Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 10/20/24 — 10/26/24

Posted on October 26, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Wow, the story of Aaron Hernandez gets less and less interesting with each week. American Sports Story got off to a strong start but, this week, I found myself watching the latest episode and wondering why anyone should care about Aaron and his problems. Seriously, I get that Aaron Hernandez was abused as a child. I get that he struggled as a gay man in a hypermasculine, homophobic industry. I get that he didn’t grow up privileged. I’ll even agree with the show’s criticisms of the NFL. But in the end, who cares? As portrayed on this show, Aaron Hernandez comes across as being an idiot. Beyond the fact that he played professional football, there’s nothing particularly interesting about Hernandez or his crimes. He’s not a compelling character at all.

I was far more entertained by Hell’s Kitchen this week. Gordon Ramsay and his terrified chefs are compelling characters. Ramsay was in a surprisingly supportive mood this week. That’s fine with me. I like it when Chef Ramsay’s nice. No one went home this week. Yay!

Let’s see, what else did I watch this week? I watched that old episode of Dragnet where Friday and Gannon went on the talk show. I actually watched that episode several times. It amused me. Plus, the episode’s debate was a lot more interesting than any of the real debates that are currently going on.

I watched and reviewed Miami Vice, The Love Boat, and Homicide. I watched a Halloween episode of Friday the 13th. I watched and shared several episodes of One Step Beyond. And, finally, I watched an episode of Dr. Phil where a man said his wife had run off with a cult.

And that’s it! Most of my attention was devoted to horror films this week.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.15 “Better Off Dead”

Posted on October 25, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, Micki’s in even more danger than usual as a desperate doctor uses a magic syringe to try to find a cure for his daughter. This is also our final episode of Friday the 13th for October. Can you believe Halloween is right around the corner?

Episode 2.15 “Better Off Dead”

(Dir by Armand Mastroianni, originally aired on February 13th, 1989)

John Cusack plays Lane Meyer, an artistic high school student who is stunned with he is dumped by….

Oh wait, sorry. Wrong Better Off Dead.

This Better Off Dead tells the story of Dr. Warren Voss (Neil Munro), who lives in an isolated mansion with his pre-adolescent daughter, Amanda (Tara Meyer). Amanda has a disease that makes her violent and dangerous. She attacks almost anyone who comes near her, including her own father. Dr. Voss believes that he has finally found a cure for her condition and, if he’s right, he’s convinced that he can cure all violent behavior.

Unfortunately, the cure is a bit extreme. Dr. Voss starts out by bringing prostitutes to his mansion and then using a silver syringe to extract their brain fluid, which he then injects into his daughter. This temporarily calms down his daughter but it turns Voss’s unwilling donors into violent maniacs. Voss claims that he’s doing all of this for the greater good and he’s only using donors who would be better off dead. But, as the episode unfolds, it becomes clear that Voss’s good intentions can’t hide his own sadistic streak.

The syringe once belonged to Jack the Ripper and, as you definitely already guessed, it’s a cursed object. After a friend of Micki’s becomes one of Voss’s victims, Micki is herself kidnapped and becomes Voss’s latest donor. When Jack and Ryan show up to save the day, they not only have to battle Voss. They also find themselves attacked by Micki. And Micki, due to the experiments and perhaps also due to the resentment that anyone would feel over having to put their lives on hold to search for cursed antiques, proves to be a fierce opponent.

Fear not, of course. Things are resolved. Micki is saved and, at the end of the episode, she is slowly recovering from her trauma. Voss is attacked and killed by his own daughter. Ryan wonders about whether or not Voss could have eliminated violent behavior if he had been allowed to continue his experiments. Jack says that it’s not worth wondering about. I agree. Leave Micki alone! Better the whole world suffer than one redhead be inconvenienced, say this proud redhead.

Director by Armand Mastroianni, this was a really good episode. Both Neil Munro and Tara Meyer gave good performances as the doctor and his daughter and Robey, who has often felt underused on this show so far, got a chance to show off her own dramatic abilities. As for the question at the heart of the episode, I agree with Jack. The cost outweighs the benefits. Friday the 13th deserves a lot credit, though, for seriously considering the issue. This was an episode that was both creepy and intelligent.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.14 “Face of Evil”

Posted on October 18, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s sequel time!

Episode 2.14 “Face of Evil”

(Dir by William Fruet, originally aired on February 6th, 1989)

In this sequel to the first season episode Vanity’s Mirror, Joanne Mackey (Gwendoline Pacey) returns to Curious Goods for the first time since the death of her younger sister, Helen. Joanne reveals that she’s the one who stole the cursed gold compact at the end of Vanity’s Mirror, explaining that she simply had to have something that belonged to her sister. Jack is not amused, telling her that she should have turned it over so that it could be stored in the vault.

