Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 3.19 “Red White Black And Blue”

Posted on May 8, 2026 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 Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Daily Motion.

St. Elsewhere gets political!

Episode 3.19 “Red White Black and Blue”

(Dir by Eric Laneuville, originally aired on February 13th, 1985)

This week, on St. Elsewhere!

The First Lady is coming to Boston! Though she’s going to be visiting Boston General, St. Eligius has been designated as a backup hospital. While she’s in the area, the Emergency Room will be closed to everyone but her. As well, some members of the hospital staff have been flagged as security risks — including Dr. Craig!
Dr. Craig is not happy about that but eventually, he’s cleared. It turns out that his wife was the security risk because she once defended the Black Panther Party.
Betty White plays Captain Gloria Neal, a doctor who is on the First Lady’s security team. She is an old friend of Dr. Westphall’s. At first, it seems like she and Westphall might pursue a romance but it doesn’t happen. I’m going to guess this is because Gloria realized that Dr. Westphall is the most depressing man on the planet.
When a severely injured man is rushed to St. Eligius, Neal refuses to open the Emergency Room. So, Dr. Craig takes it upon himself to overrule her. The man dies on the table.
Dr. Jacqueline Wade (Sagan Lewis) follows Captain Neal around, complaining about the president’s policies. In fact, the entire hospital seems to be full of Democrats! Wow, this President sure must have been unpopular. Let’s see who it is …. hey, Ronald Reagan! Three months before this episode aired, Reagan was reelected with 58% of the vote. He carried 49 states, including Massachusetts. Apparently, everyone who voted for Walter Mondale worked at the same hospital.
Mrs. Hufnagle is back at the hospital. She is having heart problems. Dr. Westphall glumly tells the doctors that they have been neglecting her because of her terrible personality. However, not even Westphall can handle talking to her. He passes the case over to Dr. Craig.
Fiscus has dinner with Shirley Daniels, who says that she hopes she goes to prison for shooting Dr. White. The next day, Shirley is admitted to the hospital with appendicitis.
Victor Ehrlich wrong believes that a child has been abused by his mother. He gets social services involved. Later, Westphall sighs with regret and tells Victor that he did the wrong thing. Westphall is being kind of a prick here. Legally, if Ehrlich thinks that there’s been abuse, he’s required to report it. Westphall seems to be upset that Ehrlich can’t read minds.
Finally, chronic homewrecker Nurse Rosenthal has to spend the day at the hospital so her lover, Richard, spends the day with her annoying children. Well, I guess he certainly wasn’t going to spend it with his wife. I will never understand why this show felt it was necessary to spend so much time with this particular family. They were all annoying, every single one of them.

This episode opened with a homeless man using an American flag as a blanket and then went on to feature a man selling American flags getting attacked. That’s about as subtle as things got. It’s interesting that the show previously established Dr. Craig as being a Republican but apparently, with this episode, viewers were expected to believe that he was not a fan of Ronald Reagan’s.

In other words, this was not a great episode. This felt like the medical equivalent of one of those Law & Order episodes where all of the salt of the Earth cops start talking about how they never miss Morning Joe.

Finally, I feel bad for Mrs. Hufnagle, Even annoying people deserve good medical treatment!

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 3.18 “Any Portrait In A Storm”

Posted on May 1, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it’s a stormy episode!

Episode 3.18 “Any Portrait In A Storm”

(Dir by Leo Penn, originally aired on January 30th, 1985)

As a rain storm rages outside, the drama inside St. Eligius continues.

Dr. Auschlander cancels the grand unveiling of his portrait, saying that he doesn’t feel worthy of the attention and also admitting to Westphall that the whole thing not only makes him feel old but also reminds him that he’s dying. Westphall’s response is to nod glumly because Westphall is the most depressed man on the planet. Auschlander is dying of liver cancer and he still manages to usually be more cheerful than Westphall. Even this episode ends with Auschlander in a good mood. He finally looks at his portrait and discovers that he likes it. Plus, Luther tells Auschlander how important he is to him and the other workers at the hospital.

