Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 4.8 “Wheels of Justice”

Posted on August 11, 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

This week, not Ponch can smile his way out of the darkness.

Episode 4.8 “Wheels of Justice”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on December 21st, 1980)

The streets of Los Angeles are dangerous in this week’s episode.

Stan West (Basil Hoffman) is a reckless driver who is constantly causing accidents by driving too fast and making unsafe lane changes. He gets away with it because he keeps changing his name.

Arthur Holmes (Joshua Bryant) is a drunk who Jon and Ponch have pulled over several times. Arthur gets away with it by claiming, after every accident, that his wife was the one driving, Denise (Christine Belford) goes along with it, even though she hates the fact that she’s enabling her husband.

A group of cheerleaders drive around and do their cheers while driving!

Finally, a gas leak at the hospital leads to all the newborn babies being loaded into an ambulance for transport. When the ambulance is side-swiped by Stan, the babies end up at the station. Getraer gives everyone a lesson on how to properly soothe a crying baby. It’s cute but it’s also so manipulative that it leaves you feeling oddly used. But, hey, at least it’s cute!

This episode of CHiPs took a serious turn towards the end when the drunk driver swerved to avoid the cheerleaders and the end result is that his wife was thrown from the car and killed. When the car was shown crashing in slow motion, the wife’s mannequin actually fell out of the car. While I imagine that was probably not planned, it still created a memorably macabre image. In the end, Arthur ends up sobbing while Denise lies dead just a few feet away from him. That’s a pretty dark ending for an episode of CHiPs. Not even a quick scene of the officers holding the babies could change the fact that this was a really downbeat episode.

And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that. Driving drunk is selfish, stupid, and dangerous and CHiPs deserves some credit for not holding back.

A Blast From The Past: Wait Until Dark (dir by Barry Davis)

Posted on March 27, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Malibu, CA will not be reviewed tonight so that we might bring you this special presentation….

My retro television reviews will return next week but, for now, why not enjoy something even better than me discussing my hatred of Malibu, CA? 1982’s Wait Until Dark is a videotaped record of a stage production of Frederick Knott’s classic play about a blind woman who is menaced by three criminals. (I assume it was filmed for PBS. According to Lettrboxd, this aired on television on June 20th, 1982.) This play was famously adapted into an Audrey Hepburn film in 1967. The production below gives us a chance to see how the suspense plays out in a theatrical setting. The cast, including Katharine Ross and Stacy Keach, is excellent!

And now, here is Wait Until Dark….

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 2.4 “Disaster Squad”

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Ponch attacks a reporter …. or does he?

Episode 2.4 “Disaster Squad”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on October 7th, 1978)

In a change-of-pace for this show, it’s Officer Jon Baker who gets a girlfriend in this week’s episode. Ellen Roberts (Liberty Godshall) is a recently divorced woman with an annoying 4 year-old named Chris (Christian Zika). Because Baker doesn’t want any kids around to ruin his action, he gets Ponch to hang out with Chris. Fortunately, it turns out that Chris loves motorcycle and even owns his own mini-bike.

Impressed by how well Chris can handle his bike, Ponch enters Chris in a children’s dirt bike race. When one of the other racers knocks Chris down in the middle of the race, an angry Chris says that he’s going to hit the other racer. Ponch tells Chris to never hit anyone and he says that he’s ashamed to hear Chris speak like that. Chris promises not to ever fight.

But then, the next morning, Chris turns on the TV and sees a report about Ponch punching out an obnoxious news reporter (Harvey Jason) who got in the way while Ponch and Jon were dealing with a suicidal motorist. The anchorman (played by Regis Philbin!) then comes on TV and basically says that Ponch is the epitome of everything bad about the police. Chris starts sobbing. Ponch lied about not fighting! Chris hops on his mini-bike and, still crying, drives away.

What Chris doesn’t know is that Ponch was set up. Lee and the members of “the Disaster Squad” have been following Ponch and Baker around, filming accidents, and getting in the way. (At one point, one of Lee’s men event tosses a road flair under a car that’s leaking oil, causing an explosion.) Lee doctored the tape of an earlier confrontation with Ponch to make it appear the Ponch threatened and hit him.

But that doesn’t matter to Chris. With tears flowing down his cheeks, he drives his little motorcycle into the Los Angeles river. Fortunately, Ponch and Baker find him in time to save his life and teach him an important lesson about fake news.

This episode …. where to begin? It opened with a good chase scene and it featured a truck flipping over so that was good. But then bratty little Chris showed up and the whole episode went downhill. The child playing Chris was, to be charitable, not exactly the world’s best actor and his over-the-top reaction to seeing Ponch hit someone was bit too silly to inspire anything other than a chuckle. “Ponch said never to hit anyone!” Chris wails. Well, kid, Ponch is a damn hypocrite. Sorry.

It was all pretty silly. Baker finally got to do something other than gaze at Ponch in amazement but, in the end, the story was still pretty much Ponch-centered. One thing I noticed about this episode is that Getraer had absolutely no sympathy for Ponch, even though he believed Ponch was being set up. Seriously, I get that Getraer has a lot to deal with but does he have to be a jerk all the time?

Next week …. Ponch and Baker continue to keep California safe!

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 1.8 “Lost and Found / The Understudy / Married Singles”

Posted on October 26, 2022 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

Love exciting and new….

