gotten a job singing for Terranova and Molinas was closing in on Sally. We’ll see how it all plays out next week. For this week, I’ll simply say that Dennis and Dennis delivered. Dennis Farina was properly smooth as Terranova. Meanwhile, Dennis Franz turned Jackie Molinas into one of the sleaziest, most obnoxious characters that I’ve ever seen. He’s the type of guy who walks into a place, insults all of the men, crudely hits on all of the women, and then attempts to murder a stranger. Franz made Molinas into a character worthy of loathing.

I always find it interesting when Rick Hunter has to deal with a bad cop. It’s like the show is saying, “Yes, Rick kills a lot of people but at least he’s not that guy!”

We’ll see how things work out next week.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: CHiPs 5.27 “Force Seven”

Posted on July 20, 2026 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

This week, the fifth season comes to an end.

Episode 5.27 “Force Seven”

(Dir by Leslie H. Martinson, originally aired on May 23rd, 1982)

When evil rich guy Nakura (John Rhys-Davies) steals a short-range missile from a military convoy, he informs the Mayor of Los Angeles that he will fire that missile at the city unless he’s paid a healthy ransom. The Mayor wants to send in the SWAT Team but one-eyed Lt. John Legarre (an eyepatch wearing Fred Dryer — yes, the star of Hunter) objects. Guns won’t do the job, Legarre explains. Why not send in Force Seven?

Led by Legarre, Force Seven is a secret division of the LAPD. Including Legarre, there’s only four of them. (So, why aren’t they Force Four?) Sly (Tony Longo — hey, Mad Dog from 1st & Ten) is tough and strong and also a ventriloquist. Cindy (Dona Kei Benz) is small but fast and doesn’t have a sense of humor. Rick Nichols (Tom Reilly) is a rebel cop who does things …. HIS WAY! What do they all have in common? They all know karate!

This doesn’t sound like an episode of CHiPs, does it?

Well, technically, it’s not. It’s a backdoor pilot. Ponch and Baker appear at the start of the episode, arresting an engineer who is carrying the schematics for the stolen missile. And they also appear at the very end of the episode, in which Getraer asks them if they remember that engineer they pulled over. However, neither Ponch nor Baker interact with anyone from Force Seven. I get the feeling that the Force Seven pilot was shot and then someone decided, “Why don’t we add Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox and disguise this as an episode of CHiPs?”

Imagine if you were a CHiPs fan in 1982. It’s the night of the season finale. You turn on the TV because you want to watch motorcycle chases and car crashes. Instead, you find yourself watching Fred Dryer wearing an eye patch and Tony Longo using a puppet to discuss elements of Eastern philosophy. That’s one reason why backdoor pilots have never made sense to me. They always seem like they would have just ticked off anyone who was watching.

Force Seven did not become a show. From watching this episode, I think it probably would have been enjoyably dumb if it had led to a series. As I already mentioned, Fred Dryer wears an eye patch. Tony Longo is made up to look like Sylvester Stallone. (His character is even named Sly!) There’s something kind of amusing about two guys who are so big that they could obviously just take anyone out with one punch instead choosing to drag out every fight with karate.

(Amusingly enough, in Force Seven, the mayor of Los Angeles was played by former real-life mayor Sam Yorty, who ran for President in 1972. The police commissioner was played by Ed Davis, the real life former chief of the LAPD who was serving in the California State Senate at the time and who later ran for the U.S. Senate in 1986.)

It is a little sad that this was Larry Wilcox’s final episode of CHiPs. Fed up with Estrada getting all of the good storylines, Wilcox did not return for Season 6. (His replacement would be played by Force Seven‘s Tom Reilly, though as a different character.) For the first two seasons, Wilcox was the main character while Erik Estrada was the comedic sidekick. However, by the time season 5 rolled around, it was clear that the producers were far more interested in Estrada than Wilcox. As an actor, Wilcox wasn’t a showy as Estrada but he was more believable a cop. In his final episode, Wilcox gets not a grand goodbye but instead appears only in two brief scenes.

Next week, we’ll start the sixth and final season!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.12 “The Avenging Angel”

Posted on July 16, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, someone wants to help out Hunter!