Calm down, Jack. Joanne knows she did something wrong and she’s trying to make amends. She is especially concerned because the compact is now in the hands of an aging supermodel named Tabitha Robbins (Laura Robinson). Tabitha is upset that her career is struggling and she’s been told that not even plastic surgery can reverse the fact that she’s just not as young as her competition. Tabitha has figured out that anyone whose face is caught in the reflection of the mirror will either die or, at the very least, suffer a terrible disfigurement. Apparently, in this case, the antique’s curse changes depending on who owns it.

I have mixed feelings about this episode. On the one hand, I could relate to Tabitha’s feelings about aging. No one wants to age and that’s doubly true when you’re working in an industry where youth is the most valuable commodity. I also enjoyed the very 80s fashion shoots that were featured in this episode. On the other hand, there were a lot of rather silly scenes of Tabitha trying to catch Ryan and Micki’s reflection in the mirror while Mick and Ryan ducked around with their hands over their faces. There’s no other way to put it other than to say it all looked really goofy.

The biggest problem with this episode is that the majority of it was taken up with clips from Vanity’s Mirror. Every few minutes, Joanne would think about Helen and we would get a flashback. Unfortunately, a lot of the flashbacks didn’t even feature Joanne so you have to wonder how exactly she was able to remember them. The constant flashbacks made this episode feel like a clip show and you know how much I hate those.

In the end, Tabitha accidentally catches her own face in the mirror’s reflection and she immediately starts aging. I guess that’s the risk you take when you try to use a mirror as a weapon. Micki and Ryan finally retrieve the compact and Jack mentions that Joanne could have saved a lot of lives by not stealing the compact in the first place. Look, Jack — she feels bad enough already! I’m sorry everyone isn’t beating down the doors of the antique shop to give you their cursed items. Get off Joanne’s back!

Oh well. At least the evil compact will hurt no one else….

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.13 “Eye of Death”

Posted on October 11, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Ryan goes into the past.

Episode 2.13 “Eye of the Death”

(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on January 30th, 1989)

Atticus Rook (Tom McCamus) is an antiques dealer, one who is well-known to Jack. No one seems to really like or trust Atticus Rook. Everything about him seems to scream sleaze. But Atticus has somehow managed to get artifacts from the American Civil War that no one else has ever been able to find. His latest claim is that he will soon be selling Robert E. Lee’s sword.

How is Atticus accomplishing this? He has a cursed magic lantern that he uses to project old pictures onto his wall. He’s then able to step into the picture and enter the time period in which it was taken. (Hey, that sounds like a fun cursed object to own!) Atticus has been going into the past and telling Gen. Lee (Bernard Behrens) that he’s a spy. However, the information that he gives Lee is just stuff that he remembers from history class. Atticus thinks that he’s got a pretty good operation going but there are two catches. To go to the past, he has to kill someone in the present. To return to the present, he has to kill someone in the past.

Naturally, Ryan ends up in the past while trying to retrieve the magic lantern. Ryan meets General Lee and tries to present himself as also being a spy but it turns out that Ryan paid even less attention in history class than Atticus did. Ryan being Ryan, he also falls in love with a widow named Abigail (Brooke Johnson). As we all know, having Ryan fall in love with you is pretty much a death sentence on Friday the 13th. Abigail’s death does allow Ryan, Jack, and Micki to return to the present. Moving the lantern allows Atticus to get trapped in his own wall, where he suffocates while trying to return to the present.

This was a surprisingly good episode. I say “surprisingly” because you wouldn’t necessarily think that a low-budget Canadian show would do a great job of recreating the American Civil War but this episode pulls it off. The costumes, the sets, the words used by the people encountered by Ryan and Atticus, all of them work to make the episode’s Civil War setting feel very realistic. Tom McCamus is a great villain and Bernard Behrens is well-cast as Robert E. Lee. Even the obviously doomed romance between Ryan and Abigail works remarkably well.

I have to admit that I’ve always assumed this show took place in Canada, largely because of all of the Canadian accents and the Canadian scenery. This episode reveals that Friday the 13th is supposed to be taking place in the United States, despite the way that people pronounce the word “sorry.” When Ryan ends up in the Civil War, he says that he’s from Chicago. (It’s not necessarily a good idea to go back to the Civil War era and immediatly tell everyone that you’re a Yankee.)

Well, this show can pretend that the antique store is in Chicago if it wants to, but it’ll always be Toronto to me.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.12 “The Playhouse”

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Agck! Stranger danger!

