Icarus File No. 24: Express to Terror (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on October 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year was 1979 and Fred Silverman, the president of NBC, had an idea.

How about a television series in which each week’s episode would depict a different group of passengers going on a trip? The passengers would all be dealing with their own stories, some of which would be dramatic and some of which would be humorous. With any luck, some of them might even fall in love over the course of their journey!

To keep the audience interested, the show would also feature a cast of regular characters, the crew. Edward Andrews would play the captain, a sensible and by-the-book type. Robert Alda played Doc, the doctor who was also a bon vivant. Patrick Collins was the goofy purser. Nita Talbot played Rose, the perky director of entertainment. Michael DeLano was the bartender who always had the best advice for the passengers….

Does this sound familiar?

If you think that it sounds like Fred Silverman just ripped off The Love Boat …. well, you’re wrong. The Love Boat took place on a boat. Supertrain took place on a train.

At the time that Supertrain went into production, it was the most expensive television production of all time. Before the pilot film was even shot, NBC had spent ten million dollars on the Supertrain sets. Not only was a fake train built but two models were also constructed for the shots of the train moving through the countryside. At the time, the assumption was that the costs would be easily covered by the money that NBC stood to make from broadcasting the 1980 Summer Olympics. Unfortunately, Jimmy Carter decided that the U.S. would be boycotting the Olympics as a way to protest Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. The only thing that kept NBC from going bankrupt was that the BBC was apparently run by someone even more incompetent than Fred Silverman. The BBC paid $25,oo per episode for the rights to air Supertrain in the UK. Supertrain proved to be such a disaster that the BBC never actually aired the episodes that they had purchased.

1979’s Express to Terror was the pilot to Supertrain. (It was later released in some territories as a stand-alone film.) Directed by horror impresario Dan Curtis (who was also brought in to produce the series), Express to Terror opens with an apparently drunk Keenan Wynn playing the role of railway baron Winfield Root. Winfield loudly announces to a group of nervous investors that he has created ” an atom-powered steam turbine machine capable of crossing this country in 36 hours!” A few months later, Supertrain sets off from New York to Los Angeles.

The main thing that one notices about the train is that it’s incredibly tacky. For all the money that Winfield Root (not to mention NBC) poured into the thing, it looks awful. The cabins are bland and also seem to be constantly shaking as the train rumbles over its tracks. Whereas The Love Boat featured glorious shots of passengers enjoying themselves on an open-air deck, Express to Terror features a lot of shots of passengers trying to squeeze their way through narrow and crowded hallways. There’s a disco car, which sounds like fun but actually looks like a prom being held in a locker room. There’s a swimming pool but you can’t really lay out by it because it’s on a train. Winfield is among the passengers and he continually refers to the train as being “Supertrain” in conversation, which just sounds dumb. “The next person who stops Supertrain,” he announces “will be walking to L.A!”

The main drama features Steve Lawrence as Mike Post, a Hollywood agent with a gambling problem who thinks that someone on the train is trying to kill him. Actually, the assassin is after a different Mike Post (Don Stroud) but that Mike Post is a criminal who, after entering the witness protection program, changed his name to Jack Fisk. The criminal Post is hoping that the agent Post will be killed by mistake. The criminal Mike Post has a girlfriend named Cindy (Char Fontane) who falls in love with the agent Mike Post. Fred Williamson appears as a football player-turned-assassin. George Hamilton plays a Hollywood executive. Don Meredith is the alcoholic best friend of the agent Mike Post. Stella Stevens is on the train as a diva. So is Vicki Lawrence, playing a naive innocent.

Express to Terror tries to mix comedy and drama but it doesn’t really work because the “Good” Mike Post doesn’t really seem to be worth all the trouble. Steve Lawrence gives a mind-numbingly bad performance in the role and, as a result, “Good” Mike Post really isn’t any more sympathetic than “Bad” Mike Post. The main problem is that “Good” Mike Post comes across as being a coward and there’s only so much time that you can watch a coward act cowardly before you lose sympathy for him. Being scared is one thing. Being so dumb that accidentally gets your fingerprints on a knife that’s just been used to kill a man is another thing.

As for the members of the crew — the captain, the doctor, the bartender, and such, they take a back seat to the drama of the two Mike Posts. It’s a bit odd because no one on the train — not even Winfield Root — seems to be that upset by the fact that one of their passengers is murdered while the train is going through a tunnel. You would think that everyone would be worried about the future of Supertrain at that point. A murder is not good for publicity but Winfield Root is oddly unconcerned about it. I swear, light rail people are almost as heartless as bicyclists!

Of course, the worst thing about Express to Terror is that it promises terror but it doesn’t deliver. When I see a the word “terror” in a film directed by Dan Curtis, I expect a little terror! Other than Steve Lawrence’s overacting, there really wasn’t anything particularly terrifying about Express to Terror.

As for Supertrain, it ran for nine episodes and was promptly canceled. Fred Silverman left NBC and spent the rest of his career as an independent producer. Supertrain’s tracks got too close to the sun and they nearly took down a network.

Previous Icarus Files:

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.1 and 3.2 “Roller Disco”

Posted on December 9, 2024 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, season three begins with a classic episode!