While Auschlander feels his age and Westphall sadly stares at the ceiling, Dr. Ehrlich makes an effort to be more polite and fails completely. Ms. Hufnagle argues about her hospital bill. In an amusing moment, Warren spots Dean (Tim Van Patten) getting on an elevator and shouts, “Salami!” Before St. Elsewhere, Byron Stewart (who played Warren) and Van Patten starred together on a show called The White Shadow. Stewart played Warren, the same character that he plays on St. Elsewhere. Van Patten played someone named Salami. What makes the scene especially humorous is that Dean hesitates before saying, “You got the wrong guy,” as if he somehow remembers being a different character on another show.

Dean is at the hospital to tell his pregnant girlfriend that, despite the fact that she’s currently in labor, he’s leaving Boston for Florida so he can set up a drug deal. Both Dean’s girlfriend, Maddy (Lycia Naff), and Peter White’s widow, Myra (Karen Landry), give birth in this episode. Tragically, Maddy’s daughter dies. Myra has a son, who survives and who she names Peter. Afterwards, she receives an anonymous present — a little ski mask, identical in every way but size to the one that her late husband used to wear while he was terrorizing the hospital.

This was not a bad episode. The rain served as a good (if perhaps too obvious) metaphor for the drama happening inside the hospital. A good deal of this episode centered around Dr. Woodley trying to get Maddy to accept some help and get Dean out of her life. The problem is that this is only Dr. Woodley’s third or fourth episode and, as a result, I still don’t feel like I know much about the character. Having her suddenly take center stage for this episode felt a bit premature. Still, Norman Lloyd’s performance as Dr. Auschlander and the scene were Dr. Craig realizes that he left his lights on when he got out of his car kept things watchable, occasionally humorous, and, in the end, rather poignant. Sometimes, Dr. Asuchlander could be almost too good to be true but Norman Lloyd’s performance always sold every moment. That was certainly the case here.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 3.17 “Give The Boy A Hand”

Posted on April 24, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, Dr. Westphall, what’s got you upset this week?

Episode 3.17 “Give The Boy A Hand”

(Dir by Janet Greek, originally aired on January 23rd, 1985)

Dr. Westphall’s daughter, Lizzie (Dana Short), comes home from college. At first, Westphall is happy to have her home. So is Tommy, Westphall’s several autistic son. Still, he gets the feeling that Lizzie isn’t telling him something and we know he’s right because nothing good ever happens to Dr. Westphall. Sure enough, Lizzie’s boyfriend shows up unannounced and Westphall discovers that Lizzie is struggling in college. Lizzie reveals that she’s miserable away from home. She wants to drop out and return home so that she can take care of Tommy. Westphall tells her that’s not an option. Lizzie gets angry and goes back to school. Westphall ends up sitting in his house, alone and in the dark.

Agck! Seriously, Dr. Westphall, can you get any more depressing!?

Meanwhile, Mrs. Hufnagle is back in the hospital. When Dr. Chandler introduces himself as her new doctor, Hufnagle says that she doesn’t want him as her doctor. “May I ask why?” Chandler asks. “Because you’re colored,” comes the response. Chandler explains that he went to Yale and graduated at the top of his class. Hufnagle says that’s due to Affirmative Action. In the cafeteria, Chandler begs the other doctors to take over as Hufnagle’s doctor. “Go away!” the other doctors say. Chandler is stuck with Hufnagle and, despite her original comments, Hufnagle decides that she’s okay with that. Maybe she noticed that Dr. Chandler is played by a young Denzel Washington.

Dr. Woodley continues to treat pregnant teenager Maddy (Lycia Naff). Meanwhile, Maddy’s idiot boyfriend (Timothy Van Patten) tried to set up a drug deal that went to pieces when one of his partners overdosed and was rushed to the ER, where he subsequently died.