Episode 2.12 “The Playhouse”

(Dir by Tom McLoughlin, originally aired on January 28th, 1989)

Mike and Janine Carlson (played by Robert Oliveri and Lisa Jakub) are two young siblings living in the suburbs. They don’t have much of a life. Their mother (Belinda Metz) is neglectful and continually complains that her children are the reason why she can’t find a rich boyfriend. Mike and Janine don’t appear to have any close friends. Children are vanishing all over town and parents are telling their kids, “Don’t go off with strangers!” but no one seems to care enough about Mike and Janine to even check to make sure that they haven’t been kidnapped.

Mike and Janine have a playhouse, a gift that was given to them by one of their mother’s former boyfriends. The playhouse is the only place where they feel happy. It’s a place where they literally get anything that they wish for. But sometimes, the door to the playhouse is locked. When that happens, Mike and Janine have to convince someone else to go into the playhouse. Once someone enters the playhouse, they find themselves trapped in a nightmarish world that is full of evil clowns and other circus figures. Mike and Janine have to chant, “I hate you! I hate you!” while the playhouse claims its victims.

Agck! Seriously, this is a disturbing episode! Not only are Mike and Janine terribly abused but almost all of their victims are children. Perhaps because of the age of the people involved, this is the only episode of Friday the 13th: The Series in which no one dies. They’re held prisoner in the playhouse and probably traumatized for life but they don’t die. Fortunately, that means that they can be freed once Jack convinces Mike to chant, “I love you!” instead of “I hate you!”

Yep, this episode is all about the power of love but you really have to wonder if all of Mike and Janine’s problems can be solved by chanting, “I love you!” I mean, aren’t the other kids going to remember that Mike and Janine held them prisoner in a nightmare universe? The episode may end with the playhouse defeated by Mike and Janine are still living in that terrible suburb and their mother is still a resentful alcoholic. Even though this episode has what would most would consider to be a happy ending — the kids are free! — it’s still incredibly dark.

This episode definitely left me feeling a bit shaken. I hate seeing children in danger and that’s what this episode was all about. Even things that sound kind of silly — like Mike chanting “I hate you!” while the playhouse does its thing — are actually rather disturbing when viewed. The child actors are almost too convincing in this episode. In the end, Jack says that all you need is love but this episode leaves you wondering if he’s correct.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.11 “The Sweetest Sting”

Posted on September 27, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Agck! Bees!

Episode 2.11 “The Sweetest Sting”

(Dir by David Winning, originally aired on January 16th, 1989)

I have never been stung by a bee or a wasp.

I’m extremely lucky. All of my sisters and all of my cousins have been stung once or twice. My mom was stung multiple times when I was little. But I have never once been stung. I once had a wasp fly straight into my hair and I was able to shake it out without it stinging me. I have had bees land on my bare arm and just sit there without stinging. I once knocked a wasp nest off of a farm doorway and the wasps, while obviously angry, made no attempt to sting me in retaliation. For whatever reasons, the wasps and the bees have decided not to mar my beautiful skin with any of their stingers and I appreciate them for that.

Of course, I’m also very scared that they might someday change their mind. I have no idea what it feels like to be stung but I know it’s painful. On a more serious note, I have no idea whether or not I’m allergic to bees or wasps. I appreciate their kindness but I’m still terrified of their capriciousness.

That’s why this somewhat silly episode of Friday the 13th freaked me out. I say silly because it was about McCabe (Art Hindle), a psycho beekeeper who kept all of his bees in a cursed hive. Whenever he would unleash the bees, the cheap special effects were so bad that it would have made me laugh if not for the fact that I’m already scared enough of innocent bees. Imagine how I feel about cursed ones!

The bees produced cursed honey that can be used to restore the youth of people who allow themselves to be stung by McCabe’s bees. (Because they’re magic bees, they don’t die after stinging someone. I always understood that stinging someone caused a bee to be ripped in half so I’m not sure how the magic works but whatever. I actually kind of feel bad for bees now.) However, the people who accept McCabe’s youth treatment have to have a constant supply of honey and McCabe needs a constant supply of dead bodies so that his clients can fake their own deaths. So, McCabe orders his clients to kill if they want to remain young.

To be honest, the whole plot kind of feels like it was made up on the spot but the great Canadian character actor Art Hindle gives an amusingly over-the-top performance as McCabe. McCabe is the type of villain who laughs whenever he’s thinking about doing something evil. There’s nothing subtle about Hindle’s performance but it works in the contest of the episode’s overall absurdity. The bees are obviously fake. Art Hindle chews up every piece of scenery he can get his hands on. The episode’s a lot of fun.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.10 “Night Hunger”

Posted on September 20, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we’ve got the saddest episode of Friday the 13th yet!