Episode 3.1 and 3.2 “Roller Disco”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on September 22nd, 1979)

It’s the roller disco episode!

From the moment that I first announced that I would be watching and reviewing CHiPs for this feature, people have been telling me about the legendary roller disco episode. Having finally reached it, I can say that it lived up to the hype. You’re not likely to see anything more 70s than the third season premiere of CHiPs.

Now, this was a two-hour episode so there were actually quite a few subplot going on, all of which were typical CHiPs storylines. In no particular order:

A kid named Mark (Bobby Rolofson) is roller skating around the beach and idolizing three criminals. Can Baker show him that the good guys always win?
The three criminals are Lita (Helena Kallianiotes), Ty (Fred Williamson), and Romo (Jim Brown). Lita sets up the targets. Ty and Romo steal their purses and their wallets and then escape on roller skates. Ty and Romo are tired of breaking the law. Lita demands that they continue to steal. Eventually, it falls to Baker and Ponch to arrest them.
Carlin (Larry Linville) and Franco (Larry Storch) continually cause accidents on the highway.
Rock star Jimmy Tyler (Leif Garrett) is so tired that he sleeps through one of those accidents. Looking to break free from his well-meaning but overbearing manager (Bill Daily), Jimmy decides to manage his own affairs while staying at Jon Baker’s apartment.

There’s a lot going on but the main plotline is Ponch trying to find celebrities to take part in the annual highway patrol fund raiser. Even with his big smile, Ponch struggles to charm the celebs. He pulls over Ed McMahon at one point but fails to recognize him until McMahon drives off. Gatraer tells Ponch that police work comes first but also tells him that he has to find celebrities. Gatraer’s been giving Ponch a hard time ever since the first season. Some things never change.

Fortunately, Jimmy feels guilty for overstaying his welcome at Baker’s apartment and he makes it up to Baker and Ponch by asking his celebrity friends to take part in the fund raiser. It’s time for a roller disco with the stars!

It all leads to this classic scene:

I recognized a few of the stars, though certainly not all of them. I recognized Victor French because I’ve been reviewing Highway to Heaven. I’ve also seen enough old sitcoms that I immediately recognized Robert Mandan, who was apparently the best roller skater in Hollywood. Melissa Sue Anderson, I knew from Happy Birthday To Me. Cindy Williams, who got two shout-outs, I knew from American Graffiti. Is it just me or did Nancy Kulp look kind of lost? Neither Melissa Sue Anderson nor Cindy Williams seemed to want to talk to her.

The roller disco actually goes on for fifteen minutes, which I appreciated. The show promised a roller disco and it delivered. It was like stepping into a time machine and traveling to the 70s. It was a great way to start season three!

Because of the holidays, this is going to be my final CHiPs review of 2024. My reviews of this show will return on January 6th!

Guilty Pleasure No. 71: Submerged (dir by Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on October 1, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

THUNDERSTRIKE!

Listen, if you’re going to watch the 2000 film Submerged, you better be a big fan of the term “Thunderstrike,” because it’s repeated so many times that one gets the feeling that the actors just loved saying it.

Thunderstrike is a satellite that was built by western businessman Buck Stevens (Dennis Weaver). He and his daughter (Nicole Eggert) and her sort-of boyfriend (Hannes Jaenicke) are all flying to Hawaii so that they can conduct more tests on the Thunderstrike. However, arms dealer Owen Cantrell (Tim Thomerson) wants the Thunderstrike for himself so he sends a mercenary named Jeff Cort (Coolio. Yes, Coolio.) to steal the plans from the airplane. The plan is to kill the pilot, substitute a new pilot, and then crash the plane into the ocean …. which is pretty much what happens, despite the best efforts of heroic CIA agent, Rex Manning (Maxwell Caulfield).

Actually, wait a minute. Maxwell Caulfield’s character is named Jim Carpenter. Well, I don’t care. He’ll always be Rex Manning to me!

While Special Agent Mack Taylor (Brent Huff) tries to stop Cantrell from stealing the Thunderstrike, Captain Masters (Fred Williamson) tries to figure out a way to bring the plane to the surface.

If this sound familiar, it’s because Submerged has the same plot as Airport ’77.

If it looks familiar, it’s because Submerged lifts a lot of footage from Airport ’77, including the scene where the plane crashes, the scene where the plane settles on the ocean floor, and the scene where the plane is lifted off the ocean floor. Even a scene of water pouring into plane is lifted from Airport ’77, which means that the plane in Submerged suddenly has a staircase that no one apparently noticed before.

Submerged was directed by the wonderful Fred Olen Ray and seriously, how can you not love it? Between the cast and the fact that it features all of the best parts of Airport ’77, this is a film for which the term guilty Ppeasure was invented! It helps that the cast, for whatever reason, appears to be taking the film rather seriously. This film was Dennis Weaver’s final screen appearance and he seems to be having a ball playing a cheerful good old boy who can’t wait to put a dangerous satellite in the sky.

Plus, the film features Rex Manning!

Plus, Jack Deth!

Plus, Black Caesar!

Plus …. THUNDERSTRIKE!

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 3.10 “Class of 69/The Pug”

Posted on August 15, 2023 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986. Almost entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube!

