Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Baywatch Nights 1.12 “Thin Blood”

Posted on January 30, 2024 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch Nights, an detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on Youtube!

You guys know the drill. Thanks to the Vicodin I took earlier, I spent Tuesday in a bit of a daze. So, I’m running late with my review of Baywatch Nights. Fear not! Here it is:

Episode 1.12 “Thin Blood”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on February 10th, 1996)

Ryan’s sister has come to Los Angeles!

Charlie McBride (Laura Harring) claims that she’s just in town to see her sister but Ryan has her doubts. Charlie has always been the irresponsible member of the family and Ryan can only watch helplessly as Charlie and Mitch pursue a tentative romance. Since this is a Baywatch spin-off, that means that Charlie and Mitch spend a lot of time on jet skis. It’s not true love unless you get on the jet skis. Charlie also takes the time reveal that Ryan could have been a model and a pageant winner if she hadn’t abandoned everything to be a private eye. To that, I say, “Well, yeah. She’s Angie Harmon.”

However, it turns out that Ryan was correct. Some New York criminals are in town, searching for the money that they claim Charlie stole from them. They’re even willing to kidnap Ryan and hold her hostage until they get their money back. Once again, it’s up to Mitch and Garner to do their thing and rescue Ryan. Interestingly enough, they manage to do so pretty easily. This is one of those episodes where the bad guys are so incompetent that they are pretty much doomed from the start. David Hasselhoff may have captured them but Billy Warlock and Erika Eleniak probably could have done the job just as easily. Hell, I bet Parker Stevenson could have done it. Maybe even Kelly Ward.

Anyway, the emphasis here is on Ryan and her feelings of resentment towards her sister and her feelings for Mitch. Though it was pretty much abandoned once the show became an X-Files rip-off during the second season, the first season of Baywatch Nights really tried to play up the will they or won’t they aspect of Ryan and Mitch’s relationship. There really wasn’t much suspense about that. Angie Harmon and David Hasselhoff had a likable chemistry but it was a brother/sister type of relationship. There was nothing romantic about it, at least not in 49 of the 50 states. Ryan liked Mitch but she also knew she could do better. That was why Ryan was such a cool character.

This was a pretty forgettable episode, one that was really only interesting for a chance to see Laura Harring play the same type of role she would later play to far different effect in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. It’s late so I’m going to leave it at that. Baywatch Nights needs to hurry up and bring on the aliens and the vampires or the sea monsters!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Monsters 1.8 “Sleeping Dragons”

Posted on November 22, 2023 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire show is streaming on Tubi.

This week, the lizard are leaping!

Episode 1.8 “Sleeping Dragon”

(Dir by Mark Rezyka, originally aired on December 10th, 1988)

Outside of Reno, Nevada, a stone capsule is found. Professor Merrick (Kin Shriner) believes that the capsule is from the prehistoric era and that it might prove his theory that there was a highly-developed society on Earth before the rise of human beings. Merrick brings the capsule to a lab that is located high in the mountains.

While a snow storm rages outside, Merrick and his colleagues, Jeffrey (Russell Johnson) and Jeffrey’s daughter Lisa (Beth Toussaint), examine the capsule. Jeffrey is skeptical of Merrick’s theories while Lisa thinks that the rock could actually be some sort of time capsule that was buried centuries ago. When the three of them leave the lab to get a Geiger counter and some more tools to try to pry the capsule open, a humanoid lizard (Wayne Toth) emerges from the stone.

The Lizard is not a friendly visitor and soon, he’s attacking anyone foolish enough to get close to him. The surviving humans know that he have to find a way to stop the lizard but how do you stop something that you can’t understand? With the blizzard raging outside, no one is leaving the lab until the battle between lizard and human is resolved.

This episode of Monsters had potential but it suffered because of its short runtime. If the episode had a bit more time to emphasis the claustrophobia of the lab and to also allow a bit more suspense as the Lizard tracked down the scientists, it would have been far more effective. As it is, the whole thing felt a bit rushed.

There are two things that I did like about this episode.

First off, it’s a huge plot point that the lab’s phone is dead, which means that the scientists can’t call for help. The scientists assume that the phone is dead either because of the blizzard or because of the Lizard but, in reality, the phone isn’t dead at all. It’s just that Lisa, while stumbling around the office, accidentally unplugged the phone and no one noticed until they actually tried to make a call. That felt like a realistic mistake that one might make while under pressure and it also encouraged the viewer to question whether or not the humans were actually smart enough to survive their lizard encounter.

The second thing that worked about this episode is that lizard man really was frightening. It helped that he stayed in the shadows for most of the episode and, when he did appeared, he moved quickly enough that you really didn’t notice that he was essentially a guy in a rubber suit. He was an effective monster and, in the end, that’s what really matters when it comes to a show like this.

Next week, we’ve got another vampire story!

Vendetta (1986, directed by Bruce Logan)

Posted on May 6, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

After killing her rapist in self-defense, young and pretty Bonnie (Michelle Newkirk) is sentenced to two years in prison. It’s one of those tough women’s prisons where all of the inmates dress like they’ve just come back from shooting an 80s music video and where the prisoners only have arcade games, a Olympic-size swimming pool, and a fully stocked gym to help them pass the time. It’s so tough that, when it comes to conjugal visits, the prisoners have to settle for being driven to a nearby motel. It’s the toughest prison since Leavenworth.

Because she’s blonde and innocent-looking, Bonnie is targeted by the predatory Kay Butler (Sandy Martin). After Bonnie rejects Kay’s advances in the public shower room (while all of the other prisoners watch), Kay get her revenge by giving Bonnie a hot dose and then shoving her over a railing. Even though all the evidence indicates that Bonnie was murdered, the official cause of death is ruled to be suicide.

What no one considered was that Bonnie’s older sister, a Hollywood stuntwoman named Laurie (played by real-life stuntwoman Karen Chase), would want revenge. Determined to investigate the prison on her own, Laurie steals a judge’s car. When that same judge attempts to suspend Laurie’s sentence, Laurie attacks him in the courtroom. (Why would a judge be allowed to oversee a trial that directly involved him as a witness?) Laurie finally gets her wish and is sentenced to prison. Having now compiled the type of criminal record that will probably make her unemployable for the rest of her life, Laurie sets out to discover who is responsible for the death of her sister. Soon, Laurie is tracking down and murdering every member of Kay’s gang, all the while trying to avoid getting caught by the head guard, Miss Dice (Roberta Collins).

In many ways, Vendetta is a typical 80s women-in-prison movie. It has everything that you would expect to find in one of these movies: predatory lesbians, a victimized innocent, corrupt guards, and a gratuitous shower scene. What sets Vendetta apart from similar films is that the prison is more of a health club than a prison and, while she’s hardly the world’s greatest actress, Karen Chase looks very credible when she’s beating the other inmates to death. As a result, the fight scenes are more exciting than they usually are in a film like this and Karen Chase’s Laurie is a stronger heroine. She can hold her own against anyone who comes at her. Sandy Martin is also an effective villain and there’s actually some unexpected depth to her character. She actually gets upset when her gang start to get killed, not just because she’s losing people who are willing to do her bidding but also because she’s losing the only people that she feels close to. Thanks to Karen Chase’s fight skills and Sandy Martin’s unexpected performance, Vendetta is better the than the average 80s prison flick.