Tag Archives: Geno Silva

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.12 “The Cows of October”

Posted on 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week …. I don’t even know how to describe it.

Episode 4.12 “The Cows Of October”

(Dir by Vince Gillum, originally aired on February 5th, 1988)

A cannister of bull seamen has been stolen from a Miami lab and the feds (represented by Harry Shearer) want it back before it falls into the hands of the Cubans.  Switek assists.  Izzy shows up to broker the deal.  Gerrit Graham plays a shady person who we are told is from Texas.  (His accent is more Arizona.)  Philip Michael Thomas wears a cowboy hat.  Don Johnson is largely absent until the final scene.  One gets the feeling that Johnson hated every minute of this episode while Thomas just seemed to be having fun.

This episode was, without a doubt, the stupidest episode of Miami Vice ever filmed.  And listen, I will admit that I haven’t seen every episode.  I’ve still got a season and a half to go.  There seems to be a general online consensus that the final two seasons of Miami Vice were not good at all.  I’m sure I have many dumb episodes ahead of me.  But I cannot — as much as I try — imagine any episode that could be as a dumb as the Vice Squad abandoning the war on drugs so that they could keep the Cubans from getting their hands on a cannister of bull semen.

Miami Vice has always been as its best when its been surrealistic, cynical, and gritty.  I would argue that Miami Vice really does not need to do comedic episodes.  For the first three seasons, nearly every episode ended with an innocent person either dead or forever embittered.  At its best, Miami Vice was not a happy show.  It was a show where Crockett and Tubbs drove around in the dark, loaded their guns, and Phil Collins sang in the background.  When Collins sang, “I can feel it coming in the air tonight,” he was not talking about bull semen.  At least, I hope he wasn’t.  (Oh, Lord….)

I really don’t know what to make of season 4.  Trudy’s going to space.  Crockett’s married.  The Vice Squad is searching for bull semen.  Yet somehow, through it all, Castillo continues to just stare at the floor and speak through gritted teeth.  Like seriously, shouldn’t Castillo be concerned about all this weird stuff going on?

I didn’t care much for this episode.  Searching for bull semen is a Pacific Blue thing.  Miami Vice needs to handle real cases and leave all that other stuff for the bike cops.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.4 “Cellmates”

Posted on 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

It’s Rex Manning Day on Monsters!

Episode 3.4 “Cellmates”

(Dir by Stephen Tolkin, originally aired on October 21st, 1990)

Timothy Danforth (Maxwell Caulfield) is a rich American kid who has gotten in trouble while visiting Mexico.  He was arrested after hitting a kid with his car and then punching out the kid’s father, who just happened to be a cop.  After Danforth was arrested, the cops looked inside his car and found a lot of drugs.  Convinced (perhaps correctly) that Danforth is a drug dealer and a smuggler, the cops promptly toss him into a filthy jail cell.

The cocky Danforth is convinced that his father will soon free him from the prison.  However, in the next cell, an old man (Ferdy Mayne) says that Danforth has been tossed into a special cell.  It’s a cell that is reserved for the worst of the worst.  The Old Man says that no one ever leaves the cell.  At first, Danforth laughs off the old man’s claims but, at night, the Old Man dissolves into a puddle of liquid that enters Danforth’s cells and attempts to attack him.  Danforth survives but when he tells his lawyer and his jailers about what happened, the authorities respond by chaining Danforth to a wall, leaving Danforth at the mercy of the Old Man.

It’s a pretty good thing that Danforth is such an unlikable and downright loathsome character because, otherwise, this would be a really disturbing episode.  Instead, Danforth is a stereotypical rich kid who thinks that he can get away with anything and that the rules don’t apply to him.  He shows no remorse about having hit a kid with his car.  He’s cocky and arrogant from the minute we see him.  He’s exactly the kind of guy who gives Americans abroad a bad name.  In the end, it’s hard not to feel that he really doesn’t have anyone but himself to blame for his predicament.  He’s a victim of his own very bad choices and he’s so confident that he’s untouchable that his final fate feels like karma.

This is a pretty simple episode.  A bad guy falls victims to his own stupidity.  There’s nothing likable about Timothy Danforth, though Maxwell Caulfield certainly does a good job in the role.  Caulfield plays Danforth as being an incredibly spoiled brat, someone who has never been held responsible for his actions and who can’t believe that he’s actually in real trouble.  Surprisingly, Caulfield almost gets you to feel sorry for Danforth at the end of the episode.  Danforth really had no idea what he was getting himself involved with.  That said, in the end, bad decisions are bad decisions and Danforth has no one to blame but himself.

This was an effective episode, with a lot of atmosphere and a good performance from Maxwell Caulfield.  So far, Season 3 of Monsters is off to a good start.

 

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.13 “King Arthur in Mr. Roarke’s Court/Shadow Games”

Posted on 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 1984.  Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites.  Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

This week, King Arthur comes to Fantasy Island!

Episode 5.13 “King Arthur in Mr. Roarke’s Court/Shadow Games”

(Dir by Philip Leacock, originally aired on January 23rd, 1982)

Yay!  Tattoo is present in this episode!

Listen, there’s nothing wrong with Wendy Schaal and it’s not her fault that the character of Julie was seriously underdeveloped by the show’s writers.  But I have to admit that I always cheer a little whenever an episode opens with Julie being sent to take care of something elsewhere on the Island.  In this case, Julie is sent to find a home for five adorable kittens while Tattoo and Mr. Roarke deal with this episode’s guests.