This week, boxing comes to Fantasy Island!

Episode 3.10 “Class of 69/The Pug”

(Dir by Earl Bellamy, originally aired on November 24th, 1979)

Once again, this episode opens with no banter between Mr. Roarke and Tattoo. Instead, Tattoo announces the arrival of the plane and rings the bell and then he and Mr. Roarke head down to the docks to meet their guests. This is the third episode in a row without any pre-guest banter and I have to admit that I’m really missing it.

As for this week’s guests, they’re an improvement on last week’s rather forgettable offering.

Joey Lee (Gary Collins) is a former heavyweight boxer who comes to the Island with his son, Mitch (K.C. Martel). Joey thinks that he’s just been hired to serve as a sparring partner for the world champion, Jackson Malone (Fred Williamson). Jackson has a title defense coming up, right on the Island. What Joey doesn’t know is that Mitch’s fantasy is for his father to have a shot at the championship. When Malone’s opponent has to drop out of the fight, Joey is named as a substitute. Mitch is excited, until he finds out that Joey is being pressured to take a dive in the third round. Will Joey throw the fight? And, even if Joey doesn’t, how will Mitch react to seeing his father getting pounded in the face by the world champion? Will Mitch learn that his love for his father is more important than his father’s championship?

This fantasy was a typical Rocky rip-off, right down to Fred Williamson doing a credible Apollo Creed impersonation. The problem, of course, is that the middle-aged and mild-mannered Gary Collins was in no way credible as a heavyweight boxer. The fact that the world champion was played by an actual athlete didn’t help matters. (It’s true that Carl Weathers, like Williamson, was also a football player before he played Apollo but Sylvester Stallone himself had been an amateur boxer before he played Rocky so it was easier to buy the idea of their match going the distance.) In the end, I liked the fact that Mitch realized that his father’s health was more important than being champion. The fantasy had a nice ending, even if it’s difficult to buy the set-up.

The other fantasy featured Adrienne Barbeau as Brenda Richards. When she first arrives on Fantasy Island, Tattoo comments on how obese Brenda is, even though she’s only a few pounds overweight. (Adrienne Barbeau wears a very unconvincing fat suit.) Mr. Roarke explains that Brenda was humiliated at her high school prom when her date, arrogant jock Lance (Tim Thomerson), tricked her into undressing in the gym before then bringing in the entire senior class in to laugh at her. (Yikes!) The high school reunion is being held on Fantasy Island and Brenda’s fantasy is to get revenge. Roarke gives her a potion which allows her to be thin for 48 hours. (In reality, Barbeau just ditches the fat suit.)

At the reunion, Brenda tricks Lance into taking off his wig. The entire senior class discovers that Lance is totally bald and they laugh and laugh. Everyone is impressed with Brenda’s revenge except for Brenda’s old high school friend, Bernie Drexel (Fred Grandy, taking a break from The Love Boat). Brenda sees that she was just as cruel to Lance as he was to her back in high school so she makes a public apology and encourages everyone to be kind to one another. Barbeau then puts the fat suit back on. Bernie says that Brenda will always be the most beautiful woman that he knows. Awwwww!

I actually liked this fantasy, largely because of the chemistry between Barbeau and Grandy. Plus, Tim Thomerson made a great arrogant jock. I know that some people will say that this episode featured too many jokes about Brenda’s weight (especially considering the fact that, even before drinking the potion, Brenda was hardly obese) but I appreciated the fact that it had an anti-bullying message. And if her romance with Bernie inspires Brenda to eat healthy and start getting regular exercise, all the better!

At the end of the episode, Mr. Roarke tells Tattoo that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. “To me,” Mr. Roarke says, “you are six feet two inches tall.”

Uhmmm….yeah, I don’t know how I feel about that ending. It seems like the show, whether intentionally or not, is saying that Tattoo will be forever unloved because of his height. Even without the pre-guest banter, Roarke is finding ways to passive-aggressively taunt his assistant. That’s life on Fantasy Island.

Retro Television Reviews: Half Nelson 1.9 “Beverly Hills Princess”

Posted on May 5, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Half Nelson, which ran on NBC from March to May of 1985. Almost all nine of the show’s episodes can be found on YouTube!

Today, we close the book on the adventures of Rocky Nelson in Beverly Hills.

Episode 1.9 “Beverly Hills Princess”

(Dir by Bernard McEveety, originally aired on May 10th, 1985)

The hottest new thing in Beverly Hills is a movement called Emotional Awareness. Led by the slick Dexter Breen (played by Marjoe Gortner, who was himself a former child evangelist) EA is a self-improvement cult that definitely should not be mistaken for Scientology. Not surprisingly, EA is a scam. Dexter and his people encourage the rich and the powerful to confess all of their secrets during “Awareness Sessions” and then use those secrets to blackmail their followers.

Businessman George Farrell (Dick Van Patten) is sick of being blackmailed. However, when George tries to confront Dexter, he gets into a struggle with one of Dexter’s goons. The goon has a gun, which goes off. Fear not, George is not wounded. However, he is arrested for murder when the goon drops dead. Because George doesn’t want to admit that Dexter was blackmailing over him over an affair he had with a congresswoman, George finds himself sitting in prison.

