Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 7/5/26 — 7/11/26

Posted on July 11, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Big Brother 28 (24/7, CBS, Paramount+, Pluto TV)

Originally, I wasn’t going to watch Big Brother this season but I gave in. Watching this show and getting annoyed is pretty much a tradition around these parts and you know me. I’m all about tradition. You can read my thoughts (and Erin’s thoughts!) about the show over at RealityTVChatBlog.

The Contender (Prime)

I watched two episodes of this old reality show on Tuesday. A group of boxers competed to be …. THE CONTENDER! They weren’t bad. I actually remember when this show aired way back in the aughts. Sylvester Stallone was the host for the first two seasons. The episodes I watched were hosted by Sugar Ray Leonard.

Homicide: Life On The Street (Peacock)

My review of Homicide will drop tomorrow.

Saved By The Bell (Tubi)

My review of Saved By The Bell will drop later tonight.

Sledgehammer! (Prime)

I watched an episode of this 80s comedy show on Friday. A contract was put out on Sledgehammer’s life so he hid with with Amish. It was a funny episode.

Watched and Reviewed

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.19 “A Family Affair”

Posted on July 10, 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 Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!

This week’s episode is all about death, natural and otherwise.

Episode 2.19 “A Family Affair”

(Dir by Keith Samples, originally aired on February 19th, 1990)

Paul (Leonard O. Turner) is having an affair with Claire (Kim Morgan Greene). He doesn’t want his wife, Helen (Marlene Warfield), or his son, Jason (Morris Chestnut) to find out so when Claire becomes possessive and breaks into his house, he resorts to drastic measures and kills her. However, he and Jason then discover that Claire has already killed Helen. Months later, Paul and Jason are now estranged and Jason is doing drugs. When Paul has a heart attack, he is visited by Claire’s spirit. Claire is now the Angel of Death and has come to claim his soul. Paul begs Claire to give one more week of life so that he can settle his affairs. Claire agrees and then says that she still can’t return empty-handed. Guess who overdoses?

“Drugs,” Freddy Krueger says, “Now there’s a real nightmare!”

Did you hear that kids? The horribly scarred. undead serial killer who is the host of this show says that you better not do drugs. Freddy — or I should say, Robert Englund — delivers the line in a very solemn tone. Freddy’s Nightmares is trying to be socially responsible.

Oh, what to say about this episode? Kim Morgan Greene was enjoyably snarky while playing the Angel of Death. Otherwise, this was a pretty boring episode. Paul’s a jerk and, as a result, he loses everyone that he cares about. If Paul was in any way sympathetic, that would be sad. As it is, it’s hard to care.

Only three episodes left!

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 6/21/26 — 6/27/28

Posted on June 27, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bands of Enchantment (PBS)

On Friday night, I watched a performance by the band Pacifica. They were okay. I prefer louder music.

Bring Me The Beauties: The Model Cult (HBOMax)

I watched this 3-part docuseries on Monday. It was yet another cult documentary. This time, only good-looking people could join the cult. That actually made sense to me. If you’re a cult leader, why would you want to be surrounded by ugly people?

Degrassi: The Next Generation (Tubi)

My review of this week’s episode will drop tomorrow.

Election Coverage

I watched this latest primary results on Tuesday. Ugh, the DSA in New York. Never has a group of activist been both so charmless and so successful at the same time. A lot of people are panicking about that but, honestly, if the DSA was going to win anywhere, it was going to be in New York. I imagine they’ll do well in Denver next week as well. DSA appeals to gentrifiers. (I also remember that the DSA insurgency was declared dead after the primaries in Illinois so perhaps we should be careful about reading too much into any one night.) It seems like after every “wave election,” there’s a few new congresspeople (and even senators) who end up self-destructing during their first or second term, people like Katie Hill, George Santos, Madison Cawthorn, Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman. This year, I’m putting my money on Dairaliza Avila Chevalier and, if he wins, Graham Platner as being the most likely to fall apart as soon as they arrive in Washington.

Homicide: Life On The Street (Peacock)

My review of this week’s episode will drop tomorrow.

Saved By The Bell (Tubi)

My review of this weeks episode will drop later tonight.

Watched and Reviewed:

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.18 “Funhouse”

Posted on June 26, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, a mansion is full of …. well, one surprise.

Episode 2.18 “Funhouse”

(Dir by Gilbert Adler, originally aired on February 11th, 1990)

Turk (Todd Allen), the moving man, is busy this week.