Episode 1.12 “The Avenging Angel”

(Dir by James Whitmore, Jr., originally aired on January 18th, 1985)

After Hunter receives an anonymous phone tip, he arrests Dr. Pierpoint (Angus Duncan) for attempting to hire a criminal known as “The Rat” to kill his wife. When Hunter makes the arrest, he actually has to Mirandize him twice because the doctor was unconscious the first time that Hunter read him his rights. Oh, Hunter!

Unfortunately, things fall apart at trial. The Rat (Robert Pastorelli, whose career later fell apart after the mysterious death of his girlfriend) changes his testimony at the last minute and says that Pierpoint never hired him to kill his wife. The case is dismissed. Hunter is upset. Even more upset is Arnold Morton (Robert Gray), a surveillance expert who idolizes Hunter and who makes it his mission to take down not just Pierpoint and the Rat but also defense attorney Nell Armstong (Nancy Stafford).

This was an interesting episode. The story didn’t quite work but the idea behind it was intriguing. Morton, who has bugged Hunter and has been following him for weeks, considers himself to be Hunter’s avenging angel. When Hunter makes it clear that he’s not cool with the whole vigilante thing, Morton turns on him like a lover scorned. This is like Hunter’s version of Magnum Force.

As for McCall, she spends most of this episode just trying to go on a date with her latest boyfriend, Ted (Rod Haase). Unfortunately, Hunter keeps interrupting. Ted is a nice guy about it but it’s pretty obvious that McCall and Hunter are meant to be together.

The highlight of this episode? Hunter destroying his phone while searching for a bug. In the role of Captain Dolan, John Amos got to do his whole, “Hunter, what the Hell are you doing!?” thing. That’s always entertaining.

As I said, the episode didn’t quite work. I never really bought that Arnold could do everything that he managed to do in this episode. I mean, for someone who lived in an abandoned arcade and drove a broken-down van, Arnold seemed to have unlimited resources. I will give a shout out to the show’s art department for including a poster of Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 in Arnold’s office.

It’s always funny to me how, in every episode, Hunter has got someone trying to kill him and no one but McCall seems to care.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.11 “The Garbage Man”

Posted on July 9, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Hunter and McCall deal with some familiar faces.

Episode 1.11 “The Garbage Man”

(Dir by Bruce Kessler, originally aired on January 11th, 1985)

This week’s episode is all about spotting the guest stars.

Hey, there’s Christopher McDonald as Sonny Dupree, a parolee who has been accused of murdering his parole officer. He’s on the run but, when Hunter corners him, Sonny makes a convincing argument that he was set up. It also turns out that someone doctored Sonny’s arrest record to make him look like a far more viscous criminal than he actually is.

Hey, there’s Nicholas Worth, playing a friend of Sonny’s. Nicholas Worth might not be a household name but you’d recognize if you saw him. He was big and bald and intimidating.

Oh my God, it’s Frances McDormand! She plays a new parole officer named Nina and she develops a crush on Hunter! At one point, McCall pretends to be Nina on the phone and does a fairly bad imitation of McDormand’s genuine Southern accent.

And wait, is that Ed O’Neill!? Yes, it is. A skinny Ed O’Neill plays Dan Colson, a parole officer who is determined to track down Sonny and who is even more violent than Hunter. When Sonny explains that someone has been executing parolees, it doesn’t take a genius to guess who the killer is.

McDonald, Worth, McDormand, and O’Neill all give strong performances in this episode. Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer get to be their usual dependable selves while the guest cast runs off with all the drama.

As for the overall episode, it features a few plot twists that don’t really make much sense. We’re asked to believe that Sonny Dupree, who is trying to straighten out his life and who has a wife and daughter, would agree to have his criminal record doctored just so he could serve as bait for the vigilante. There’s also — and this was often the case with Hunter — absolutely no suspense about who the murderer is. As soon as we meet Colson, we know he’s guilty. Even if he was being played by as complete nobody, we would know that he was guilty. Hunter is not exactly a subtle show.

That said, this episode had some good action sequences and it also showcased the chemistry between Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer. The scene where McCall and Hunter argue over who should chase Colson was a classic, with McCall sensibly pointing out that she didn’t want to dent up her new car. Hunter’s car, naturally, was already covered in dents.