Fortunately, George Farrell is a client of Beverly Hills Security! After being approached by George’s 14 year-old daughter, Leslie (Sydney Penny), Rocky (Joe Pesci, who was shorter than Sydney Penny) makes it his mission to prove that George didn’t mean to kill anyone. To do this, he’ll visit two more of Dexter’s victims (played, in this week’s cameos, by Rich Little and Lyle Waggoner). He’ll also steal several cars, including a police car. Why is Rocky stealing cars? Because he keeps wrecking them, of course! Detective Hamill (Gary Grubbs) isn’t happy about all of the wrecked cars. When he demands to know why Chester (Fred Williamson) keeps Rocky employed despite all of Rocky’s mishaps, Chester replies, “Because he cares!”

As usual, Rocky recruits Beau (Dick Butkus), Kurt (Bubba Smith), and Annie (Victoria Jackson) to help him out. When Rocky discovers that one of Dexter’s victims is holding auditions for a drag revue, Rocky decides that Annie should audition. “But I’m a real woman!” Annie replies. At this point, I was expecting thing to get pretty cringey but, by the standards of when the show was produced, the whole drag revue subplot was handled with maturity and with a relative lack of cheap jokes. I sat there dreading the moment that Bubba Smith and Dick Butkus would put on ball gowns and start speaking in falsetto but it didn’t happen. Instead, they just mentioned how talented all of the performers were. It was pretty clear that the director of the revue was being blackmailed because he was gay but, again in contrast to a lot of shows and movies from the period, both the show and Rocky treated the character with respect. It was an unexpected moment in a show that many would probably dismiss as just being another generic detective series.

While Rocky is stealing cars, Dean Martin is searching for his. No, Rocky didn’t steal Dean’s car. According to Dean, Sammy Davis, Jr. stole it. In this episode, Dean shares all of his scenes with Fred Williamson. Because this was Half Nelson‘s final episode, this was also Dean Martin’s last onscreen moment. Dean passed away ten years later.

Yes, this was indeed the final episode of Half Nelson. In fact, towards the end of the episode, Rocky crashes Chester’s car and then comments that he’s probably going to get fired as a result. Since this was the final episode, I guess we can assume that, once George got out of prison, Rocky was unemployed and on the next flight back to New York City. I hope he got to take the dog with him.

As for the episode itself, it wasn’t a bad way to wrap things up. Everyone got to do something. Chester defended Rocky, for once. Victoria Jackson got to sing a song. Joe Pesci got one final chance to make a joke about his height, snapping that he was “5’4,” when he heard a report that a car had been stolen by a man standing “5’2.” Dean Martin was clearly unwell during filming but he still had a devilish twinkle in his eye. As always, Marjoe Gortner was a good villain. On the negative side, Rocky didn’t so much solve the mystery as he just stumbled into solutions and Detective Hamill’s intense dislike of Rocky never made any sense. As well, Hamill and Annie were dating in the previous episode but they barely even acknowledged each other in this one, which leads me to suspect that this episode was originally meant to air earlier than it did.

Having now watched the entire show, it’s easy to see why Half Nelson failed to attract a regular audience, despite it’s strong pilot. The show never really found the right balance between comedy and drama and, far too often, it turned into a retread of Beverly Hills Cop. The ensemble often felt underused, with Jackson and Williamson spending far too much of their time sitting in the office. The show had a great star in Joe Pesci but many episodes got bogged down with the antics of Bubba Smith and Dick Butkus.

Here’s the thing, though. The show was always interesting, specifically because it did star Joe Pesci. There was something undeniably fun about having stolid TV actors — like Robert Reed and Dick Van Patten — appearing opposite a combustible force of nature like Joe Pesci. Though there were a few times that Pesci did seem a bit bored with going through the detective show motions, he was still a force of chaos and, by his very presence, he made Half Nelson into something more than just another generic crime show.

Next week, we start Freddy’s Nightmares!

Retro Television Reviews: Half Nelson Episode 1.8 “Malibu Colony”

Posted on April 28, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last week, I took a look at the sixth episode of Half Nelson, which was called Nose Job and which featured Rocky (Joe Pesci) dealing with an obsessed plastic surgeon who was stalking a former girlfriend. That episode featured not only two villains (it turned out that the plastic surgeon wasn’t the only homicidal stalker in Hollywood) but is also ended with Victoria Jackson’s Annie O’Hara starting a romantic relationship with Gary Grubbs’s Detective Hamill.

Nose Job was followed by an episode called Chariots For Hire. It apparently aired on April 26th, 1985 and that’s really all I can tell you about the episode. Chariots For Hire is the only episode of Half Nelson that has not been uploaded to YouTube. I can’t even find a plot summary for it on the imdb. Chariots For Hire is apparently the lost episode of Half Nelson.

Fortunately, the eighth episode of Half Nelson is on YouTube. So, let’s pick up the adventures of Rocky Nelson in Malibu Colony!

Episode 1.8 “Malibu Colony”

(Dir by James Sheldon, originally aired on May 3rd, 1985)

Rocky, Annie, Beau (Dick Butkus), and Kurt (Bubba Smith) have been assigned to guard what Rocky claims is “one of the most valuable art collections in the world.” Fortunately, this job means that they get to spend a few days hanging out in a fabulous beach house in Malibu! Standing out on the deck of the beach house, Annie looks out at the ocean and says that she can hardly believe that China is on the other side of it.