In our first story, Turk helps a young married couple, Emma (Robin Greer) and Robert Palmer (Clayton Landey), move into an old mansion. Turk talks about how the previous owners came to a bad end. Emma finds herself having dreams in which both Turk and her former lover, Colin (Joseph Brutsman), come aftter her. She comes to realize that the house is not haunted by a ghost but instead by a man looking for revenge. As is often the case with these type of stories, it all ends with a booby trap involving a bed of nails. Yikes!

In our second story, Turk helps another couple move into the house, Evelyn (Valerie Wildman) and her much older husband, Victor Hall (Robert Dowdell). This time, it’s Turk who ends up getting seduced by both Evelyn and the maid, Jillian (Laura Austin). However, it all turns out to be an elaborate game tht Evelyn, Victor, and Jillian enjoy playing. The bed of spikes booby trap makes yet another appearance and it’s so cool that it doesn’t even matter that Freddy’s Nightmares basically just repeated the twist from the first story in the second story.

This episode was fun. There really wasn’t anything supernatural going on but the cast of both stories seemed to enjoy playing up the noirsh aspects of their characters and Todd Allen was amusing as the cocky but stupid Turk. The bed of nails was an enjoyable macabre little twist.

Even at its best, Freddy’s Nightmares tended to be incredibly uneven but this was actually an enjoyable little episode.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 6/14/26 — 6/20/26

Posted on June 20, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Buskers (PBS)

This documentary was about …. well, it’s right there in the title. One man performed card tricks. A woman played a saw like a violin. Another woman wrote poems on a typewriter in the park. A man danced on a subway train. The documentary was an interesting look at a group of unique Americans. Unfortunately, I watched it rather late at night so my eyelids were heavy during the majority of the show.

Degrassi: The Next Generation (Tubi)

My review will drop tomorrow.

Homicide: Life on the Street (Peacock TV)

My review will drop tomorrow.

Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger (Shout TV)

There’s just no stopping those dinosaurs!

The Larry Sanders Show (HBOMax)

Hank’s Sex Tape! Oh my God, what a cringey episode. When a sex tape featuring Hank Kingsley starts to circulate in Hollywood, it threatens Hank’s new job as an orange juice commercial spokesman. Henry Winkler and Norm MacDonald appear as themselves and have a classic conversation about Hank and …. well, you can watch the episode and see for yourself. Why is this episode so funny and so cringey? Hank is played by Jeffrey Tambor. “Wash your mouth out with Hank.” AGCK!

Saved By The Bell (Tubi)

My review of this week’s episode will drop in about 90 minutes.

UFC Freedom 250 (Paramount Plus)

I’ll just go ahead and tick everyone off by admitting that I enjoyed the spectacle and the unique silliness of UFC on the White House lawn. Yes, there were some regrettable moments. If you were annoyed by the comment about a certain former first lady, you had every right to be. It was a stupid thing to yell and unnecessarily divisive. But, at its heart, the event itself was pure Americana. Abraham Lincoln’s favorite sport was wrestling. Teddy Roosevelt loved boxing. Richard Nixon was a bowler. There’s actually a long history of this sort of thing.

Watched and Reviewed:

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.17 “Interior Loft Later”

Posted on June 19, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, a loft sees a lot of action!

Episode 2.17 “Interior Loft Later”

(Dir by Ken Wiederhorn, originally aired on February 4th, 1990)

The loft from last week’s episode returns!

The loft is now home to sculptor Alex McFain (Robert F. Lyons). Alex spends most of his time sitting and sleeping in a bath tub and complaining about the fact that his work doesn’t make him much money. When his wife, Fabina (Fabiana Udenio) accidentally kills one of Alex’s models, Alex comes up with a brilliant plan. He’ll fake his own death so his work will become valuable!

At first, the plan works. The only problem is that Alex can no longer leave the loft. With Fabina constantly going outside to sell his work, Alex starts to worry that she’s having an affair with another man. It tuns out that he’s half-right. Fabina is having an affair but it’s with another woman. Alex is shocked but he’s then killed by decorative sword that falls off of the ceiling. Now, his work will be really valuable!