Episode 2.10 “Night Hunger”

(Dir by Martin Lavut, originally aired on January 9th, 1989)

As a young boy, Michael Firono was constantly told by his father, Dominic (Nick Nichols), that he should always play to win and that, if he lost, it was because he was a wimp. Needless to say, once Mike became a teenager, he did not have a great relationship with his father. Seeking an escape from his abusive household, Mike spend all of his time at the local antique store where, on his 16th birthday, the store’s owner, Lewis Vendredi (R.G. Armstrong), gave him a special silver chain.

Mike (played by Richard Panebianco) has grown up to be an angry young man. He always wears the chain around his neck. Hanging on the chain is the key to his car. Mike loves to race his car and, far from being the loser that his father claimed he would grow up to be, Mike cannot be beat. His car is amazingly fast and Mike is incredibly (one might even say supernaturally) skilled behind the wheel. His main goal is to defeat his childhood rival, Deacon (Real Andrews), who is now a street racer himself. Deacon is hesitant to race Mike, precisely because Mike seems to be so driven to win that racing with him can be even more dangerous than usual. To Deacon, street racing is fun. For Mike, it’s an obsession.

Of course, Mike has a secret. As long as he’s wearing the silver chain, he can’t be defeated. But he has to kill people and dip the key in their blood for the chain to work. Jack, Micki, and Ryan set out to reclaim the silver chain but an accident results in both the chain and the key being absorbed into Mike’s body. With the chain and the key now sitting next to Mike’s heart, Mike’s eyes not only glow red but his car seems to have a mind of its own….

This is another one of those episodes of Friday the 13th where the villain is himself a victim. Even before he met Lewis and received the silver chain, Mike was doomed. His abusive father left Mike feeling so insecure and so obsessed with winning that there was really no way Mike wasn’t going to end up snapping eventually. In the present day, Dominic finally understands how much he hurt Mike and he feels guilty about it but it’s too late to undo the damage that’s been done. Like a pusher befriending people most likely to get addicted to his product, Uncle Lewis saw Mike as someone who would easily succumb to a cursed antique. Mike becomes addicted to using the key and that leads to him doing a lot of bad things. But the real curse here is not the silver chain but instead Mike’s abusive childhood. Mike never had a chance.

This is a genuinely sad and well-acted episode, with Mike’s obsession eventually destroying him. As happen so often with this show, Ryan and Micki are left with the knowledge that, while they can reclaim the cursed objects, they can never repair the damage that they’ve done.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 9/8/24 — 9/14/24

Posted on September 14, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve been up at Lake Texoma for most of this week, getting some much-needed rest after the past 3 and a half months. As such, I haven’t watch much television over the past few days (and no, I did not watch the debate because, as I just said, I’m trying to rest and relax) but I did find time to binge and write up reviews for several episodes of Baywatch Nights, Check It Out!, Friday the 13th, and Welcome Back, Kotter. Watch for the rest of those reviews through the rest of this month and October!

Here’s some thoughts on what I did watch:

Baywatch Nights (YouTube)

I binged Baywatch Nights this week. Check out my review of this week’s episode here!

Check It Out! (Tubi)

I watched and wrote reviews of several episodes of Check It Out! on Sunday. Look for the reviews through the rest of this month and October.

Fantasy Island (DVR)

I reviewed this week’s episode of Fantasy Island here!

Friday the 13th: The Series (YouTube)

Read this week’s review here!

Get Judged by Byron Browne (Nosey)

Tattooed and plain-spoken attorney Byron Browne listens to people talk about their problems and then tells them if they have grounds to sue. I watched a few episodes on Sunday evening. I actually liked the show. I appreciated the fact that Browne, for all of his flamboyance, gave good advice and didn’t waste many words getting to the point.

Jerry Springer Show (Nosey)

I watched three episodes of this show on Nosey while I was working on some reviews of shows that don’t feature Jerry Springer. One episode that I watched featured a dry cleaner who stole women’s clothes and wondered why his girlfriend was cheating on him. Another episode featured a man who wanted his lover to dress up like his mom. The last episode featured a man who got upset because his girlfriend was sleeping with his sister. I’m pretty sure every guest was an actor. I mean, I’ve known some pretty weird people but I’ve never known anyone as strange as the typical Spring guest.

