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, it’s terror on the radio!
Episode 3.19 “A Face For Radio”
(Dir by Bruce Feirstein, originally aired on February 3rd, 1991)
Late night radio talk show host Ray Bright (Morton Downey, Jr.) is sleazy guy who describes his own show as being “hate radio.” Over the course of one program, he tries to humiliate two female guests. The first is a psychic (Julie Wilson) who says that she’s had visions of Ray trapped in a dark room. The second is Amada Smith-Jones (Laura Branigan), who claims that she was once abducted by aliens. She carries with her a cage that she says contains the alien. Ray takes one look at the ugly and snarling little creature inside the cage and dismisses it as a puppet. Amanda says that the alien is real and that it eats “bad” people, but only if they give their permission first. Will Ray be stupid enough to give his permission?
You probably already guessed the answer to that question. Though predictable in the way that anthology shows often are, this was still an effective episode. Downey, who I understand was an actual talk show host, was very believable as the incredibly sleazy (and incredibly stupid) Ray and Laura Branigan was just as effective as the enigmatic Amanda. As for the alien in the cage, it was actually one of the more effective monsters to appear on Monsters. I had to laugh when Ray dismissed at as being a puppet because, after so many episodes featuring creatures that obviously were puppets, this episode featured a creature that looked very much alive.
The episode ended on a bit of a foul note, largely due to the fact that a new character showed up and started speaking with one of the fakest Texas accents that I’ve ever heard. Otherwise, though, this was a well-done 21 minutes.
Through the Shattered Lens 