Tag Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 4.9 “Crash Course”

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

A recently released thief and a bank error are no match for the smiley charisma of Erik Estrada!

Episode 4.9 “Crash Course”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on January 4th, 1981)

Former getaway driver Sonny Matson (Don Stroud) has just been released from prison and he’s fallen back into his old habits.  Everyday, he steals a different car and then robs a different business.  His crimes are getting progressively more bold and Baker is determined to catch him.

Meanwhile, Ponch notices that he has an extra $4,000 in his bank account.  Trying to do the right thing, Ponch reports the discrepancy.  The bank accidentally drains all the money from his account.  With his checks bouncing all over town, Ponch tries to get the bank fix their error.  Good luck with that, Ponch!  Luckily, when one of Sonny’s associates tries to rob the bank, it gives Ponch a chance to play the hero….

It’s The Ponch Show!  Baker may be the one with a personal stake in capturing Sonny but Ponch is the one with big grin and the majority of this episode’s screentime.  Whether he’s thwarting a bank robbery or recruiting all of his co-workers to help him find proof of the bank’s error, Ponch dominates.  Poor Baker.

The best thing about this episode was Don Stroud’s performance as Sonny Matson.  Stroud played a lot of low-level criminals over the course of his career.  With his quick but unfriendly smile, his paranoid eyes, and his cocky attitude, Stroud is actually rather intimidating as Sonny.  Whenever Stroud is onscreen, CHiPs actually feels a little bit dangerous!  That this episode was memorable was largely due to Don Stroud and the hideous 70s decor of Ponch’s bank.  Tacky and dangerous, that’s our CHiPs!

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.16 “Honor Among Thieves”

Posted on 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, a man kills for his dolls.

Episode 4.16 “Honor Among Thieves?”

(Dir by Jim Johnston, originally aired on March 4th, 1988)

A serial killer named Paul Delgado (John Bowman and no, we’re not related as far as I know) is killing girls in Miami.  He believes that he’s being ordered to kill by his collection of dolls and, when he’s speaking as a doll, he uses a high-pitched voice.  He picks women up at carnivals or on the beach and he kills them by injecting them with 100% pure cocaine.  He poses their bodies with a doll beside them.

Because of the cocaine connection, homicide detective Jarrell (Dylan Baker) approaches Castillo.  Castillo explains that his best men are working deep undercover, trying to take down a drug lord named Palmo (Ramy Zada).  That’s right, this is yet another episode where Crockett pretends to be Burnett and Tubbs pretends to be Cooper and somehow, they’re able to get away with it despite the fact that their cover has been blown in almost every previous episode.

Delgado works for Palmo and things get even more complicated when it turns out that Delgado is Crockett and Tubbs’s connection inside Palmo’s operation.  When Palmo discovers that Delgado is the killer, he puts Delgado on trial.  The jury is made up of other drug dealers.  Since Crockett is pretending to be a lawyer, he’s assigned to serve as Delgado’s defense counsel.  Palmo tells Crockett that, unless he’s acquitted by the drug dealer jury, he’ll reveal that Crockett and Tubbs are working undercover….

This was a weird episode,  It didn’t really work because Delgado was a bit too cartoonish to be taken seriously.  Perhaps if the show had just made him a serial killer who killed women with cocaine, it would have worked.  But the show had to go the extra step and have him talk to his dolls in a high-pitched voice.  As well, this was yet another episode where we were forced to wonder if people in the Miami underworld just don’t communicate with each other.  After all the drug lords that have been busted by Crockett and Tubbs, you would think that word would eventually get out about “Burnett” and “Cooper.”  I mean, their cover gets blown in nearly every episode.  Frank Zappa put a bounty on Crockett’s head in season 2!  And yet somehow, Crockett and Tubbs are still able to walk into a drug lord’s mansion, introduce themselves as Burnett and Cooper, and not automatically get shot.

There were some definite problems with this episode but it was weird enough to at least hold one’s attention.  As opposed to the episodes with the aliens and the bull semen, this episode didn’t seem like it was trying too hard to be weird.  Instead, it just was genuinely weird.  It was watchable and, as far as the fourth season of Miami Vice is concerned, that definitely counts as an accomplishment.

Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us for Escape From New York!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasionally Mastodon.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We snark our way through it.

Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 1981’s Escape From New York.

If you want to join this watch party, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Escape From New York on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!

Enjoy!