Finally, Ehrlich has been on the local news, presenting a daily medical commentary. However, when he tries to present a commentary about treating the disabled with respect, he tells a joke about a man who went to the hospital, had his legs accidentally amputated, tried to sue, and was told he didn’t have a leg to stand on. After the station is flooded with complaints, Ehrlich is fired. He gets the news right before he does his final commentary. Ehrlich sings I’ve Got To Be Me on the air. Later, he gets drunk and goes to the hospital, where he tells Dr. Craig that he feels like he’s forgotten what made him love being a doctor in the first place. Ehrlich thinks he should quit medicine.

“It’s too late for that,” Craig replies.

“That’s it!?” Ehrlich, who was hoping for better advice, replies.

Craig sighs and gives Ehrlich a retractor of his very own. Ehrlich thanks Craig and then makes a dumb joke.

“Just can’t help yourself,” Craig says.

The Ehrlich stuff was entertaining. Ed Begley Jr. and William Daniels make for a great team. Otherwise, this was a somewhat bland episode. How many times can we watch Dr. Westphall get depressed? Seriously, the man needs someone to tell him a good joke.

Paging Dr. Ehrlich….

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 3.16 “Saving Face”

Posted on April 17, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, things continue to be awkward in Boston.

Episode 3.16 “Saving Face”

(Dir by Charles Braverman, originally aired on January 16th, 1985)

This episode of St. Elsewhere was even busier than usual.

Tough-as-nails Dr. Mary Woodley (Karen Austin) has been hired to oversee the ER. Dr. Fiscus isn’t happy about it. He’s going to have to work for a woman? Agck!
Dr. Cavanero is also not happy. Of course, the last time that St. Eligius hired a new female doctor, Cavanero told everyone at the hospital that she was a lesbian and, for some reason, this led to the doctor having to leave town. (It was the 80s.) Maybe, just maybe, there are reasons to have doubts about Cavanero’s professionalism.
Dr. Westphall shows Dr. Woodley around the hospital and, as usual, comes across as being the saddest man on the planet.
Dr. Westphall informs Jack that he will be allowed to continue on as a resident. However, Westphall also rather glumly states that he will be watching Jack from now on. Jack better not screw up or Westphall will “come down” on him. Personally, I think Westphall is too depressed to really do much of anything.
Feeling guilty about Murray’s death, Elliott brings Mrs. Hufnagle a ham. Mrs. Hufnagle has an allergic reaction and ends up back in the hospital. “She thinks I tried to kill her!” Elliott says.
A teenager (Tim Van Patten) brings in his pregnant girlfriend, who has OD’d. Dr. Woodley says she is required to call family services. Myself, I started shouting, “I am da futah!” as soon as Tim “Stegman” Van Patten showed up on the screen.
Dr. Caldwell performs extensive plastic surgery on a disfigured young woman. When Dr. Ehrlich says that the patient looks like she got hit with the “ugly stick,” Caldwell kicks Ehrlich off his team.
Nobody wants to work with Ehrlich! Dr. Craig declines to invite Ehrlich to his 34 year anniversary party. Cavanero agrees to take Ehrlich as her date. “What are you doing here!?” Craig snaps as soon as he sees Ehrlich in his living room.
Dr. Craig’s younger brother, William (Lou Richards), also shows up. He was invited at Ellen’s insistence, despite the fact that William and Mark haven’t spoken in over four years. Mark feels that William has wasted his life and his potential. But when William proves to be the life of the party, it becomes apparent that Mark is actually jealous of how likable his younger brother is.
In the kitchen, Mark and William have a long conversation. William admits that he’s struggling to pay the bills. Mark writes him a check. For a few minutes, the brothers actually reconcile.
However, Mark later hears William joking about how much money surgeon’s make and he loses his temper. In front of the entire party, he calls out William and reveals that he doesn’t have a dime to his name.
That night, after everyone else has left and William has gone to the guest room, Ellen tells Mark that he should apologize. Mark agrees and says he’ll do it in the morning.
Later, during the night, Mark steps out of his bedroom and discovers that William has gone home. He left behind the check, which he ripped in half. Mark stares at the check and starts to cry.