In the end, this episode worked. The guest stars, the action, the comedy, it all added up to an enjoyable 48 minutes.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.10 “The Shooter”

Posted on June 25, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Hunter and a biker compete to see who has the fastest draw.

Episode 1.10 “The Shooter”

(Dir by Michael Lange, originally aired on January 4th, 1985)

Someone is gunning down motorcycle cops. It’s a crime that both Hunter and McCall take personally. Unfortunately, Bernie Terwiliger is in charge of the investigation and he insists that he doesn’t need any help from Hunter or “the brass cupcake.” Considering that McCall’s husband was a police officer who was killed while doing a routine traffic stop, you would think Terwiliger would be a little bit more sensitive but nope. That’s not the way things are done on Hunter.

Hunter and McCall conduct their own investigation, which leads them a country-western bar and a quick-draw video game. Deke Broder (Robert Dryer) is a redneck who is very proud of having the fastest draw on the game. The only problem is that cops keep coming in the bar and beating his time. So, Deke stalks and kills them.

Deke — it’s just a game!

Soon, Hunter is playing the video game and Deke has a new target.

Now, this is a good episode! It’s everything that you could want from an episode of Hunter. It’s violent. It’s fast-paced. It’s got enough atmosphere to hold the viewer’s interest and it features a bad guy who is more interesting than the run-of-the-mill cop show villain. Deke and Hunter have a lot in common. They’re both cocky. They’re both convinced their the best. And they both really like to shoot their guns. Between the motorcycles and Deke’s leather kill suit, this episode was pure style.

This is exactly what an episode of Hunter should be like.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.9 “High Bleacher Man”

Posted on June 18, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Hunter gets another bad assignment.

Episode 1.9 “High Bleacher Man”

(Dir by Arnold Laven, originally aired on December 7th, 1984)

Hunter and McCall have finally arrested Elton Gavin (Michael Baselon), a murderous punk who has been causing mayhem all over Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Gavin works out a deal. For immunity, he’ll turn on gangster Nate Demarest (Richard Romanus). With Demarest eager to kill the informant, Hunter finds himself assigned to protect Gavin until Gavin can testify.

The problem, of course, is that Gavin is a sociopath. Hunter doesn’t want to protect Gavin. He doesn’t want Gavin to get immunity. He certainly doesn’t want to see Gavin back out on the streets. When Hunter learns that McCall once investigated Demarest for killing a federal agent, he asks her to reopen the case. If they can get Demarest on that charge, then there won’t be any reason to give Gavin immunity.

Poor Hunter and McCall. They always get the worst assignments. This was pretty much a standard episode of Hunter but the chemistry between Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer was fun to watch. In the middle of all the action and the bullets, Dryer and Kramer were actually a pretty good comedy team. It’s fun to listen to them talk.

As I watched this episode, I suddenly remembered that Hunter’s father was a gangster and therefore, one would think that Hunter would have more contacts in the world of organized crime than he does. Hunter’s mob background is one of those things that the show sometimes seems to forget about.

The other thing that occurred to me as I watched this episode is that, in 1984, John Amos probably had one of the easiest jobs in television. He played Dolan, Hunter and McCall’s captain. As far as I can tell, his role consisted of showing up at the end of each episode and yelling at Hunter for taking unnecessary risks. That was pretty much it. Amos just had to be annoyed for two-minutes every week.

Of course, it didn’t matter how much Dolan got annoyed,

Hunter got results!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.8 “Dead or Alive”

Posted on June 11, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, there’s somebody else shooting criminals in L.A.

Episode 1.8 “Dead or Alive”

(Dir by Guy Magar, originally aired on November 30th, 1984)

Jimmy Joe Walker (Wings Hauser) is a cowboy bounty hunter who wears black and carries a wide array of weapons. He hunts for criminals who are wanted “dead or alive.” He specializes in brining them in dead because …. well, he just like shooting people. Hunter and McCall try to capture the escaped bank robber Panhandle Pete (Jimmie F. Skaggs) before Jimmy Joe puts a bullet in him.

