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

This week, Micki’s in even more danger than usual as a desperate doctor uses a magic syringe to try to find a cure for his daughter.  This is also our final episode of Friday the 13th for October.  Can you believe Halloween is right around the corner?

Episode 2.15 “Better Off Dead”

(Dir by Armand Mastroianni, originally aired on February 13th, 1989)

John Cusack plays Lane Meyer, an artistic high school student who is stunned with he is dumped by….

Oh wait, sorry.  Wrong Better Off Dead.

This Better Off Dead tells the story of Dr. Warren Voss (Neil Munro), who lives in an isolated mansion with his pre-adolescent daughter, Amanda (Tara Meyer).  Amanda has a disease that makes her violent and dangerous.  She attacks almost anyone who comes near her, including her own father.  Dr. Voss believes that he has finally found a cure for her condition and, if he’s right, he’s convinced that he can cure all violent behavior.

Unfortunately, the cure is a bit extreme.  Dr. Voss starts out by bringing prostitutes to his mansion and then using a silver syringe to extract their brain fluid, which he then injects into his daughter.  This temporarily calms down his daughter but it turns Voss’s unwilling donors into violent maniacs.  Voss claims that he’s doing all of this for the greater good and he’s only using donors who would be better off dead.  But, as the episode unfolds, it becomes clear that Voss’s good intentions can’t hide his own sadistic streak.

The syringe once belonged to Jack the Ripper and, as you definitely already guessed, it’s a cursed object.  After a friend of Micki’s becomes one of Voss’s victims, Micki is herself kidnapped and becomes Voss’s latest donor.  When Jack and Ryan show up to save the day, they not only have to battle Voss.  They also find themselves attacked by Micki.  And Micki, due to the experiments and perhaps also due to the resentment that anyone would feel over having to put their lives on hold to search for cursed antiques, proves to be a fierce opponent.

Fear not, of course.  Things are resolved.  Micki is saved and, at the end of the episode, she is slowly recovering from her trauma.  Voss is attacked and killed by his own daughter.  Ryan wonders about whether or not Voss could have eliminated violent behavior if he had been allowed to continue his experiments.  Jack says that it’s not worth wondering about.  I agree.  Leave Micki alone!  Better the whole world suffer than one redhead be inconvenienced, say this proud redhead.

Director by Armand Mastroianni, this was a really good episode.  Both Neil Munro and Tara Meyer gave good performances as the doctor and his daughter and Robey, who has often felt underused on this show so far, got a chance to show off her own dramatic abilities.  As for the question at the heart of the episode, I agree with Jack.  The cost outweighs the benefits.  Friday the 13th deserves a lot credit, though, for seriously considering the issue.  This was an episode that was both creepy and intelligent.