This was another episode that did a good job balancing the serious and the humorous. Dr. Ehrlich’s inability to say the right thing will never not be funny. For that matter, the same can be said of Dr. Craig’s general irritation with everything. And yet, seeing Dr. Craig break down and cry was truly heartbreaking. Dr. Craig and Dr. Ehrlich share an inability to socialize and a habit of screwing up even the kindest of gestures. Even when they try to do the right thing, they somehow always manage to screw it up.

I wanted to cry for all of them.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 4.21 “A Special Operation”

Posted on November 17, 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, the fourth season comes to an end.

Episode 4.21 “A Special Operation”

(Dir by Leslie H. Martinson., originally aired on May 17th, 1981)

Season 4 comes to an odd end with A Special Operation.

Getraer is injured when he crashes his motorcycle. He takes a piece of metal to the face and he nearly loses his eyesight. Luckily, the abrasive but brilliant Dr. Patterson (James Sloyan) is able to save both Getraer’s eye and his ability to see with it. However, the idealistic young Dr. Rhodes (A Martinez) worries that Patterson may have missed something. Can Patterson set aside his ego long enough to listen to his younger colleague?

Hey, wait a minute, isn’t this CHiPs?

I don’t have any way to prove this but there’s a part of me that strongly suspects the season finale of CHiPs was also a backdoor pilot for a medical show. So much time is spent with Patterson, Rhodes, and the nurses at the local hospital that it just feels like there was some hope that viewers would call in and demand to see more of Dr. Rhodes. A Martinez even gives a very Erik Estrada-style performance in the role of Rhodes.

Speaking of Estrada, he’s barely in this episode. (Ponch, we’re told, is preparing for to testify in a big court case.) It largely falls to Jon Baker to stop the assassin (Eugene Butler) who has been hired to try to take Getraer out of commission. This, of course, leads to the assassin stealing an ambulance and Baker chasing him. The ambulance flips over in slow motion but somehow, the assassin survives to that Baker can arrest him.

It was a strange end for a season that’s largely been dominated by Erik Estrada and his performance as Ponch. (Larry Wilcox, I will say, looked happy to have the finale to himself.) For the most part, Season 4 was an uneven season. The writing so favored Estrada over Wilcox that the show sometimes felt like it was turning into a parody of itself. The show that started out about two partners on motorcycles became a show about how Ponch could literally walk on water and do no wrong.

Next week, we start season 5!

Summer Rental (1985, directed by Carl Reiner)

Posted on June 29, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

After a blow-up at work, air traffic controller John Chester (John Candy) is given five weeks of paid leave. He takes his family to Florida, where they rent a beach house and discover that their summer town is controlled by snobbish sailing champion Al Pellett (Richard Crenna). It’s the snobs vs slobs as Pellett tries to kick John and his family out of their summer rental and John tries to prove himself to his son and daughter (Joey Lawrence and Kerri Green) by winning the local sailing championship. Luckily, John has Sully (Rip Torn), a modern-day pirate captain, on his side.

John Candy was a remarkable talent. It’s just a shame that he didn’t appear in more good films. He will always be remembered for films like Splash, Uncle Buck, Planes, Train, and Automobiles, and Only The Lonely but unfortunately, most of his starring roles were in lightweight, forgettable far like Summer Rental. Candy is likable as John Chester and sympathetic even when he’s losing his temper over every minor inconvenience. But the film itself never really does much to distinguish itself from all of the other 80s comedies about middle class outsiders taking on the richest man in town. Candy is stuck playing a role that really could have been played by any comedic actor in 1985. It’s just as easy to imagine Dan Aykroyd or even Henry Winkler in the role. It feels like a waste of Candy.

The best thing about the film is Rip Torn’s performance as Sully. Torn’s performance here feels like a dry run for his award-winning work as Artie on The Larry Sanders Show. I would have watched an entire movie about Sully. As it is, Summer Rental is inoffensive and forgettable.

