Retro Television Reviews: T and T 1.23 “Working It Out” and 1.24 “Now You See It”


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, season one of T and T comes to a close!

Episode 1.23 “Working It Out”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on June 23rd, 1988)

“In this episode,” Mr. T tells us, “push turns to shove and shove turns to ugly as a battle of sexes rages at Decker’s gym.”

Of all of the supporting characters who have been featured during the first season of T and T, Decker (played by David Nerman) has been the most prominent.  That makes sense when you consider that each first season episode features at least a few minutes of T.S. Turner throwing jabs in a boxing ring or hitting the punching bag in Decker’s Gym.  Decker is T.S.’s best friend.  He may not be smart but he is loyal.

This episode finds Decker in a bit of quandary because Jessie (Allison Mang) wants to join the gym but, when she brings in the membership fee, Decker is shocked to discover that Jessie can also be a girl’s name!  Decker’s gym is full of men who like to walk around in towels and say stuff like, “Where do you think you’re going, little girl?”  Decker says the gym is men only.

(Myself, I don’t know why anyone would want to join Decker’s shabby little gym, which looks like it reeks of sweat.)

Amy decides to sue for her right to use the gym and she hires Amy Taler.  Amy sends T.S. Turner down to Decker’s gym to talk to him about letting Jessie join.  Decker explains he has no problem with Jessie joining but gym bully Madigan (Kevin Lund) doesn’t want to any girls to join.  How much of a bully is Madigan?  His nickname is Mad Dog and he even accuses T.S. of “getting soft!”

Meanwhile, Amy informs Jessie that the gym is a public business and therefore anyone can join.  She also points out that there are other gyms in Canada, some of which are co-ed and women only.  Jessie says that Decker’s sweaty, shabby gym — which, I would add, has been the scene of several major crimes since this season began — is the closest to her house.  Personally, I would happily add a few minutes to my trip so that I could join a gym that doesn’t look like the set of a bad 70s porno but what do I know?

“She’s effeminate, isn’t she?” Sophie asks Amy about Jessie.

“You mean a feminist?” Amy replies.

“Yeah,” Sophie nods.

Amy rolls her eyes without answering Sophie’s question.  Personally, I’m wondering how Sophie went from being a computer expert in one episode to not knowing what a feminist is in this episode.

Back at the gym, Decker tries to talk Madigan into accepting Jessie as a member of the gym.  Decker tells Madigan that the men of the gym will just have to stop walking around without any clothes on.  “We’re working out and sweating!” Madigan replies, “It makes sense to walk around without any clothes on!”  And maybe Madigan would have a point if he was living in ancient Sparta but this is Toronto!

Decker goes to the law office, to talk to Amy.  Decker is worried that Madigan will kill Jessie.  Amy suggests turning his gym into a private club so that he can bar women from joining and offers to draw up the papers for him.  Whose side are you on, Amy!?

The next day, when Jessie shows up at the gym, Madigan and every guy in the gym walks out.  Only T.S. Turner stays to support Decker and Jessie.  When the guys fail to return the next day, Turner says, “Who cares?  I’m here.  Jessie’s here.  Amy’s here.”

Decker points out that everyone who left is going to want a refund on their membership fees and he’s not going to have the money to keep the gym open.  Decker will soon lose his business but at least Jessie didn’t have to spend an extra 5 or 10 minutes driving to a gym that doesn’t have a history of people being murdered in the locker rooms.

Later, when Jessie is out jogging, she’s approached by Madigan who explains that Turner has set up a “fitness test” at the gym to prove that Jessie has what it takes to be a member.  Jessie hasn’t heard anything about this and — oh no!  Is Madigan trying to trick Jessie into returning to the gym so that he and his evil friends can attack her!?  No, actually, it turns out that Turner actually did set up the fitness test but no one bothered to tell Jessie, which would seem to defeat the purpose of the whole thing.

