Guy Magar | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, there’s somebody else shooting criminals in L.A.

Episode 1.8 “Dead or Alive”

(Dir by Guy Magar, originally aired on November 30th, 1984)

Jimmy Joe Walker (Wings Hauser) is a cowboy bounty hunter who wears black and carries a wide array of weapons. He hunts for criminals who are wanted “dead or alive.” He specializes in brining them in dead because …. well, he just like shooting people. Hunter and McCall try to capture the escaped bank robber Panhandle Pete (Jimmie F. Skaggs) before Jimmy Joe puts a bullet in him.

This was a pretty average episode of Hunter, one that was mostly distinguished by the cheerfully unhinged presence of Wings Hauser. With his Southern accent and his country clothes, Hauser largely gives the same performance here that he gave in Vice Squad. The only difference is that he’s playing a bounty hunter and not a pimp here. He still finds time to beat up McCall. I can’t help but notice that McCall is constantly getting either shot or punched on this show. I think the idea is to show that McCall is just as tough as Hunter and I do like the fact that, no matter how serve the injuries, McCall never stops fighting back. That said, it would be nice to see someone else get a black eye for once.

(This is also yet another episode that finds McCall working undercover as a prostitute. She spends the first half of the episode wearing a blue top with feathers attached to the sleeves. I kept expecting someone to mention the feathers but not even Wings Hauser said a word about them. You would expect Wings to be all over that.)

The plot of this one felt a bit silly. A bank robber named Panhandle Pete? Really? I get the feeling that this episode was done in order to protect the show from charges that it glorified the idea of gunning down criminals. We’re supposed to look at Hunter and Jimmy Joe and say, “Hunter shoots a lot of people but at least he doesn’t laugh about it.” This was Hunter’s version of Magnum Force.

Again, this was an average episode but it’s worth watching just for Wings Hauser.

As if Stepfather II was not bad enough on its own, 1992 saw the release of Stepfather III.

Once again, Jerry Blake/Gene Clifford manages to survive being mortally wounded at the end of the previous film. After he recovers, he is sent to the exact same institution that he previously escaped from. Guess what happens? He escapes again! Now using the name Keith, he marries Christine Davis (Priscilla Barnes) and become stepfather to her son, Andy (David Tom). Andy is in a wheelchair. Keith is convinced that Andy is faking his condition and keeps calling him “slugger.” When Andy doesn’t respond, Keith prepares to move on to another single mother (Season Hubley). But, before he can move on, Keith needs to take care of his current family. Good thing that he has a woodchipper.

Terry O’Quinn did not return for Stepfather III. The Stepfather is played by Robert Wightman, who looked and sounded nothing like Terry O’Quinn. The film tries to explain it away by saying that the Stepfather got plastic surgery after he escaped from the institution but, unless the plastic surgeon was God, there’s no way that Jerry/Gene could ever have become Keith.

Stepfather III goes through the motions and even repeats the first film’s “buckle up for safety” gag. By repeating all of the key scenes from the first (and even the second) movie, the third movie only succeeds in reminding us that The Stepfather doesn’t work without Terry O’Quinn’s performance and Joseph Ruben’s intelligent direction. Keith becomes a standard movie slasher with a wood chipper. He does inspire Andy to get out of his wheelchair, in a scene that will inspire more laughter than cheers.

One positive note: Season Hubley is in this movie! Much as with Jill Schoelen in the first movie and Meg Foster in Stepfather II, this franchise had a way of attracting actresses who deserved better.