October True Crime: The Case of the Hillside Stranglers (dir by Steve Gethers)

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1989’s The Case of the Hillside Stranglers is based on the killing spree of Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, two cousins who terrorized Los Angeles in the late 70s. Buono owned his own garage and aspired to be a tough and macho pimp. Bianchi was an aspiring police officer who supported himself as a security guard. Over the course of just five months, they murdered ten women. They probably would never have been caught if not for the fact that Buono eventually tired of Bianchi and kicked him out of his house. Bianchi moved up to Washington where he committed two murders on his own. When he was arrested, he attempted to convince the cops that he was suffering from dissociative identity disorder and that the murders were committed by his other personalities.

The Case of the Hillside Stranglers starts with the murder spree already in progress. Buono is played by Dennis Farina while Bianchi is played by a very young Billy Zane. Both of them are well-cast, with Farina especially making an impression as a misogynistic bully who thinks that he is untouchable. (In real life, Farina spent 18 years as a Chicago cop and, watching his performance in this film, it’s hard not to get the feeling that he had to deal with more than one guy like Angelo Buono over the course of his time on the force.) For all of their cockiness, the film emphasizes that neither Angelo nor Kenneth were particularly clever. The fact that they got away with their crimes for as long as they did was largely due to a combination of luck and witnesses who did not want to get involved. Early on in the film, one woman who is harassed and nearly abducted by Buono and Bianchi refuses to call the police afterwards because she doesn’t want to relive what happened.

That said, the majority of the film actually focuses on Bob Grogan (Richard Crenna), the tough veteran detective who heads up the Hillside Strangler taskforce and who becomes so obsessed with tacking down the elusive killers that he soon finds himself neglecting both his family and his own health. Whenever we see Grogan trying to enjoy any quality time with his children, we know that his beeper is going to go off and he’s going to have to search for a telephone so that he can call into headquarters. (Remember, this film was set in the 70s.) His children are a bit miffed about it, which I can understand though I really do have to say that his son, in this film, really does come across as being a brat. (“Just ignore it, Dad,” he says, as if there aren’t two serial killers murdering innocent people in the city.) The recently divorced Grogan pursues a tentative romance with a woman (played by Karen Austin) who, at one point, decides to investigate Angelo on her own. Crenna, not surprisingly, is sympathetic as Grogan. The film works best as an examination of what it does to one’s soul to spend all day investigating the worst crimes that can be committed. Grogan gets justice but, the film suggests, he does so at the sacrifice of his own peace of mind.

It’s a well-made and well-acted film, one that will probably appeal more to fans of the police procedural genre as opposed to those looking for a grisly serial killer film. In real life, Bianchi is serving a life sentence and Angelo Buono died in prison. And the real Bob Grogan? He appeared in this movie, slapping the handcuffs on Billy Zane.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Far From Home (dir by Meiert Avis)

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

There are several lessons that can be learned from watching horror films. One that is often overlooked is the importance of staying out of trailer parks. Seriously, I have lost track of how many horror films have taken place within the confines of a trailer park. Once you see someone surrounded by RVs and mobile homes, you know that they’re probably doomed.

Take 1989’s Far From Home, for instance.

Far From Home is set in perhaps the sleaziest trailer park in America. This place sits in the middle of the Nevada desert and is run by chain-smoking Agnes Reed (Susan Tyrrell), who has a voice like a bullfrog, a daughter (Stephanie Walski) who is obsessed with watching TV and eating fishsticks, and a delinquent teenage son named Jimmy (Andras Jones).

The only law is provided by Sheriff Bill Childers (Dick Miller), who has a squad car but apparently no deputies. Childers is gruff but not that bad of a guy once you get to know him. However, he’s also played by Dick Miller and we all know better than to depend on Dick Miller to maintain the peace.

There’s a gas station nearby. A mellow Vietnam vet named Duckett (Richard Masur) owns it. Duckett is always willing to be helpful but he rarely has any gas. This is one of those small towns where the gas truck apparently only rolls in every two months or so. Still, Duckett’s a nice guy and he’s full of stories about how the government used to do atomic bomb tests in the surrounding desert.