(Amy says that Jessie left the gym before giving Turner a chance to explain his plan to her but why couldn’t he just call her and tell her?  I mean, I know this show is set in Canada but surely Jessie has a phone.  It’s not like they’re in Manitoba.)

Later, Amy takes Jessie to the gym, where Turner is waiting.  “Oh, Amy!” Turner says, “That’s a nice dress  you have on.  You got plans?”

“Dinner date,” Amy says.

“Don’t stay out too late,” Turner growls.

Anyway, the fitness test ends in a tie, which means that Jessie didn’t beat Madigan.  This is a problem because, as Madigan points out, Turner specifically said that Jessie would have to win to join the gym.  Jessie admits that “Mad Dog” Madigan is right.  Decker suggests letting the membership vote.  (Why didn’t you just do that to begin with, Decker!?)  Madigan says he wants to fight Turner without gloves.

“Now I see why they call you Mad Dog,” Turner replies before removing his jacket in slow motion and then flattening Madigan with one punch.

So, Jessie gets to join the gym, all because one man knocked out another.

“You know, Jessie,” Amy says, “I think you may have started a revolution.”

Anyway, this was a silly episode.  Jessie absolutely should have been allowed to join the gym, if she really wanted to spend her time at that ugly, foul-smelling hub of crime.  But the episode’s main message appeared to be that you can accomplish anything as long as Mr. T is around to beat up anyone standing in your way.

Episode 1.24 “Now You See It”

(Dir by Patrick Loubert, originally aired on June 20th, 1988)

Amy — and not T.S. — provides the introduction for the finale episode of season one.  “In this episode,” she tells us, “a psychic sees through a violent drug rip-off but no one is willing to listen.”

Despite not doing the intro for this episode, T.S. is still present.  At the courthouse, after Amy wins an acquittal for a shoplifter named Billy (Simon Reynolds, the stockboy from one of the other Canadian shows that I’m reviewing for Retro Television Reviews, Check It Out.). T.S. tells Billy, “Look here, little brother, if you want to change your life, meet me at Decker’s Gym.”  Is he going to try to set Billy up with Jessie?  T.S. leaves to buy the Billy a sandwich, which means that Amy is alone when she meets Emma (Gwynneth Walsh), a psychic who wants to sue the the police for firing her because they didn’t like her vision of what happened when a heroin dealer was murdered in a warehouse.

Amy agrees to sue the police — specifically Detective Thompson (A.C. Peterson) — for being rude to the psychic.  As she later tells T.S., it may seem like a small thing but it’s important to her.  “Sometimes,” T.S. replies, “it’s the small things that matter.”

Thompson agrees to apologize to Emma.  After he does so, Amy snaps, “You can stop playing the nice guy!  You’re off the hook!”  And, of course, Thompson isn’t a nice guy.  He’s the one killing the drug dealers!  T.S. figures this out when Billy tells him that he doesn’t want to deal drugs anymore because “the streets are dry” and T.S. has a series of black-and-white flashbacks to Thompson talking about the dead drug dealers.

Anyway, Thompson is captured and season one ends with an episode that attempted to cram 60 minutes worth of plot into just 30 minutes.  Overstuffed episodes were a frequent issue when it came to T and T‘s first season.

The first season can best be described as being uneven.  The show was at its best when it took advantage of Mr. T’s unique screen presence.  Though he definitely didn’t have the greatest range as an actor, Mr. T did show some comedic timing.  The show struggled whenever it didn’t focus on T.S. Turner and oddly, that happened in more than a few episodes, as if Mr. T wasn’t the main reason why anyone would be watching this show to begin with.  As a character, there was nothing particularly consistent about Amy, who was sometimes brilliant and sometimes woefully naïve.  The supporting cast was frequently underused, though Catherine Disher had a few funny moments as Sophie.  Seen today, the show is a time capsule of Canada in the late 80s and that is perhaps the main reason to watch it.