“I wonder how the egg rolls stay fresh crossing over from that far,” Kurt says.

Before anyone can ponder that question for too long, a half-naked woman runs screaming down the beach while being pursued by two thugs in suits. Rocky saves the woman from the thugs and sends her into the beach house so that she can borrow some clothes from Annie. Once dressed, the woman explains that she’s Nancy Norton (Shari Shattuck) and that she was fleeing from a nearby yacht club. She claims that the owner of the club has some naked pictures of her and she needs to get them back. Rocky, deciding that the art can protect itself, helps Nancy sneak back into the club so that she can retrieve her photographs. However, when she sees the club’s president, Crane (John Beck), she suddenly holds up a gun and shoots at him. Rocky is able to push Crane out of the way of the bullets and then he chases after Nancy.

Fortunately, both Rocky and Nancy make it out of the club without anyone realizing that they’re together. Despite the fact that she nearly made him an accessory to murder, Rocky still wants to help Nancy. Nancy explains that there are no pictures and she wasn’t trying to kill Crane. (“I just wanted to scare him.”) Nancy’s father lost a lot of money while playing poker with Crane and now Crane is threatening to kill him if he doesn’t pay. But Nancy is convinced that the poker game was rigged. The reason she was in club earlier was to take a look at Crane’s cards.

(For some reason, she thought it would be smart to do that while wearing a bikini, the top of which was somehow lost while she was fleeing Crane’s guards. That explains that partial nudity, which I am sure was definitely viewed as being important to the plot and not just as an attempt to boost the show’s ratings.)

Having saved Crane’s life, Rocky is able to get Annie, Kurt, and Beau jobs at the club. Annie models clothes. Kurt and Beau work as waiters. Rocky’s boss, Chester (Fred Williamson), shows up at the club with Dean Martin and is shocked to see all of his employees working there. Dean demands that Chester give them all raises so that they can quit their second jobs.

Eventually, Rocky finds his proof that Crane is a criminal and, with Chester’s help, he takes Crane down. After being stuck in the office for the past few episodes, Chester actually gets to do something in this episode. It’s always nice to see Fred Williamson in action and making it even better is that he smokes a big cigar while he’s taking down the bad guys. Finally, after eight episodes, Half Nelson reminded everyone of why Fred Williamson was so cool to begin with.

This episode definitely earns some points for allowing the entire supporting cast — from Fred Williamson to Victoria Jackson to Dean Martin — to play a role in solving the case of the week. One of Half Nelson‘s biggest flaws was that the appealingly quirky supporting characters often felt underused and Malibu Colony finally gives them a chance to show what they could have done as an ensemble. The mix of Pesci’s wise guy nerve, Jackson’s spaciness, Williamson’s effortless coolness, and Butkus and Smith’s comedic relief is actually pretty entertaining. Unfortunately, as good as the heroes are, Crane is pretty boring villain and the case of the week isn’t particularly interesting. In particular, Nancy’s actions never really make that much sense.

Oh well. This was a flawed episode but it still offered up a hint of what Half Nelson could have been. Next week, I will be reviewing this show’s final episode. Until then, L.A. — you belong to me!

Retro Television Reviews: Half Nelson 1.6 “Nose Job”

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Rocky gets involved with a case that’s all about obsession!

Episode 1.6 “Nose Job”

(Directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman, originally aired on April 19th, 1985)

Way back in March, when I watched the pilot for Half Nelson, one thing that I immediately noticed was the chemistry between Joe Pesci and Victoria Jackson. In the pilot, it was pretty clear that Annie O’Hara (played by Jackson) had a crush on Rocky (played, of course, by Pesci) and it was actually kind of cute. The streetwise Rocky and the spacey Annie seemed like they could be an interesting couple and I was actually looking forward to seeing how that storyline developed.

Unfortunately, it didn’t develop. In the episodes immediately following the pilot, both Annie and Rocky’s boss, Chester (Fred Williamson), were sidelined so that the show could focus on Rocky interacting with Beau (Dick Butkus) and Kurt (Bubba Smith). Annie was relegated to staying at the office and answering the phone while Rocky flirted with each week’s guest star. That was definitely a missed opportunity. While Smith and Butkus both provided adequate comedy relief, it’s still hard not to feel that the show often focused so much on them that performers like Dean Martin, Fred Williamson, and Victoria Jackson were pushed to the side.

In this week’s episode, Detective Hamill (Gary Grubbs) asks Annie to go on a date with him and Rocky encourages her to accept, so I guess the potential Rocky/Annie romance is officially dead. At first, Annie doesn’t want to date Hamill because she thinks he’s “a jerk.” (Gary Grubbs, who is one of those actors that most people will immediately recognize even if they don’t know his name, has such an amiable presence that it’s hard to understand where Annie got that idea from.) However, in return for Hamill helping him out with this week’s case, Rocky convinces Annie to give Hamill a shot. Annie and Hamill are a couple by the end of the episode. Yay! Who doesn’t love a romantic ending?