Come aboard! We’re expecting you!

Episode 1.8 “Lost and Found / The Understudy / Married Singles”

(Directed by Stuart Margolin, originally aired on November 19th, 1977)

This week’s cruise is all about secrets and lies.

For instance, Durwood Moss (Steve Allen) and Maisie Nolan (Polly Bergen) are currently separated and their therapist has suggested that they try taking separate vacations. Maisie books a cabin on the cruise so Durwood books the cabin next door. As Durwood explains it, being in separate cabins counts as being on separate vacations. Not letting anyone know that they’re married (albeit unhappily so), Durwood pursues Barbie (Loni Anderson) and Maisie flirts with Jack (Joshua Plymouth). Of course, Durwood and Maisie end up realizing that they’re still in love. Fortunately, Jack and Barbie also fall in love with each other!

Meanwhile, 8 year-old Theodore Denison, Jr. (James Bond III) lies and says that he has his parents’ permission to be on the cruise by himself. Of course, it turns out that he’s actually a runaway. On the cruise, he meets Sharon and Richard Baker (Sandy Duncan and Jim Stafford), a married couple that is struggling to come to terms with the death of their son. Sharon wants to adopt Theodore and Theodore wants to be adopted. But then Theodore’s real parents show up and apologize for the fight that caused Theodore to run away in the first place. Still, Sharon and Richard at least find the courage to try to move on from their tragedy.

Finally, Connie Evans (Jo Ann Harris) is an assistant cruise director who has been assigned to the ship. Julie (Lauren Tewes) is supposed to be training Connie but it soon becomes clear that, in typical All About Eve fashion, Connie is plotting to steal Julie’s job. Connie’s plan is … well, it’s interesting. She continually screws up the simplest of duties and then claims that she was only doing what Julie trained her to do. When she shows up for dinner in a skimpy outfit, she claims that it’s what Julie told her to wear. I guess the plan is to make Julie look like she’s bad at training people but just because someone isn’t good at training, that doesn’t mean that they’re bad at their overall job. In fact, it would seem that most people would look at Connie’s actions and say, “You should have had enough common sense to know better, even if that’s what Julie told you.” Anyway, it all works out, albeit somewhat bizarrely. The captain reprimands Connie. The crew hates Connie and goes out of its way to humiliate her. And yet, even after it become obvious that Connie has been trying to get her fired, Julie agrees to help Connie because she thinks Connie has the makings of being a great cruise director. Just how painfully nice is Julie?

This was not a bad episode. The stuff with Durwood and Maisie was a bit dull but the other two storylines worked. Sandy Duncan brought a lot of emotional sincerity to her plotline and Jo Ann Harris was hilariously conniving in the role of Connie. This episode was a cruise that I enjoyed.

Will I also enjoy the next cruise? Find out next week!

Framed (1975, directed by Phil Karlson)

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Revenge can be brutal, especially when you’ve been framed.

Joe Don Baker plays Ron Lewis, a surly nightclub owner and gambler who wins a small fortune, witnesses a crime, and nearly gets shot all in the same night. When he reaches his house, he’s planning on calling the police but he’s confronted in his own garage by a sheriff’s deputy who tries to kill him! In a lengthy and brutal scene, Ron beats the deputy to death and gouges out his eyes. Even though Ron was only acting in self-defense, he’s charged with murder. Told that there is no way that he’ll be able to win an acquittal, Ron pleads guilty to a lesser charge and is sent to prison for four years.

While he’s in prison, Ron befriends a mob boss (John Marley, who famously woke up with a horse’s head in his bed in The Godfather) and the boss’s number one hitman, Vince (Gabriel Dell). While Ron is in prison, a group of men assault his girlfriend (country singer Conny Van Dyke) and tell her not to ask any questions about the events that led to Ron being framed.

After serving his sentence and getting into numerous fights with the guards, Ron is finally released. When Vince shows up and tells Ron that he’s been hired to kill him, the two of them team up with an honest deputy (Brock Peters) and set out to find out why Ron was set up and to get revenge.

Framed is a brutal movie, Ron and his friends hold nothing back in their quest to get revenge. Whether he’s shooting a man in cold blood or hooking someone up to a car battery in order to get information out of him, there’s little that Ron won’t do and the movie lingers over every act of violence. Several pounds overweight and snarling out of his lines, Joe Don Baker may not be a conventional action hero but he’s believable in his rage. He’s the ultimate country boy who has been pushed too far and now he doesn’t care how much blood he has to get on his hands. However, because Baker does seem more like an ordinary person than a Clint Eastwood or a Charles Bronson-type, he retains the audience’s sympathy even as he splashes blood all over the screen. As violent as his action may be, they always feel justified.

Baker’s performance and the believable violence are the film’s biggest strengths. It’s biggest weakness is a plot that revolves around an elaborate conspiracy that doesn’t always make sense and some notably weak supporting performances. Ron’s revenge may be brutal but it takes a while to get there and the first hour gets bogged down with Ron’s struggle to adjust to life in prison. John Marley does a good job as Ron’s prison mentor but then he abruptly disappears from the movie.

Before making Framed, Baker and director Phil Karlson previously collaborated on Walking Tall. Framed is far more violent than that film was but its plot doesn’t hold together as well. However, if you’re just looking for a violent action film that features Joe Don Baker doing what he does best, Framed delivers.