Next week: season 2 begins!

Film Review: Freddy Vs. Jason (dir. by Ronny Yu)


(This review probably contains what some people would consider to be spoilers.)

Today, as part of my continuing series reviewing the films of the Friday the 13th franchise, I take a look at Freddy Vs. Jason.

After spending 15 years in development Hell, the film Freddy Vs. Jason was finally released in 2003.  With this film, New Line Cinema brought together the stars of their two best-known horror franchises, Jason Voorhees (played here not by Kane Hodder but by Ken Kirzinger) and Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund.) 

During the time that Freddy Vs. Jason was languishing in development Hell, a huge number of potential storylines were pursued and a lot of scripts were written.  Some of those scripts are surprisingly good and one of them (the one with the enviromental message) is hilariously self-important.  Most of them are just terrible and can be found online via a google search.  The main problem was how to convincingly bring both Jason and Freddy together when the two of them essentially epitomized two radically different subsets of the slasher genre.  Especially when compared to some of the other ideas that were considered, the concept behind FreddyVs. Jason is actually pretty clever.

As the film starts, Freddy is trapped in Hell because he’s been forgotten by the teenagers of the world.  They’re no longer scared of him and, as such, they’re not having nightmares about him.  Freddy’s solution?  He tracks down Jason (also hanging out in Hell and having dreams that neatly parody his whole image of being a murderous defender of purity) and, by disguising himself as Pamela Voorhees, he convinces Jason to resurrect himself in Freddy’s old hometown.  Jason promptly starts killing teenagers and Freddy is blamed.  Soon, people are having nightmares and Freddy has his gateway back into the real world.  Unfortunately for Freddy, Jason keeps killing everyone before Freddy can get to them.  Freddy sets out to kill Jason and it all leads to one “final” battle between the two of them.

I have to admit that when I first saw Freddy Vs. Jason, I didn’t care much for it.  Of course, at that point in my life, my view of whether or not a film was good or bad was largely based on the type of night I was having when I saw it.  I saw Freddy Vs. Jason with a guy who 1) thought proper date attire was shorts, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap and 2) who apparently thought my right breast was just an armrest there for him to lean on whenever he got bored.  Bleh.  Beyond the company that I saw the film with, I was also upset that the character I most related to, Katharine Isabelle’s Gibb, was rather brutally killed off while boring old Monica Keena was allowed to survive.  My initial response to Freddy Vs. Jason was that it had to be bad film because I had a bad time while I was watching it.

However, I recently rewatched it again with my BFF Evelyn (who always dresses up and is pretty good about not feeling me up every three minutes) and I actually enjoyed Freddy Vs. Jason a bit more the second time around.  I think it also helped that, in between the two viewings, I got a chance to see all the other Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street films along with a lot of other horror films and was now able to see how scenes that seemed pointless the first time around were actually meant to comment on the history and the conventions of both the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises.  The 2nd time around, I could better appreciate the perverse parody at the center of Robert Englund’s performance as Freddy Krueger.  While the human characters are never all that interesting, the “final” battle between Jason and Freddy is genuinely exciting.  When I first saw it, I thought that the film’s final scene (with Freddy’s decapitated head winking at the camera before laughing) was incredibly stupid but now I appreciate it for what it is — a deliberately campy homage to the over the top exploitation films of the 70s and 80s. 

As opposed to the previous few films in the Friday the 13th franchise, Freddy vs. Jason was a huge box office success.  It was the first (and, come to think of it, only Friday the 13th film) that I saw in an actual theater and it actually did give me nightmares (mostly because I foolishly chose to relate to the obviously doomed Katharine Isabelle).  With that type of success, it was inevitable that there would be another film in both the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises.  Those two films, however, would not be sequels.  Instead, they would be (bleh) reboots.  We’ll take a look at the reboot of Friday 13th (and finish off this series of reviews) tomorrow.