Months later, Fabina’s former boy toy, Art (Dean Fortunato), shows up at the apartment and discovers that it is now occupied by Stacy (Leslie Bega) and Gina (Tory Polone). Art moves in with them and proceeds to seduce both of them. He tells one that he’s an environmental activist being pursued by a cartel of fishermen. He tells the other that he’s being chased by the mob. When Stacy and Gina compare notes, it’s bad news for both Art.

Freddy doesn’t do anything in either one of these stories, other than introduce them. Both stories follow the familiar pattern where anything overly dramatic that happens is ultimately revealed to be a dream. Neither story is all that interesting but Robert F. Lyons does his best to bring some life to his role of the sculptor pretending to be dead. As has so often been the case with the second season, this episode isn’t great or even memorable but it’s still a hundred times better than the majority of the first season.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.16 “Interior Loft”

Posted on June 12, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, a husband and a wife live in a loft and obsess on sex and death.

Episode 2.16 “Interior Loft”

(Dir by Ken Wiederhorn, originally aired on January 28th, 1990)

Kim Lewis (Elizabeth Keifer) has quit her job so that she can work on her novel. Her husband, David (Kip Gilman), is a lazy grad student who doesn’t bring in much money to the household. David suggests that Kim could record a message for a sex line. Kim agrees but, when a serial killer becomes obsessed with the message, she finds herself being stalked. Fortunately, the killer dies before he can harm Kim. But Kim is so traumatized and mentally shaken by her stalker’s bloody death that David comes to worry that she might be plotting to become a killer herself. And, of course, she is.

There was nothing supernatural about this episode, other than Freddy popping up for the host segments. Apparently, even in his Hellish afterlife, Freddy tries to keep up with all the latest novels. This episode was instead an attempt at neo-noir and director Ken Weiderhorn manages to create an appropriately ominous atmosphere. Elizabeth Keifer gives a strong performance as Kim so it’s unfortunate that the rest of the cast isn’t as memorable. This was not a bad episode but it was hard not to feel that it could have been even better.

In the end, I appreciated the fact that this episode actually did have something on its mind. David fears that Kim is a potential killer because of the book that she writes. That’s something to which any creative person in the horror field can relate. Audiences often seem to assume that a morbid imagination is linked to a morbid personality whereas the opposite is often the case. I’ve been lucky enough to meet a few horror people. They’re nice!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.15 “Prime Cut”

Posted on May 29, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it’s flesh-eating time!

Episode 2.15 “Prime Cut”

(Dir by David Calloway, originally aired on January 21st, 1990)

Tony Dow plays a hiker who worries that his guide (Sandal Bergman) might actually be a vampire. Every few minutes, Dow either spots Bergman drinking blood or preparing to drink blood but then, just as suddenly, he wakes up. Finally, he wakes up one final time and discovers that he’s actually been having feverish visions because he was in a plane crash and is now stranded in the wilderness. He and Bergman are the only survivors of the crash and they’ve resorted to eating bodies of the other passengers. Dow’s wife (Amy Lyndon) eventually stumbles on the two during her own abortive attempt to provide a rescue. Uh-oh, will she now have to eat human flesh as well?

Ugh, this episode. Both storylines had potential but they really didn’t go anywhere. This was one of those episodes where, every few minutes, something weird would happen and then we would immediately cut to someone waking up. While I understand that the dreams were a part of the show’s trademark, the episode still overused them. It was far more dull than any show featuring Tony Down and Sandahl Bergman as cannibals had any right to be.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 5/17/26 — 5/23/26

Posted on May 23, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bardo: A Night In The Life (YouTube)

This was a live music program that aired on certain PBS stations. On Friday night, I watched a concert given by Lake Street Drive. Musically, they were very talented but a little mellow for my tastes.

Burning Love (Prime)

I bought all three seasons of Burning Love this week. On Wednesday, I watched the first season. Ken Marino was Mark Orlando, a fireman looking for love on a reality dating show. “Will you accept my hose?” “Please put your hose in my hands.” I laughed and laughed. If nothing else, it made up for not having a new season of The Bachelorette.

The Cult Behind The Killer: The Andrea Yates Story (Hulu)

I watched this documentary on Wednesday and Thursday. Over three episode, it revisited the horrific crimes of Andrea Yates and suggested that she was brainwashed by a street preacher. It didn’t really convince me. Obviously, Yates claimed that she was driven to murder by her beliefs but I think that, even if she had never heard a sermon in her life, she would have eventually become a murderer. Some people are just evil and will use whatever they can as a justification.

