Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.8 “Undercover”

Posted on June 24, 2025 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network! It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, Chris goes undercover.

Episode 2.8 “Undercover”

(Dir by Terrence H. Winkless, originally aired on October 13th, 1996)

A smarmy detective wants Chris to go undercover to help investigate a suspected money launderer, Tim Wakefield (Scott Plank). Palermo argues that Chris doesn’t have enough experience to work undercover but the detective asks Chris, “What do you want to do? You ready to get out of those bicycle shorts and do some real police work?”

I have to admit that line cracked me up. It really made the whole episode. Palermo got offended, as he always does whenever anyone points out that bike cops look silly with their shorts and their crisp white shirts. What was great about the line was that it was true. The detective may have been smarmy but he was right about Chris being invited to do “real police work” and he was right about bike cops not being real policemen. Everyone know it’s true! Seriously, if a bicycle cop ever tries to pull you over, just slam down on the accelerator. What are they going to do? Chase you when you’re going over 30 mph? I think not!

(Seriously, two seasons in and the show is still trying to convince us that bike cops are real cops. Sorry, Palermo, it’s not going to happen!)

That said, this episode’s main plot still ended up falling flat because Chris is not a very interesting character and her whole undercover thing wasn’t particularly credible. When she went undercover, she still came across as being just as stiff, humorless, and unlikable as when she’s riding her bike and threatening people with arrest. Tim Wakefield, of course, fell for her and Chris was supposed to be attracted to him and conflicted about her assignment and I never bought it for a second.

(As for Wakefield, he turned out to be not as bad of a guy as everyone assumed. He was arrested but his lawyer got him off and the episode ended with him sending Chris a postcard from some tropical beach. I think Chris was supposed to be wistful as she looked at the postcard but, since Darlene Vogel was apparently only capable of one facial expression, who knows for sure?)

Meanwhile, Cory dealt with being stalked by a mentally unstable ex-boyfriend, Wasn’t it just last week that Cory’s partner was being stalked by a mentally unstable woman? This show certainly does enjoy repeating itself. While Palermo worried about Chris, TC and Victor chased some roller-blading teens who were shooting random tourists with paintballs. The roller-blading scenes were kind of exciting but, unfortunately, they had to share space with all of the awkward bicycle scenes.

This episode had its moments. The roller-blading was cool. The detective making fun of Palermo was gratifying. Overall, though, the fact that the show centers around bicycles continues to be a flaw that simply cannot be overcome. There’s simply no way to make anyone riding a bicycle look impressive, I don’t care how serious they try to look.

Sorry, Pacific Blue.

The TSL Grindhouse: Nomads (dir by John McTiernan)

Posted on April 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1986’s Nomads opens with anthropologist Jean-Charles Pommier being rushed into an emergency room, badly beaten and struggling for his life. Despite the best efforts of Dr. Eileen Flax (Lesley-Anne Down), Pommier dies in the ER. Flax is shocked by Pommier’s death and, naturally, she’s upset that she couldn’t save him. But, at the same time, people die in hospitals. It happens to the best of doctors.

Except soon, Flax is seeing flashes of the events that led to Pommier’s death. Pommier has somehow entered her mind and soon, she’s reliving his investigation into the origins of a group of destructive, urban nomads that Pommier witnessed causing havoc throughout Los Angeles. Pommier often felt like he was the only person who was capable of seeing the nomads and he grew to be tortured by his fear that they were specifically stalking him. We soon learn that there was reason for that….

Now, based on his name, you’re probably assuming that Pommier is meant to be French. And he is! He’s from France, though he considers himself to be a citizen of the world. He’s traveled everywhere, taking pictures of different cultural rituals across the globe. However, in Nomads, the very French Jean-Charles Pommier is played by Pierce Brosnan. Pierce Brosnan is, needless to say, not French. He’s Irish, even though a lot of people seem to be shocked when they first learn that. Brosnan normally speaks with an accent that could best be described as a mix of posh London and mid-Atlantic American. Everything about him screams the UK. In short, Pierce Brosnan is one of the least convincing French people ever seen on film and he delivers his lines in an accent that sounds like every accent other than the French accent. Watching this film, I found myself thinking about the Monty Python skit where Terry Jones and Carol Cleveland starred in a French movie. (“I see you have a cabbage.” “Oui.”) Brosnan is not a bad actor and it’s entertaining to watch him overact in Nomads. But there’s nothing French about him and every time that someone referred to him as being French, it totally took me out of the movie.

Which is a shame because Nomads may be narratively incoherent but it’s got some memorably surreal visuals and it does a good job of generating a properly ominous atmosphere. Director John McTiernan (who later went on to do Predator, Die Hard, and The Hunt For Red October) makes smart use of slow motion and a handheld camera to keep the audience off-balance. At its best, Nomads achieves a dream-like intensity that makes up for the fact that the story doesn’t make the least bit of sense. The nomads themselves are a memorable and creepy. While Adam Ant plays their leader (and the scene where he smiles as Brosnan attempts to throw him off a building is truly disturbing), the most frightening of the nomads is Mary Woronov as Dancing Mary. Seriously, after I watched this film, I checked all the locks in the house. No urban nomads were going to interrupt me in my sleep!

My suggestion to everyone is to do a Nomads/Nomadland double feature. You’ll never get in another van.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.21 “Free Verse”

Posted on September 9, 2024 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, the Vice Squad gets a big assignment.

