Tag Archives: J. Winston Carroll

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.2 “Hargrove’s Call”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to 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 T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990.  The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, T.S. investigates a shooting involving a retired police officer.  I wonder what Amy would think of all this.

Episode 3.2 “Hargrove’s Call”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on January 13th, 1990)

Bitter, retired cop E.V. Richter (J. Winston Carroll) lives alone, in a house that sits in a neighborhood that has seen better days.  He spends his days drinking and his nights fighting with the teenagers who live in the neighborhood.  One night, the teens are setting off firecrackers in an alley behind Richter’s house.  When Richter yells at them, one of the teens starts to approach his house with a firecracker.  Richter shoots him and then tries to plant a gun on the body.  However, by the time the police arrive, the gun has disappeared.

The wounded teen’s mother recruits Terri and Turner to prove that her son wasn’t carrying a gun when he was shot.  While Turner investigates and tries to discover what happened to the gun, Detective Dick Hargrove (David Hemblen) most deal with his own suspicion that his former colleague is not being honest about what happened.

This was an interesting episode, in that Richter was definitely the bad guy but he also had a legitimate reason to be upset.  Setting off firecrackers behind someone’s house is pretty obnoxious and responding to homeowner’s complaint by trying to toss a firecracker at him is …. well, actually, it’s kind of illegal.  At least, it is down here.  Maybe it’s different up in Canada.  Maybe in Canada, they settle disagreements with firecrackers all the time, I don’t know.  That said, when Richter tries to plant the gun, he reveals that he’s gone over the edge and it becomes apparent that if he hadn’t shot the kid over the firecrackers, he would have shot him over something else.  T and T will never be known as a nuanced or particularly thoughtful show but at least this episode tried to do something more than just follow the standard “Mr. T growls and beats people up” plot.

That said, I still find it weird and distracting that everyone on the show acts as if Terri has always lived in the neighborhood and has always been some sort of crusader.  Two episodes into season three and there’s still been no mention of what happened to Amy or why Terri is now suddenly the one in charge. Are we meant to assume that Terri was always around but not just seen during the first two seasons?  Or did something happen to Amy that required Terri to move to Toronto or wherever this show is supposed to take place?  The lack of even the most rudimentary of explanations feels weird and distracting.  Obviously, T and T was never a stickler for continuity but having a major character just vanish without explanation is a big deal.  Shouldn’t Turner be out looking for Amy or something?

Maybe that’ll happen next week.  We’ll see!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Friday the 13th 1.17 “The Electrocutioner”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!

There’s nothing scarier than going to the dentist!  Especially when he has a cursed electric chair!

(As a sidenote, I was planning on reviewing this last week but I was not feeling well so I held off until this week.  I apologize for the delay in the writing and posting this review!  These things do happen and I’ve recently been told that I need to start getting more rest and looking after my health so it may happen more than once.)

Episode 1.17 “The Electrocutioner”

(Dir by Rob Hedden, originally aired on April 18th, 1988)

In 1978, Eli Pittman (Angelo Rizacos) was sitting on death row, an innocent man who had been wrongly convicted of murder.  Sentenced to die in the electric chair, Eli’s cries of innocence fell on deaf ears.  The warden of the prison didn’t care.  The judge didn’t care.  The prosecuting attorney didn’t care.  Miraculously, Eli survived the first attempt to electrocute him.  And, fortunately, his death sentence was overturned before he could be shocked a second time.

Ten years later, Eli is working as a dentist at a school for runaways.  Though he presents himself as being a charitable doctor who just wants to help the less fortunate, Eli is actually a deeply bitter man.  He wants revenge on everyone who sent him to prison.  Eli has purchased the electric chair in which he was meant to die.  He’s disguised it as a dentist chair.  When his teenage patients sit in the chair, they are reduced to ash.  Eli is then able to generate electricity through his body.  He uses this power to get his revenge.

Can Ryan, Micki, and Jack stop him?

