Hal Eisen | 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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and Peacock!

It’s Christmas in Canada!

Episode 3.14 “Marlene For Hire”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on December 12th, 1987)

A married couple who shops at C0bb’s — Cindy (Lynne Cormack) and Ron (Hal Eisen) — ask Marlene is she’ll be a surrogate mother for them. Once Marlene figures out that they’re not asking her to become a swinger, she agrees. But then, during a doctor’s visit, Marlene is told that she’s “not a good candidate” to be a surrogate mother. It’s a bit of an odd storyline because the biggest part of the story — the visit with the doctor — occurs totally off-screen. We only hear about it when Marlene talks to Edna about it.

Still, Marlene does confess that she is somewhat relieved because she doesn’t think she would have been able to actually give the baby up. Edna, who has been in a loveless relationship with Howard for what seems like a decade, starts to cry. Awwww! It’s a sad scene, really. It’s also the type of scene that would not have worked during the first or second seasons of the show, when all of the characters were a bit too cartoonish to really touch the viewer’s heart. The third season has been a marked improvement. Kathleen Laskey and Dinah Christie both gave good performances in their scene together, making it far more poignant than I would ever expect an episode of Check It Out! to be.

As for the other storyline, there’s a contest to see which store can build the best Holiday display. (It’s a Christmas episode.) Howard goes with a manger scene, which would probably get the store sued nowadays. Leslie wants to make a manger out of bread but Howard says that’s a foolish idea. In the end, the judge says that he loves Howard’s display but the winner is another Cobb’s that made their manger out of …. wait for it! …. bread!

As I said, it’s a bit of an odd episode but it actually worked because of the — and I can’t believe I’m saying this — strength of the ensemble. After two seasons of everyone acting as if they were all appearing in different shows, the third season has found the cast really clicking. Kathleen Laskey and Dinah Christie handled the em0tional part of the show while Jeff Pustil, Aaron Schwartz, and Don Adams handled the comedy as they bickered over the best way to build a manger.

In other words, this was a good epioode. It’s a Christmas miracle!

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, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week’s episode of Friday the 13th: The Series is actually really good!

Episode 1.7 “Doctor Jack”

(Dir by Richard Friedman, originally aired on November 9th, 1987)

Dr. Vincent Howlett (Cliff Gorman) has a reputation for being a miracle worker. He’s the surgeon who is called in to do the difficult operations that no other surgeon would have the courage to try. Somehow, despite all of the complex surgeries that he has been involved in, he has never lost a patient. The local Toronto hospital is very happy to have Dr. Howlett on staff.

However, Dr. Howlett’s success rate is not just a case of medical skill. He owns a special, lucky scalpel. He purchased it from a knife dealer who earlier purchased it from — you guessed it! — the cursed antique shop. The scalpel is from the Victorian era and it once belonged to none other than Jack the Ripper! The scalpel can make any surgery a success but it demands blood as payment. So, before every surgery, Dr. Howlett has to go out and find someone to murder.

Searching the scalpel as a part of their mission to track down all of the cursed antiques, it doesn’t take long for Ryan, Micki, and Jack to track the scalpel down to Dr. Howlett. However, when Ryan tries to steal the scalpel, a chase through the hospital ensues. When Jack distracts Howlett long enough for Ryan and Micki get away, Jack ends up getting thrown down an elevator shaft.

Jack survives his fall but he’s suffered some terrible internal injuries. In fact, he’s going to need surgery! Fortunately, the best surgeon in Canada is on staff at the hospital. As much as Ryan and Micki want to steal that scalpel, they know that Howlett is going to need it if he’s going to save Jack’s life.

Meanwhile, Jean Flappen (Eva Mai Hoover) is stalking the hallways of the hospital, carrying a gun and hoping to get revenge on Dr. Howlett for the murder of her daughter….

Yikes! Hospital’s are creepy in general but they’re even more creepy when the head surgeon is carrying around a scalpel that once belonged to Jack the Ripper. (Of course, in reality, it’s doubtful that Jack the Ripper was actually a doctor. In all probability, he was a butcher in all definitions of the word.) This episode makes great use of the hospital setting, creating an atmosphere of perpetual unease. It was a genuinely scary location and, for once, the fact that Friday the 13th didn’t have a huge budget worked to show’s advantage. The shots of the empty and shadowy hospital hallways, without even an extra or two populating them, were truly ominous.

Cliff Gorman also gave a wonderful performance as Dr. Howlett, playing him as the type of arrogant jerk who knows that he can get away with being unlikable because he’s the best at his profession. The scene where Howlett can’t find his scalpel and has a sudden meltdown really drives home the idea that the owners of the cursed antiques have become addicted to using them. As soon as Howlett can’t hold his scalpel in his hands, his smooth façade crumbles and he starts going through what can only be called withdrawal.

With its creepy atmosphere and Gorman’s sinister performance, Dr. Jack is the best episode of Friday the 13th that I’ve reviewed so far.