Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.2 “Portrait of the Artist”

Posted on April 3, 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, a visit to an art gallery goes terribly wrong.

Episode 2.2 “Portrait of the Artist”

(Dir by Gerald Cotts, originally aired on October 8th, 1989)

Lucille Clay (Lucille Kennedy) visits an isolated art gallery that appears to be sitting in the middle of nowhere. The studio is full of macabre paintings of women and children who appear to be in some sort of mortal danger. Watching over the gallery is Hubert (Darren McGavin), who claims to be just an old farmer who was hired to look after things while the actual artist is in Nepal.

Accompanying Lucille is Roger Darcy (Beeson Carroll), a man who walks with a pronounced limp. Lucille claims that Roger is an art critic but, as soon becomes apparent, that’s a lie. Roger is actually the father of a missing teenage girl and he is stunned when he sees that one of the paintings looks just like her. In fact, all of the paintings appear to be of someone who has recently disappeared. Convinced that the artist is a serial killer, Roger demands to be taken to the artist’s cabin. What Roger doesn’t know is that the gallery hides an even bigger threat.

This episode ends with a twist. It’s not a bad twist and it actually took me by surprise. Unfortunately, the rest of the episode is not as good as the twist ending. I had high hopes when I saw that this episode was going to take place in a gallery and that it was going to star Darren McGavin. But, and it pains me to say this, McGavin just isn’t very good in this episode. McGavin was an actor who always had a tendency to go a little bit over the top. That wasn’t a problem when he was playing Kolchak or the father in A Christmas Story. But, in this episode, he’s so blustery that it’s obvious that he’s hiding something from the start and it makes Roger and Lucille seem all the dumber for trusting him.

Indeed, the other big problem with this episode is that Roger and Lucille continually do the stupidest things possible. None of their actions make sense. Why, if they believed a serial killer was lurking around the gallery, would they split up? Why would they be so quick to trust Hubert? Why, after escaping, would one of them then return without any backup? Why does neither one of them seem to be particularly upset about the possibility that either Hubert or the artist murdered Roger’s daughter and then used her for his painting? They both behave so stupidly that it’s hard to really care what happens to them.

This story had some potential but, unfortunately, the execution just didn’t live up to it.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Monsters 1.14 “Parents From Space”

Posted on January 3, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week on Monsters, peace-loving aliens crash land on Earth and meet some really unlikable people. Hmmm …. didn’t we just do this last week?

Episode 1.14 “Parents From Space”

(Dir by Gerald Cotts, originally aired on February 11th, 1989)

Poor Cindy (Mary Griffin)!

Cindy is a sweet-natured and caring orphan who is treated like a slave by her cruel foster parents, Ward (Frank Gorshin) and June (Peggy Cass). Ward and June don’t care about Cindy. All they care about is the money that they make for taking care of her. When the social worker visits, they pretend to be a sweet, old couple. When the social worker leaves, they treat Cindy like a slave and refuses to even show a hint of compassion when Cindy’s beloved hamster is seriously injured.

Fortunately, there are two rat-like aliens in the basement. Their spaceship crashed and their bodies cannot handle Earth’s atmosphere. In order to find a way home, the rats temporarily switch minds with Ward and June. In the rat bodies, Ward and June enter into a catatonic state. In the human bodies, the two rats try to figure out how to survive and escape.

The two rats turn out to be a lot nicer than Ward and June and they even heal the hamster. Cindy loves her foster rat parents but she’s disappointed when the two rats say that they are going to have to switch bodies again. As they explain it, it is simply not ethical for them to leave Ward and June in the rat’s bodies, especially since the rat bodies can’t survive on Earth for too long. Cindy responds by disintegrating the rat’s bodies (and, of course, the minds of Ward and June). The rats remain in the human bodies. When a social worker shows up to check in on the living situation, she discovers a very happy family but also a very messy house. The rats may be in human bodies but they are still rats.

This is an incredibly simple story with a one-joke premise. It’s a fun episode but it also feels a bit rushed due to the 20-minute runtime. Ward and June are such terrible foster parents that there’s never really any doubt as to what Cindy is going to do. I think a lot of people who grew up with abusive parents (foster or not) will definitely find a lot of wish-fulfillment in this episode. Cindy has terrible parents but she gets to trade them in for a better set.

The best thing about this episode was definitely the rats themselves. For a low-budget show, Monsters usually had effective creature effects. Just check out these two:

Evil, they make look but they’re actually the nicest aliens this side of Glim-Glim.

This was a slight but likable episode. Cindy got a nice family and the hamster lived.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Monsters 1.3 “New York Honey”

Posted on October 18, 2023 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 show is streaming on Youtube.

This week’s episode is all about bee keeping and the wages of sin!

Episode 1.3 “New York Honey”

(Dir by Gerald Cotts, originally aired on November 5th, 1988)

Actually, this episode felt kind of pointless. I usually try to come up with at least 500 words whenever I write a review but it’s going to be a struggle tonight.

Jay Blake (Lewis J. Stadlen) and his wife, Emerald (Elaine Bromka) live in an apartment in New York. Their new upstairs neighbor is a mysterious man named Dr. Homer Jimmerman (MacIntyre Dixon). Hardly anyone around the building ever sees Dr. Jimmerman but they definitely hear him moving around and working in his apartment. When Jay and Emerald get annoyed by the loud music coming from Dr. Jimmerman’s apartment, Jay heads upstairs to complain.

When Dr. Jimmerman opens the door to his apartment, Jay barges in and discovers that Dr. Jimmerman is keeping bees in his apartment, a clear violation of his lease. However, Jay gets one taste of the honey that the bees produce and he decides that, rather than evict Dr. Jimmerman, he wants to go into business with him. Dr. Jimmerman says that he doesn’t have enough honey to start selling it but Jay blackmails him into accepting Jay’s offer.

Rich people in New York love the honey and Jay finds himself falling for Dr. Jimmerman’s femme fatale of a girlfriend, Desiree (Andrea Thompson). Jay even sends Emerald to Dr. Jimmerman’s apartment so that he can get some alone time with Desiree. Desiree declares that there can only be one queen and suddenly, all of the bees attack Emerald and kill her. Desiree then explains to Jay that Dr. Jimmerman’s time has come to an end and now, Jay’s going to be the worker bee who gets to look after her needs. That’s right …. DESIREE IS ACTUALLY SOME SORT OF BEE CREATURE! Out the apartment window goes Jay.

And that’s pretty much the entire episode!

Seriously, there’s not much to say about New York Honey. From the minute that Desiree arrives, it’s obvious that she has a secret and that it is linked to all of the bees that Dr. Jimmerman is keeping in his apartment. It doesn’t take a genius to guess that her secret is going to somehow involve her being the “queen bee.” It’s also pretty easy to guess that Jay is eventually going to go out that window because Jay is such a smarmy character that there’s no way he isn’t going to end up getting tossed out a window. Such are the wages of sin and all that. Andrea Thompson gives a good performance as Desiree the Bee Lady but otherwise, this episode was way too predictable.

How many words is that? 503? That’ll work!