Jerry Springer, let’s just be honest, came across as being incredibly sleazy. I don’t care that he was a former politician or that he was apparently inspired by Robert F. Kennedy, Sr. I don’t care that he was apparently an amiable presence off-stage. Watching him on this show, smirking while the audience chants his name, I felt no need to pretend like Springer was anything other than the epitome of a sleazy talk show host. For all the efforts made by some in the media to rehabilitate his image and to suggest that he shouldn’t have been judged by the show he hosted, Springer really was the worst and the faux sincerity of his “final thoughts” always verged on being offensive. If he was still alive, he’d be an excellent pick to play the sleazy game show host, Killian, in a Running Man remake.

The Love Boat (Paramount Plus)

I reviewed this week’s episode of The Love Boat here!

Miami Vice (Prime)

I reviewed this week’s episode of Miami Vice here.

Monsters (YouTube)

I wrote about Monsters here!

Welcome Back, Kotter (Tubi)

I wrote about Welcome Back, Kotter here!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.9 “13 O’Clock”

Posted on September 13, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, time stops.

Episode 2.9 “13 O’Clock”

(Dir by Rob Hedden, originally aired on January 2nd, 1989)

Wealthy but dorky Henry Wilkerson (Ron Hartmann) owns a watch that he inherited from his father. The watch can stop time at exactly one a.m., giving the owner the chance to do whatever he or she wants for an hour while the world is frozen. The only catch is that someone has to be murdered before the watch will do its thing. Henry, like his father before him, has killed a lot of people and stolen a lot of money while the world was frozen. But then Henry is murdered by his wife, Reatha (Gwynyth Walsh), who wants the watch for herself and her adulterous, criminal lover, Eric (David Proval, who later played Richie Aprile on The Sopranos).

When Jack reads a series of newspaper articles about a bunch of murders and thefts that all seem to take place near the subway station at one in the morning, he figures out that someone is using a cursed watch. (Actually, it’s kind of strange just how quickly Jack manages to figure that out. Jack, is there something you need to share with everyone?) Micki and Ryan investigate the area around the station and they meet two homeless teenagers, Skye and Johnny-O (played by Ingrid Veninger and Jason Hopley). Skye witnessed Reatha killing Henry and she is about to become Reatha’s next target.

This was one of the better episodes of Friday the 13th. The scenes where time froze were remarkably well-done, with the world not only stopping but also transforming into black-and-white. Only Reatha and anyone who is with her can move and they are also the only things not stripped of color in the frozen world. The sight of Reatha, Eric, and eventually Ryan walking through the frozen and eerily silent subway station is a surprisingly powerful one. This is an episode that really does seem to capture what it would be like to actually live in a world where magic collides with everyday, mundane reality. The special effects earned this show an Emmy nomination and it was certainly deserved. They’re still effective, even when viewed today by eyes that have been jaded by too much CGI.

Reatha, Eric, and Henry make for a memorable trio of villains and Gwynyth Walsh especially deserves some credit for fearlessly embracing the melodrama in her performance as Reatha. If you ever wondered what would happen if a femme fatale from a classic noir made a deal with Satan, Reatha is your answer. I will admit that I cringed a little when the homeless teens showed up but Ingrid Veninger and Jason Hopley were well-cast and they turned their stereotypical characters into sympathetic human beings.

I wish this episode had been a bit clearer on how the stopwatch works. At the end of the episode, Reatha and Eric appear to be permanently frozen in time but they’re frozen in a very public place and you really do have to wonder what’s going to happen when people notice two monochrome people standing frozen on the train tracks.

But that’s a minor quibble. Overall, this was a superior episode of Friday the 13th.

Happy Friday the 13th From The Shattered Lens

Posted on September 13, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Friday the 13th!

Today is the greatest Friday of the year because today is not only the 13th but it’s also only a month until October 13th! Some people consider Friday the 13th to be unlucky but those people have obviously never been the only “good girl” at a weekend party up at Camp Crystal Lake. Ask any of them and they can tell you just how lucky Friday the 13th can be.

To our readers who are currently struggling today, we make the following suggestion: Turn off twitter. Turn off MSNBC. Definitely turn off CNN. Block ABC from your memory. And why not just sit back and enjoy the antics of those fun-loving kids up at Camp Crystal Lake?

In fact, in case you need help picking which movie to watch, I hve reviewed every single Friday the 13th! here on the Shattered Lens! I personally recommend that you watch parts 1, 2, and 4 but it’s totally up to you! Here’s some links to my reviews:

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th Part 2

Friday the 13th Part 3

Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning

Friday the 13th: Jason Lives

Friday the 13th Part VII: A New Blood

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday

Jason X

Freddy vs Jason

Friday the 13th: The Pointless Remake