As for this episode itself, it opens with Rocky, Beau, and Kurt providing security on the set of a film. The film appears to be about a revolution in Latin America. April Gray (Mary-Margaret Humes) is playing the lead role, a revolutionary who wears a red beret. (Seriously, it looks like a great film.) When April is nearly run over by an out-of-control truck, Rocky becomes convinced that someone is stalking her. When he discovers that the truck’s accelerator was rigged with surgical string, he decides that a plastic surgeon, Dr. Jonathan Gaines (Jon Cypher), is trying to kill her.

However, before he can accuse Dr. Gaines, he has to find out if April has actually had plastic surgery. As opposed to just asking her, Rocky takes her out on a date. (Beau and Kurt come along as well, so that they can check out the other actresses in the cast and see if any of them had plastic surgery as well.) The only way that Rocky can convince her to go out with him is to take her to an exclusive club. But how can Rocky get reservations!? Fear not, it’s Dean Martin to the rescue! It turns out that Dean is co-owner of the club so he puts down his martini glass for a few minutes and makes a phone call. It’s kind of nice that Dean actually got to be involved in the case this week. Dean’s appearances on this show never last for more than a minute or two and it’s obvious that he wasn’t in the best shape when he filmed them but still, it’s fun to watch him and Pesci act opposite of each other. Pesci always seem to be in awe of Dean.

Before the date, Rocky has to teach Beau and Kurt how to discreetly look for surgery scars. This leads to him showing them how to peak behind someone ears while dancing with them. With the help of Annie, he shows how pretending to lose a contact lens can provide a chance to get on the floor check out someone’s legs for scars. (Unfortunately, the scene is rather awkwardly blocked and framed and, in a few shots, it appears as if Rocky is basically looking straight up Annie’s skirt.) Beau and Kurt are impressed. Chester is less impressed, especially when he catches Rocky crawling around Annie’s legs. Chester yells at Rocky and then goes in his office. And that concludes Fred Williamson’s role in this episode.

During the date, Rocky spots the surgical scars behind April’s ears, indicating that she’s had plastic surgery. It turns out that April not only got a nose job from Dr. Gaines but she also briefly dated him. Rocky realizes that Gaines is now trying to kill her but, as always, everyone tells Rocky that he doesn’t have enough evidence to prove anything. Let’s see. Gaines was on the set when the truck went out of control. The truck’s accelerator was tied down with surgical string. Gaines was the only person on the set with a job that would give him easy access to surgical string. It’s hard not to feel that everyone’s being too quick to dismiss Rocky’s suspicions here.

In fact, Dr. Gaines is so obviously guilty that it’s also pretty obvious that there has to be someone else involved as well. About halfway through the episode, we learn that the film’s director (played by Timothy Bottoms) also used to date April! In fact, he’s the one who paid for her nose job!

Half Nelson really has not turned out to be the lost classic that I was hoping it would be. The pilot was strong but the episodes after that have struggled to really establish a consistent identity for the show. Watching this show, one gets the feeling that the show’s producers couldn’t decide if they wanted to do a comedy or a drama. As I already mentioned, the focus on the antics of Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith pretty much left the rest of the talented cast with little to do. It’s easy to see why Half Nelson did not last longer than two months.

That said, this was actually a pretty good episode. Yes, there were plenty of detective show clichés but both Jon Cypher and Timothy Bottoms were convincing as the show’s two villains and Joe Pesci’s New York persona provided a nice contrast to the sleek phoniness of Hollywood and Beverly Hills. There was even an exciting car chase, which was entertaining even if it was ultimately a bit superfluous to the plot. Plus, the episode featured Rocky throwing a bomb more seconds before it exploded. This is what the explosion looked like:

Seriously, did Rocky just nuke L.A.!?

This was an entertainingly melodramatic episode. You could see hints of the show that Half Nelson could have been if only it could have maintained a consistent tone.

Next week, Rocky meets Marjoe Gortner!

Retro Television Reviews: Half Nelson Episode 1.5 “Diplomatic Immunity”

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

L.A. …. you belong to me….

Episode 1.5 “Diplomatic Immunity”

(Dir by Alan Cooke, Originally aired on April 12th, 1985)

Somebody is stealing luxury cars in Beverly Hills! Detective Hamill (Gary Grubbs) is pretty sure that he’s caught the responsible party, a teenager who was seen near one of the cars when it was taken. The teenager, who is in danger of losing his athletic scholarship, insists that he was just thinking about stealing the car but he didn’t actually do it. Instead, the car was stolen by some guy who arrived on the scene via a limousine. Why would a car thief be getting transported around in a limo?

That’s what Rocky Nelson (Joe Pesci) wants to find out! Just as in the previous episodes, everyone tells Rocky to not get involved. The police tell Rocky to stay out of the way. Rocky’s boss, Chester (Fred Williamson), tells him that it’s not his concern. Rocky’s landlord, Mr. Martin (Dean Martin), stops by the guesthouse to use Rocky’s phone and, though he doesn’t say not to get involved, it’s still pretty obvious that Dean Martin doesn’t care about the car thieves.