(The scenes where Duckett drives around the desert feel somewhat out of place but they’re still enjoyable, due to Masur’s eccentric performance.)

Living in the trailer park, there’s a lot of odd people. Some of them are permanent residents while some of them are just temporarily stranded. 14 year-old Pinky (Anthony Rapp, who would go on to appear in Dazed and Confused and Rent) lives with his mother and is a permanent resident. His mother is rarely seen, though occasionally she can be glimpsed through a window, propped up in front of the TV. Pinky says that, when he was a kid, he and Jimmy were best friends. But now, Jimmy and Pinky are enemies.

And then there’s Amy (Jennifer Tilly) and Louise (Karen Austin), who are just waiting for enough gas to come in to be able to get Amy’s car to start running again. Louise is intelligent and responsible. Amy is flighty and undependable. As soon as one of them accidentally pulls the handle off the driver’s side door, you just know one of them is going to end up getting trapped in that car at a bad moment.

When Far From Home opens, two newcomers have moved into the trailer park. Writer, divorced father, and self-described “former angry young man” Charlie Cox (Matt Frewer) has just spent a month with his 13 year-old daughter, Joleen (Drew Barrymore, who was 14 when she made Far From Home). It hasn’t exactly been a great vacation and it doesn’t get any better when Charlie’s car runs out of gas. Joleen is about to turn fourteen and she doesn’t want to spend her birthday in a crummy trailer park with her incredibly dorky dad.

However, both Jimmy and Pinky are happy that Joleen will be spending at least a day or two at the trailer park. At first, Joleen crushes on Jimmy and then, after Jimmy reveals himself to be aggressive and unstable, she crushes on Pinky, who protects her from Jimmy. One of the two boys is so obsessed with Joleen that he is willing to commit murder to keep her from leaving the trailer park. But which one?

(It’s actually pretty obvious but you probably already guessed that.)

Far From Home is a film about which I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the movie’s totally predictable. Characters do dumb things for no real reason beyond needing to move the plot forward. Charlie’s parenting abilities change drastically from scene to scene. A traumatized character goes from catatonic to recovered to catatonic again with no real explanation.

One of my main issues with the film is that there’s no real surprise about who the killer turns out to be. Even worse, once the killer’s identity is revealed, the killer suddenly turns into one of those psychos who can come up with a dozen one-liners while trying to kill someone. I mean, seriously, who does that? Are movie psychos required to take a year’s worth of improv clubs and do an apprenticeship with the Upright Citizens Brigade before they’re allowed to pick up a knife? If I was the type to commit murder (and I’m not but let’s just say that I was), I would be too busy trying to make sure everyone was dead to be witty. I’d save the jokes until I was safely on a beach somewhere, drinking pink lemonade and keeping an eye out for Ben Gardner’s boat. That’s just me, I guess.

And yet, there’s a part of me that really likes this stupid, stupid movie. It’s a surprisingly well-directed film, full of artfully composed shots. The trailer park really does take on a life of its own and the film also makes good use of a nearby abandoned apartment building. It’s a great location and, occasionally, it lends the film a dash of surrealism. (Of course, I guess you could legitimately ask who would build an apartment complex in the middle of the desert, especially one that’s still humming with radiation from the Atomic bomb tests, but let’s not.) Richard Masur, Dick Miller, and Susan Tyrrell all give good performances. For that matter, the same is true of Anthony Rapp and Andras Jones. Neither Rapp nor Jones are to blame for the fact that they were let down by a weak script.

Though I doubt either one of them would describe Far From Home as being their proudest cinematic achievement, Matt Frewer and Drew Barrymore are totally believable as father and daughter. In the end, that’s why I like this movie. Whenever I’ve watched Far From Home, I’ve always been able to relate to Joleen. When I was thirteen, I basically was Joleen.

Fortunately, though, I was never found myself stranded in a trailer park full of homicidal maniacs.

I guess I just got lucky that way.