This documentary featured interviews with two people who were former members of the preacher’s cult. Former cult members always make for terrible witnesses because it’s hard to have much respect for anyone who could get brainwashed in the first place.

Dr. Phil (YouTube)

I watched an episode on Saturday about fighting in-laws. They should have just called off the wedding.

Election Coverage (Tuesday)

As someone who pretends not to follow politics, I made sure to pretend that I wasn’t glued to Tuesday’s election coverage. I did a little cheering, I’ll admit it.

Family Lockup (Disney+)

I watched the first episode of this true crime show on Wednesday. The father of a prisoner spent 72 hours in jail so he could talk to his son and see what it was like to be on the inside. At the end of the episode, the son was released and his father was waiting for him. Awww!

George Gently (YouTube)

I watched an episode of this British detective show on Tuesday. It was depressing, as most British detective shows tend to be.

Good Times (Tubi)

In this 70s sitcom, the Evans family was divided over who to support in the next election, Alderman Fred C. Davis or Jimmy Pearson, who was well-educated but refused to play the dozens. Jeff and I watched this episode on Sunday night. Jimmy lost his election but swore that he would run again and this time, he would play the dozens. Good for you, Jimmy. Get out there and sell out.

Hollywood Demons (HBOMax)

This week’s episode took a look at 16 and Pregnant. I guess it’s good that this episode exists because, in the future, historians will probably try to deny that 16 and Pregnant ever existed.

Homicide: Life On The Street (Peacock TV)

My review of this week’s episode will drop tomorrow.

Hulk Hogan: Real American (Netflix)

I watched this docudrama on Thursday. It told the story of Hulk Hogan, from his early days to his death. The weird thing about this documentary was that it acknowledged that wrestling was fake but still tried to pretend like it wasn’t. (I have to admit that I’ve never been a big wrestling fan.) The documentary featured extensive interviews with sickly looking Hogan. He passed away shortly after filming wrapped. Hulk Hogan took down Gawker and he’ll always be remembered for that.

Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger (Shout Factory TV)

I watched two episodes of this weird Japanese series on Saturday morning. Monsters were everywhere but luckily, so were some people who were apparently descended from dinosaurs. I really couldn’t follow the plot but the saber-tooth tiger was cute.

The PGA Championship (Sunday, CBS)

Congratulation to Aaron Rai! I loved looking at the golf course. It looked so relaxing.

Saved By The Bell (Tubi)

My review of this week’s episode will drop in about 90 minutes.

Watched and Reviewed:

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.14 “Easy Come, Easy Go”

Posted on May 22, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Mary Crosby returns. And hey — is that Wings Hauser!?

Episode 2.14 “Easy Come, Easy Go”

(Dir by William Malone, originally aired on January 14th, 1990)

In this sequel to Lucky Stiff, Greta (Mary Crosby) is still living in her mansion with her new husband, Eugene (Tracey Walter). She’s married to Eugene so that Eugene won’t turn her in for having killed her previous husband. Eugene says that he’ll leave the mansion as soon as they consummate the marriage. Greta, however, has standards. As a result, Eugene lives in the basement.

When her former brother-in-law, Wes Roscoe (Richard Eden), shows up, it doesn’t take long for a lingerie-clad Greta to seduce him. It soon becomes apparent that Wes wants her money and vengeance for the death of his brother. She makes plans to poison him but, when Wes attacks her, her life is saved by Eugene. Greta realizes that she loves Eugene. She sleeps with him. Immediately afterwards, Eugene accidentally drinks the poison and dies. Sorry, Eugene!

Shortly afterwards, Greta’s sister, Peggy (Jill Jacobson), shows up with her husband, eyepatch-wearing Sonny (Wings Hauser). Sonny is Greta’s ex. In fact, he blames her for the loss of his eye. (They got into an argument in a car and a slap from Greta sent Sonny plunging eye-first into the gear shift.) Greta seduces and then kills Sonny, just as she’s done with every man who has tried to take her money. But then Peggy turns out to be a sociopath herself (“I killed mom and dad.”) and proceeds to shoot Greta.

“Easy come, easy go,” Greta gasps.

This episode was so over-the-top and cheerfully sordid that it was impossible not to enjoy it. Mary Crosby threw herself into the femme fatale role. Wings Hauser, as always, was amusingly disturbed as the bad guy. Both stories were wonderfully sordid. Even without any supernatural elements, this was a truly fun episode.