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special 1989 Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, we pay tribute to the year 1989!  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 1989 Films

The Church (1989, dir by Michele Soavi, DP: Renato Tafuri)

Batman (1989, dir by Tim Burton, DP: Roger Pratt)

Cyborg (1989, dir by Albert Pyun, DP: Philip Alan Waters)

Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989, dir by Uli Edel, DP: Stefan Czapsky)

Music Video of the Day: Natural One by The Folk Implosion (1995, dir by Michael and David Udris and Larry Clark)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This song was written for the soundtrack of the 1995 film, Kids, and the video if made up of scenes from the Larry Clark-directed film (along with another story about space exploration).  Oddly enough, the song itself doesn’t actually appear in the film.

Enjoy!

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Robert De Niro Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to actor Robert De Niro.  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Robert De Niro Films

Taxi Driver (1976, dir. Martin Scorsese, DP: Michael Chapman)

The King of Comedy (1982, dir by Martin Scorsese, DP; Fred Schuler)

Once Upon A Time In America (1984, dir by Sergio Leone, DP: Tonino Delli Colli)

Casino (1995, dir by Martin Scorsese, DP: Robert Richardson)

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Good Morning, Miss Bliss 1.5 “Parents and Teachers”

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 Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which ran on the Disney Channel from 1988 to 1989 before then moving to NBC and being renamed Saved By The Bell.  The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

This week, Miss Bliss almost becomes Zach’s stepmother.

Episode 1.5 “Parents and Teachers”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on December 28th, 1988)

It’s parent-teacher week!  Lisa worries that her parents are going to find out that she wears makeup to school.  Miss Bliss promises not to tell them.  Mr. Belding worries that the parents are going to start telling principal jokes so, when he hears a few, he apparently tells a ribald joke about Gumby.  (We don’t get the full details.  Milo says that it involved a side of Pokey that he’d rather not think about …. GOOD GOD, WHAT THE HELL DID BELDING SAY!?)

Miss Bliss is shocked when one of the parents turns out to be Peter (Robert Pine, the sergeant from CHiPs and Chris’s father), a charming man that she met during a singles retreat.  It turns out that Peter is Zach’s father….

Wait, what?  Anyone who has ever watched Saved By The Bell knows that Zach’s parents are not divorced and that his father is Derek Morris, a bearded computer salesman who played baseball in college and who grounded Zach for drinking too much at a senior party.  Who the Hell is this Peter Morris character?  I guess, when Zach moved to California, he got a new father as well.  Maybe Derek Morris was actually his stepfather and the whole reason he moved to California was because his mother remarried.  But why would he bring Lisa. Screech, and Belding with him?

I don’t know.   It’s questions like this that haunt me about the Miss Bliss episodes of Saved By The Bell.  Maybe I’m overthinking this.  Afterall, the only reason why the Good Morning Miss Bliss episodes are considered canon is because they were later added to the Saved By The Bell syndication package with newly shot scenes of Zach saying, “I remember when I was in junior high….”  Really, the simplest answer to all of my questions is that the producers of Saved By The Bell just didn’t care.  They didn’t care about continuity or anything else.  In those pre-Internet days, they thought they could get away with forcing the Miss Bliss episodes into the SBTB universe.  That’s the solution that makes the most sense but I’m a continuity person.  This is going to bother me for the rest of my life, I can tell already.

Anyway, Zach is not happy that Miss Bliss is dating his father.  Quite frankly, I’m not happy about it either.  As a condescending know-it-all, Miss Bliss is already annoying enough without having an active social life.  Fortunately, the relationship doesn’t last.  Zach skips school and, when Miss Bliss catches him, she realizes that it’s simply unethical to date the father of one of her students.

“What if I send Zach to Switzerland?” Peter asks.

Gee, Peter, what if we call Child Protective Services on your ass?  How would you like that?  Seriously, the main message of this episode seems to be that Zach has a terrible father and Miss Bliss has terrible judgment.

Zach is really lucky he got out of Indiana.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 8/10/25 — 8/16/25

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Big Brother 27 (CBS, Parmounht+, Pluto TV, 24/7)

With my aunt in the hospital this week, Big Brother didn’t really interest me that much.  I wrote about it over at the Big Brother Blog but there’s a part of me that no longer cares about shows like this.  All of the fake drama and all of the crocodile tears don’t add up to much when you’re dealing with real drama and shedding real tears.

The Simpsons (Disney+)

Jeff and I watched a few episodes this week, out of the hope that they might cheer me up and give me a break from worrying.  And they did.  I enjoyed the episode with Mr, Burns’s son.  I enjoyed the episode with Poochie.  There was also an episode in which Homer enrolled in clown college.  That made me smile.