Only Rocky cares! Actually, Kurt (Bubba Smith) and Beau (Dick Butkus) care as well. In fact, in this episode, Kurt and Beau get almost as much screen time as Rocky. They follow Rocky around, hoping to learn how to become better detectives. As critical as I can sometimes be of Dick Butkus’s character on Hang Time, he was actually pretty funny on Half Nelson. He and Bubba Smith made a good comedy team and they seem to be having so much fun together that it makes up for the fact that neither one of them had much range as an actor. For instance, when Rocky goes to Beverly Hills High School to do some investigating, Kurt and Beau follow him. Kurt and Beau claim to be two new teachers at the school. “We got traded to this school from Harvard,” Beau says before Kurt explains that they got traded for another teacher and several draft picks. It’s a dumb joke but Butkus and Smith sell it with their enthusiasm.

Eventually, Rocky figures out that the car theft ring is being led by a diplomat (John Saxon) from Central America. Saxon pretends to be collecting money for charity but he’s actually just stealing cars and smuggling them out of the country. Rocky’s investigative techniques are not particularly complex. He “borrows” an expensive car from the studio and then hides in the trunk with his pitbull, Hunk. When Saxon’s henchman (Lewis van Bergen) steals the car, Rocky and Hunk jump into action. Hunk cripples the thief by biting his ankle and then Rocky and his dog run away as the car explodes. “Run, Hunk, run!” Rocky yells.

Rocky, Kurt, and Beau manage to catch Saxon right before he boards a plane to leave the country. The teenager is freed from jail. As he leaves his cell, he complains about the incompetence of the cops. Rocky yells at him for being disrespectful. It’s the best scene in the show, just because it feels spontaneous. It’s almost as if Pesci himself suddenly got mad and started yelling at the kid.

Rocky, Amanda (Victoria Jackson, who has been underused in every episode, with the exception of the pilot), and the rest of the Beverly Hills Security team throws a birthday party for Chester. Dean Martin does not show up. The end credits roll.

Half Nelson‘s main weakness is that, despite having an once-in-a-lifetime cast, the plots tend to feel somewhat generic. It just doesn’t feel right to have actors like Joe Pesci, Fred Williamson, Dean Martin, and even Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith dealing with the type of boring cases that any 80s TV detective could have solved. That said, compared to the previous episodes of Half Nelson that I’ve watched, this episode was okay. Pesci got to show off his streetwise attitude and, as always, he seemed to be happiest when acting opposite Dean Martin. John Saxon was stuck playing a one-note villain but it’s still always enjoyable to watch Saxon as he plots to do something bad. This episode was enjoyable if not exactly memorable.

Retro Television Reviews: Half Nelson Episode 1.4 “Uppers and Downers”

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The adventures of Rocky Nelson continue!

Episode 1.4 “Uppers and Downers”

(Dir by James Sheldon, originally aired on April 5th, 1985)

When a burglar alarm goes off in Beverly Hills, it’s Rocky Nelson (Joe Pesci) of Beverly Hills Patrol to the rescue! Reaching the mansion of a local businessman (played by Cliff Gorman), Rocky discovers that the alarm was set off by a racoon.

(“A racoon is Beverly Hills!?” Gorman’s wife says, in a tone that suggests that racoons are unknown creatures in California.)

Rocky also happens to spot the next door neighbor (Nancy Stafford) leading her personal trainer into her house, whispering that she’s going to show him her bedroom. At first, Rocky is amused but, later that day, Rocky hears that the personal trainer has been found, floating in Stafford’s swimming pool. Stafford claims that the trainer had a heart attack while swimming but, upon arriving at the scene, Rocky immediately figures out that the trainer died in the house and was then dragged out to the pool. Stafford swears that she didn’t kill him and Rocky believes her. However, when the autopsy report reveals that the trainer was dead before he was put in the pool, Stafford is arrested and charged with murdering him by hitting him over the head.

Despite being told by his boss (Fred Williamson) to stay away from the case, Rocky feels that he has to prove Stafford’s innocence. Rocky’s first plan is to have his associates, Kurt (Bubba Smith) and Beau (Dick Butkus), disguise themselves as mortuary attendants and steal the trainer’s body from the crematorium. Rocky then takes the body to a coroner who does a second autopsy and discovers that not only did the trainer have a heart attack but that he was also poisoned! Someone slipped the trainer a pill that was specifically designed to cause a heart attack. Now, it’s up to Rocky to discover who that person was and clear Stafford’s name before Stafford’s husband (Brett Halsey, a veteran of Italian horror and spaghetti westerns) files for divorce.

Rocky deduces that the trainer was probably targeted by a jealous husband. Rocky decides to disguise himself as a physical trainer so that he can get close to all of the dead man’s former clients. How does Rocky prepare for this role? He does calisthenics with his landlord, Dean Martin. When Rocky mentions that he needs someone to determine whether or not his clients are lying to him, Dean Martin suggests that he steal a lie detector from the set of “Burt’s new film.” (I’m guessing that Burt was a reference to Burt Reynolds, Dean’s co-star in two Cannonball Run films.) Rocky promptly goes down to the studio backlot and steals a bunch of Burt Reynolds’s property.

(The backlot was a prominent and amusing part of the show’s pilot but it was ignored during last week’s episode. I was glad to see it back for this episode because Dean Martin instructing Joe Pesci to steal Burt Reynolds’s lie detector will never not be amusing.)