This was a pretty average episode of Hunter, one that was mostly distinguished by the cheerfully unhinged presence of Wings Hauser. With his Southern accent and his country clothes, Hauser largely gives the same performance here that he gave in Vice Squad. The only difference is that he’s playing a bounty hunter and not a pimp here. He still finds time to beat up McCall. I can’t help but notice that McCall is constantly getting either shot or punched on this show. I think the idea is to show that McCall is just as tough as Hunter and I do like the fact that, no matter how serve the injuries, McCall never stops fighting back. That said, it would be nice to see someone else get a black eye for once.

(This is also yet another episode that finds McCall working undercover as a prostitute. She spends the first half of the episode wearing a blue top with feathers attached to the sleeves. I kept expecting someone to mention the feathers but not even Wings Hauser said a word about them. You would expect Wings to be all over that.)

The plot of this one felt a bit silly. A bank robber named Panhandle Pete? Really? I get the feeling that this episode was done in order to protect the show from charges that it glorified the idea of gunning down criminals. We’re supposed to look at Hunter and Jimmy Joe and say, “Hunter shoots a lot of people but at least he doesn’t laugh about it.” This was Hunter’s version of Magnum Force.

Again, this was an average episode but it’s worth watching just for Wings Hauser.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.7 “Pen Pals”

Posted on May 28, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Hunter goes to jail!

Episode 1.7 “Pen Pals”

(Dir by Larry Stewart, originally aired on November 16th, 1984)

Rick Hunter, murderer!

Well, not quite. It is true that someone used Hunter’s gun to assassinate a drug dealer but, at the time of the shooting, Hunter was helping a woman who came by his apartment and said that her car had broken down. It’s a set up! But, because Hunter threatened to kill the drug dealer earlier and he’s killed around 20 0ther people since the pilot, everyone assumes that he’s guilty. He’s sent to jail for 72 hours. McCall, forced to partner up with the charming but incompetent Detective Glascow (Tim Thomerson), attempts to prove that Hunter was framed. Meanwhile, Hunter befriends one prisoner (Tracey Walter) and is targeted by another (Jack O’Halloran).

There were a few odd things about this episode. First off, why wasn’t Hunter put in protective custody? Everyone in the jail knew that he was a cop. He hadn’t actually been convicted of anything. So, what was he doing in general population?

Secondly, what happened to Hunter’s mob connections? Previous episodes have hinted that Hunter’s father is one of the most powerful gangsters in California. Wouldn’t that give him some sort of protection in prison? Couldn’t the Hunter crime family have asked around and discovered who set Rick Hunter up?

Oh well, no matter. This was a fun episode! Tim Thomerson was wonderfully smarmy as McCall’s new partner. Jack O’Halloran was properly psychotic as the scary prisoner looking to take down Hunter. If any actor was born to be filmed beating up people in a prison cafeteria, it was Fred Dryer.

Luckily, Hunter got out of jail at the end of the episode. Now, he and McCall can get back to falling in love.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.6 “Flight of the Dead Pigeon”

Posted on May 21, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Hunter searches for a pigeon.

Episode 1.6 “Flight of the Dead Pigeon”

(Dir by Michael Preece, originally aired on November 9th, 1984)

When a little girl (Marissa Mendenhall) shows up at the police station and asks for Hunter’s help in finding her stolen carrier pigeons, Hunter’s like, “Buzz off, kid!” However, when it turns out that the girl’s uncle was a degenerate gambler and that he was thrown off the roof of a building by the mob, Hunter and McCall get involved. It turns out that the Mexican cartels want to use the pigeons to carry drugs into America. Because the little girl is the only one who knows how to train the pigeons, they want to kidnap her as well….

Yeah, this was a pretty dumb episode. I don’t doubt that pigeons could be used to smuggle drugs but I do doubt that any successful criminal organization would go through all the trouble that they go to in this episode. There are far simpler ways to smuggle drugs. I’m also sure they could have found someone to train the pigeons without abducting a child. Hunter and McCall are able to rescue the girl and the episode ends with her smiling cheerfully as she’s sent into foster care.

“Hunter,” McCall asks, “have you ever wanted kids?”

“Nope,” Hunter replies.

“Me neither,” McCall says, not sounding particularly convincing.

What a sad ending! Seriously, if Hunter and McCall aren’t married by the end of this series, I will throw a fit. They’re totally meant for each other. Even in a kind of dumb episode like this one, their chemistry saves the day.