After a really good opening scene (which is filmed in black-and-white and makes use of a handheld camera to generate a genuinely nightmarish atmosphere), this becomes one of the sillier episodes that I’ve watched so far.  Angelo Rizacos is good in the flashback scenes and he makes you feel a good deal of sympathy for Eli.  But, in the modern day scenes, he overacts to an extent that Eli goes from being a victimized man driven by revenge to a rather broadly-drawn supervillain.  He’s like a character from a B-comic book movie, the sort of villain that would expect Venom or Morbius to battle in a pre-credits sequence.

Add to that …. an antique electric chair?  This show is at its best when the antiques are stuff that you could imagine actually stumbling across in an antique store.  The idea of that big, bulky chair being in the store (and subsequently being disguised as a dentist chair) was just silly.

But you know what?  Friday the 13th is a fun show, even when it’s silly.  Chris Wiggins, John D. LeMay, and Robey made for a good team of investigators and, if nothing else, it was fun watching them interact in this episode.  This was a silly episode but at least it was silly in an entertaining way.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out! 1.14 “Supermarket Superbowlers”

Posted on 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 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!

This week is all about bowling!  Wasn’t CHiPs also all about bowling this week?

Episode 1.14 “Supermarket Superbowlers”

(Dir by John Bell, originally aired on January 15th, 1986)

Cobb’s has got a bowling team!

They’ve managed to get into the league finals and, according to Howard, all of the credit goes to their stockboy, Murray.  Murray may not be good at bagging groceries but he is apparently a great bowler.  He’s such a good bowler that it doesn’t even matter that Edna is a terrible bowler.  In fact, Edna is so bad that she doesn’t even get to bowl.  The only reason she is on the team is so she can step in if someone gets injured.

Someone does get injured!  Murray breaks his arm and right before the big game too.  However, Mrs. Cobb (Barbara Hamilton) has told Howard that she wants the store to win that championship trophy and she’ll give everyone on the team a $500 bonus if they win.  But if Edna plays, they don’t have a chance.  In order to keep Edna on the sidelines, Jack Christian tracks down a former pro bowler and hires him to be the temporary stock boy.  “Big Ed” Politowski (J. Winston Carroll) is a total slob who doesn’t appear to have taken a shower in months but apparently, he’s really good with a bowling ball.

Seeing how disappointed Edna is, Howard decides to fake a foot injury so that he’ll have to withdraw from the team and Edna will be able to play in his place.  But, no sooner has he faked one injury than Christian drops a bowling ball on Howard’s other foot.  (Why was Christian walking around the store with a bowling ball?  I’m not sure.)  Big Ed picks up Howard to take him to the hospital, which leads to an unseen but definitely heard crash in the parking lot.

The end result is that Howard ends up on crutches, the store does not win the trophy, and no one gets five hundred dollars.  But everyone is really impressed by the fact that Howard faked an injury just so Edna could play.  Of course, if Howard hadn’t faked an injury, they might have won the tournament and they would all be five hundred dollars richer.  Apparently, Cobb’s only hires those who have a very, very generous spirit.

This was a fairly forgettable episode, one in which there really weren’t any stakes other than a trophy and a little extra money.  Considering the big deal that Mrs. Cobb made about wanting to win that trophy, no one seemed to be particularly worried about any bad consequences from losing the game.  Considering that Murray broke his arm at work, no one seemed to be worried about whether or not he would recover or perhaps sue the store.  There were no consequences to anything that happened in this story and that’s fine.  Not everything has to be a matter of life and death.

Probably the most interesting thing about this episode is that neither Alf the Security Guard nor Jennifer the Cashier appeared.  In-universe, I going to assume the episode took place on their off-days but you do have to wonder if either one of them could bowl.

 

 

Horror on TV: The Hitchhiker 5.26 “Pawns” (dir by Leon Marr)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Poor Eddie!

Eddie (David McIlwraith) used to be a rock star but now he’s a washed up alcoholic without a cent to his name.  Needing to pay his bills, Eddie decides to make the ultimate sacrifice.  He decides to go down to a pawnshop and sell his trademark guitar.  However, a quirky woman named Elisabeth (Jill Hennessy) has another idea.  Maybe …. he could just rob the pawn shop!

Did you know that, as a name, Lisa started out as a shortened version of Elisabeth?

This episode originally aired on December 16th, 1989.