Rocky meets with all of the dead trainer’s clients and tricks them into hooking themselves up to the lie detector by telling them that it’s a instrument that will check their heart rate. Rocky discovers that any number of people could have wanted the trainer dead. However, those of us in the audience already knows that Cliff Gorman is the murderer because we witnessed Gorman gloating about it earlier in the episode. Rocky eventually figures it out as well and tricks Gorman into confessing by pretending to take one of the heart attack pills while driving Gorman around Beverly Hills.

Thanks to the visit to the studio lot and Dean Martin’s eccentric performance, this episode was an improvement on last week’s. That said, it still suffered from the fact that the murder itself wasn’t that interesting (with Gorman’s ruthless businessman not getting much characterization beyond being evil). Despite being second and third-billed in the opening credits, neither Victoria Jackson nor Fred Williamson got to do much in this episode and considering that both of those performers had their own unique and eccentric style, it feels like a bit of waste to just have them sitting in the office and uttering just a handful of lines per episode. The main appeal of the show continues to be Joe Pesci, who brings a lot of streetwise charm to Rocky. In the episodes that I’ve watched so far, Pesci is likable and engaging as Rocky and I think his performance would surprise a lot of people who are used to Pesci playing killers with hair-trigger tempers. Rocky is smart and tough but ultimately rather friendly. In his performance in Half Nelson, one can see hints of his later performance in The Irishman, I just wish the rest of this show was as consistently good.

Next week: Joe Pesci faces off against John Saxon! That sounds promising! We’ll see how it goes.

Retro Television Reviews: Half Nelson 1.3 “The Deadly Vase”

Posted on March 31, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The pilot for Half Nelson was pretty good! Now, let’s see if this rest of the show lived up to its promise.

Episode 1.3 “The Deadly Vase”

(Directed by Alan Cooke, originally aired on March 29th, 1985)

I cannot escape Robert Reed.

Seriously! Robert Reed is one of those actors who seems to show up every week in my retro television reviews. If he wasn’t starring in The Brady Bunch Hour, he was guesting on The Love Boat or Fantasy Island. And now, he’s the guest villain in this week’s episode of Half Nelson!

Reed, with his graying perm and his aging porn star mustache, plays Seymour Griffith. Griffith is a fabulously wealthy Beverly Hills attorney who is planning on becoming even more wealthy by stealing a valuable vase and selling it to a crooked antiques dealer named Morgan (Cesar Romero). Unfortunately, while stealing the vase, Griffith kills the owner. (Griffith is also having an affair with the dead man’s wife.) Somewhat inconveniently, for Griffith, the dead man was a client of the Beverly Hills Patrol! Rocky Nelson is on the case, both because he’s romantically pursuing the dead man’s daughter (Michelle Johnson) and also because Rocky believes in justice.

This week’s villains

The tone of The Vase is notably different from the pilot that preceded it. The Pilot had its comedic elements (such as Rocky continually borrowing famous cars from the studio) but it was ultimately fairly serious and it even ended on something of a down note, with Police Chief Parsons (George Kennedy) committing suicide rather than face justice for the murders that he committed. In the pilot, Rocky was definitely out-of-place as a New Yorker in Los Angeles but, at the same time, he was finding his way around his new town and learning how to fit in.

The Deadly Vase, on the other hand, reimagines Rocky as a short, Italian version of Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley from Beverly Hills Cop. Chester (Fred Williamson), who was a supportive boss in the pilot, is suddenly a bit uptight about Rocky investigating a crime in Beverly Hills. He even sends his newest recruits, Kurt and Beau (played by Bubba Smith and Hang Time‘s Dick Butkus), to follow Rocky around Beverly Hills and make sure that Rocky doesn’t offend any rich people with his New York attitude. This episode pretty much just duplicates the plot of Beverly Hills Cop. During one car chase, The Heat Is On plays on the soundtrack and it’s hard not to notice that the other musical cues are almost identical to the ones heard in Beverly Hills Cop.

Smith and Butkus aren’t the only new members of the cast. Dependable character actor Gary Grubbs joins the show as Detective Hamill, who is far less a fan of Rocky’s than Parsons was. Hamill shows up long enough to order Rocky to stay off the case and to get growled at by Rocky’s pit bull. Hamill also gets to have a conversation with Dean Martin about whether or not Frank and Sammy and Shirley MacClaine would be willing to do a benefit for the Beverly Hills police department. Dean is only onscreen for a few minutes but it’s still nice to see him there.

Joe Pesci, who was so strong in the pilot, spends most of this episode looking more than a little annoyed so I’m going to guess that he may not have been happy with the show’s new direction. About the only time Pesci seems to be having fun is when Rocky is hired to play a hot dog in a commercial. The director of the commercial is played by Donald O’Connor and yes, Pesci does wear a hot dog costume.

Joe Pesci getting dressed up like a hot dog pretty much saved this episode as the mystery itself was fairly bland and Robert Reed never really felt like a worthy opponent to Rocky. Hopefully, next week’s episode will be a bit of an improvement …. or, at least, let’s hope the show finds another excuse to put Joe Pesci in a hot dog costume.