Sara Jean Rawlins (Linda Blair) is a country music singer who comes to Fantasy Island with her manager, Sam (the always sinister Peter Mark Richman).  Sara Jean wants to record her song Shadow Games and she wants her former collaborator and boyfriend, Billy, to play guitar on the track.  The only problem is that Billy is believed to have died in a fiery car crash.  Mr. Roarke says that Sara Jean’s fantasy can come true but only if she has total and complete faith.  Plus, she needs to let guitarist Todd Porter (Don Most) play with her.  “It is very important to the success of your fantasy,” Roarke tells her.  Hmmm….I wonder why.

Hey, do you think that maybe Billy isn’t dead and instead, he’s disguised himself as Todd Porter?  That would certainly explain why Todd’s guitar playing sounds just like Billy’s.  And do you think it’s possible that Sam, who is played by an actor who was always cast as a villain no matter what, might turn out to be the story’s true villain?

This fantasy was predictable and Linda Blair overacted the whole “country” aspect of her character but I did like the Shadow Games song.  And Mr. Roarke played the piano at one point!  It’s always fun when Mr. Roarke shows off a new skill.  (Apparently, Montalban himself was a very talented pianist.)

As for the other fantasy, Ralph Rodgers (Tom Smothers) wants to go to the past so he can meet King Arthur.  He specifically says his fantasy is to “meet King Arthur.”  Ralph is briefly sent back to Camelot but, just as abruptly, he returns to the present and he brings Arthur (played by Robert Mandan) with him!  Roarke admits that something must have gone wrong with the time traveling spell but he also points out that Ralph wanted to “meet King Arthur” and now he’s met him.

Now, what do you picture when you think of King Arthur?  Young?  Handsome?  Battle-weary?  Romantic?  British?

Here’s what Fantasy Island gives us.

Now, if you’ve ever seen any old sitcoms from the 70s and the 80s, you’ll probably recognize Robert Mandan.  He was one of those actors who always seemed to play stuffy authority figures.  He was always the overprotective father or the greedy businessman or the principal who wasn’t going to stand for any foolishness in his school.  Robert Mandan was not a bad actor but he was also definitely not British.  But you know what?  Robert Mandan is so miscast as King Arthur that it actually becomes kind of charming.

King Arthur and Ralph wander around the Island while Roarke works on finding a way to send Arthur back to Camelot.  Arthur gets harassed by a group of roughnecks who don’t seem like they really belong on the Island.  (Maybe they work at that fishing village that showed up in one episode and was then never mentioned again.)  Arthur also reveals that his wife, Gwynevere, had vanished.  Ralph eventually goes off on his own and runs into a British woman who says her name is Gwen (Carol Lynley).  She explains she came to the Island because her politician husband was too consumed with work.  Hmmmmm….

The important thing is that

  1. Arthur and Gwen are reunited
  2. Arthur knights Ralph before he and Gwen return to Camelot and,
  3. There’s a masquerade ball and Tattoo dressed up like a knight!

This was a silly but cute episode.  Between Robert Mandan as King Arthur and Linda Blair singing country music, this episode was so weird that it was impossible not to enjoy it.  I just hope Julie found a home for all those kittens.

Favorite Son (1988, directed by Jeff Bleckner)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

During a reception on the steps of U.S. Capitol, an assassin kills Contra leader Col. Martinez (Geno Silva) and seriously wounds Sen. Terry Fallon (Harry Hamlin), an up-and-coming politician from Texas.  An eager media catapults Fallon to national stardom and the beleagued President (James Whitmore), who is facing a tough reelection bid, is pressured to replace the current vice president (Mitchell Ryan) with Fallon.

The FBI only assigns two of their agents to investigate the assassination, a sure sign that someone wants the investigation to just go away.  Nick Mancuso (Robert Loggia) is a crusty, hard-drinking veteran agent whose career is nearly at an end.  David Ross (Lance Guest) is his young and idealistic partner.  When Mancuso and Ross discover that Martinez was injected with the HIV virus just two days before the assassination, it becomes obvious that there is a bigger conspiracy afoot.  It all links back to Sally Crain (Linda Kozlowski), who is Fallon’s legislative aide and also his lover.  (Fallon has a wife but she’s locked away in a hospital.)  Sally has an interest in bondage, as Ross soon finds out.

Favorite Son was originally aired as a 3-night, 4 and a half-hour miniseries.  It was later reedited and, with a running time of less than two hours, released theatrically overseas as Target: Favorite Son.  As a miniseries, Favorite Son is an exciting conspiracy-themed film that is full of scheming, plotting, interesting performances, and pungent dialogue.  Target: Favorite Son, on the other hand, is disjointed and, unless you know the original’s plot, almost impossible to follow.  If you’re going to watch Favorite Son, make sure you see the original miniseries.  My mom taped it off of NBC when it originally aired.  That was the only way that I was able to originally see the film the way that it meant to be seen.  The entire miniseries has also been uploaded, in three parts, to YouTube.

Hopefully, the original miniseries will get an official release someday because it’s pretty damn entertaining.  Harry Hamlin isn’t really dynamic enough for the role of Fallon but otherwise, the movie is perfectly cast.  Robert Loggia is so perfect for the role of Nick Mancuso that it almost seems as if the character was written for him.  (Loggia did later star in a one-season drama called Mancuso, FBI.)  Linda Kozlowski seems to be destined to be forever known as Crocodile Dundee’s wife but her performance as Sally shows that she was a better actress than she was given credit for.  The supporting cast also features good performances from Jason Alexander, Ronny Cox, Tony Goldwyn, John Mahoney, Kenneth McMillian, Richard Bradford, and Jon Cypher.

Favorite Son may be over 30 years old but it’s still relevant today.  In the third part, John Mahoney gives a speech about how American voters are often willfully ignorant when it comes to what’s going on behind the scenes in Washington and it’s a killer moment.  Melodramatic as Favorite Son may be, with its portrayal of political chicanery and an exploitative national media, it’s still got something to say that’s worth hearing.