Episode 2.21 “Free Verse”

(Dir by John Nicollela, originally aired on April 4th, 1986)

The wheelchair-bound poet, Hector Sandoval (played by Byrne Piven), is coming to Miami so that he can testify before a Congressional committee about the human rights abuses that are occurring in his home country, abuses that Hector claims have been partially funded by American interests. Hector is a world-famous poet but his history as an outspoken political dissident has made him politically important as well. He’s been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Meanwhile, the right-wing death squads from his own country want him dead. Because Sandoval is equally critical of his country’s rebels, the left wants him dead as well. They feel he has more value as a martyr than as a living dissident.

With so many people trying to kill this important, world-famous person, his safety in America is the government’s top-most concern. So, naturally, the task of protecting Sandoval is assigned not to the FBI, the CIA, or the Secret Service. Instead, it’s given to the Miami Vice Squad. You read that correctly. A bunch of undercover cops are assigned to protect one of the most important men in the world. They meet him when he lands in the airport and their pictures are immediately taken by the horde of reporters waiting for Sandoval’s arrival. I guess everyone’s cover is blown now.

This is not a particularly interesting episode. Obviously, the show was looking to make a point about not only the political situation in Central America but also the role of the U.S. government in propping up various dictators and turning a blind eye to human rights abuses. That’s fine. Indeed, watching an episode like this today serves as a good reminder that Chavez and Maduro were hardly the first dictators to take power in South and Central America. But this episode gets so caught up in making its political points that it forgets to be interesting.

A huge part of the problem is that the members of the Vice Squad spend a lot of this episode in the background. The emphasis is on Hector Sandoval and his daughter, Bianca (Yamil Borges). Unfortunately, Byrne Piven goes so over-the-top as Sandoval that it’s impossible to take the character seriously. It’s a genuinely bad performance and it makes the episode a bit of a chore to sit through. (Admittedly, it is entertaining watching Edward James Olmos refuse to show a hint of emotion while Sandoval devours all of the scenery in their scenes together.)

For celebrity watchers, Bianca Jagger shows up as an assassin but she doesn’t really get to do much. Luis Guzman and future director Michael Bay play the imaginatively named “Goon #1” and “Goon #3.” Otherwise — and especially when compared to the episodes that came before it — this is a surprisingly forgettable episode of Miami Vice.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.3 “Whatever Works”

Posted on February 19, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we learn how Sonny affords all of those wonderful toys.

Episode 2.3 “Whatever Works”

(Dir by John Nicolella, originally aired on October 4th, 1985)

Have you ever wondered how Sonny Crockett afford that nice Ferrari on just a cop’s salary? To be honest, it hadn’t really occurred to me. I just assumed that everyone in the 80s owned a Ferrari. I’ve been more concerned with how Sonny manages to maintain his undercover identity despite the fact that he spends almost all of his time hanging out with his fellow cops. I mean, surely, someone in the Miami underworld has noticed that “Sonny Burnett” sure does seem to have a lot of friends who worked Vice.

Regardless, in this episode, we learn that Sonny doesn’t actually own the Ferrari. Instead, it’s a vehicle that the department loans to Sonny so that he can maintain his cover. Apparently, the Ferrari once belonged to an actual drug dealer. Unfortunately, the Miami Police Department desperately needs to make some money at their next police auction so Maxwell Dierks (Robert Trebor), a weaselly bureaucrat, decides to repossess Sonny’s Ferrari and auction it off.

Sonny spends most of this episode obsessing on his car. While the rest of the Vice Squad laughs at Sonny’s misfortune, local informant Izzy Moreno tries to trick Dierks into giving him the car so that he can return it to Sonny. I hope Sonny appreciates who his true friends are. Anyway, Castillo eventually pulls some strings to save Sonny’s car. Maybe Sonny should have gone to him in the first place but, then again, Castillo is kind of intimidating. He literally never smiles.

While Sonny is obsessing on his car, someone is killing cops and leaving behind Santeria charms. Despite having grown up in Florida and being a veteran vice detective, it appears that Sonny has never before heard of Santeria. However, Castillo and Tubbs know all about it. Castillo is even friends with a Santeria priestess (Eartha Kitt) who explains that the killers did not view the cops as being policemen but instead as being fellow criminals.

It turns out that there’s a group of cops who have been shaking down drug dealers and now, they’re being killed one-by-one. For all the talk of Santeria, the solution to the problem is actually pretty straight forward. The Vice squad tracks down the people doing the killing and, after a shoot-out, the bad guys surrender. And that’s the end of that.

Oh, this episode. It had potential but it just fell flat. The Santeria stuff felt tacked on and it was pretty obvious that the episode’s writers were more interested in Sonny trying to get his car back than in the episode’s main storyline. Even the Eartha Kitt cameo felt a bit perfunctory.

On the plus side, this episode did feature a band singing Bang A Gong in the middle of a bar fight. That was pretty cool. The band was called Power Station and apparently, it was an off-shoot of Duran Duran. What’s interesting is that the members of the band are portrayed as being old friends of Sonny, to the extent that they applaud him as he beats up a bad cop. It brings a real “The name is Dalton” energy to the scene.

This week’s episode was a bit disappointing but next week’s episode is apparently a classic. I look forward to watching and reviewing Out Where The Buses Don’t Run.