Tag Archives: Lyndon Chubbock

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 1.8 “Burnout”

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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network!  It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

Oh no!  It’s the cops!

Episode 1.8 “Burnout”

(Dir by Lyndon Chubbuck, originally aired on April 20th, 1996)

This episode of Pacific Blue opens with a hilarious scene of Victor and Cory sneaking up on some drug dealers that they’ve spotted making a sale.  What makes it hilarious is that Victor and Cory somehow manage to do this while 1) wearing their blindingly white t-shirts and 2) riding their bikes.  There’s not much good to say about this show but there’s an undeniable amusement factor in the show’s insistence that bicycle cops don’t look massively dumb creeping up on people while on their bikes.

It turns out that the dealers aren’t selling the usual “smack,” as Cory puts it.  Instead, they’re selling steroids!  Sheila (Shannon Tweed) is upset that one of her waitresses had gotten hooked on steroids and…. wait, who?  Sheila briefly appeared in the pilot episode but she hasn’t been mentioned since and this is certainly the first time that we learn that Lt. Palermo’s girlfriend owns a restaurant.  This episode acts as if Sheila is a regular character that we all know and love.

I get the feeling this episode was meant to air earlier in the season.  Not only does Sheila return but Chris is back to being her arrogant, bitter self.  Chris was a fighter pilot until her eyesight failed, a story we hear again and again in this episode.  (She no longer has 20/20 eyesight but whenever she talks about it, she makes it sound as if she literally went blind.)  Another pilot, Greg (Peter Barton), comes to visit her and makes a few jokes about how riding a bicycle is lame.  This gives Chris a chance to defend her job and to also call out Greg for being a sexist who just wants to get laid before returning to the skies.  Chris may be right about Greg but he’s played by the totally adorable Peter Barton so really, why not?

Meanwhile, on the beach, a schizophrenic man annoys the owner of a bodega by playing his saxophone.  Fights break out,  Cory tells the saxophone man to play his instrument under the pier.  Presumably, it will be easier for him to get mugged or murdered under there.  I like that the solution when it came to the crazy homeless man was just to find somewhere else for him to be crazy and homeless.  Don’t take him to a shelter or a hook him up with mental health professionals or anything silly like that.

This show …. ugh.  I’m really hoping the first season is an outlier and the subsequent seasons will be an improvement.  The only thing worse than bicyclists are people who are cocky about being bicyclists.  For 8 episodes now, it’s been one person after another expressing shock at the whole bicycle thing.  We get it.  We understand.  The cops look stupid on their Schwinns.  But, that’s the show.  If Pacific Blue is still trying to justify its existence after eight episodes, that’s not a great sign.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 1.7 “Heatwave”

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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network!  It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, there’s a heatwave on the beach!

Episode 1.7 “Heatwave”

(Dir by Lyndon Chubbuck, originally aired on April 13th, 1996)

A heatwave has hit Santa Monica!  Everyone is sweltering and the cameras of Pacific Blue are there to record every drop of sweat.  The AC at Chris’s apartment is not working so, while she waits for it to get repaired, she moves in with TC.  What will TC’s girlfriend think of that?  Actually, she won’t think anything about that because her character disappeared after the pilot.

As I watched this episode, it occurred to me that the show’s writers really seemed to have no idea who the characters actually were.  Instead of coming across like actual human beings, every character has one personality trait that the writers insist on hammering into every scene.  Chris is always complaining about something.  Even after TC offers to let her stay at his apartment, Chris complains.  Chris complains so much that it actually becomes a bit whiny on her part.  But it’s not really Chris’s fault.  It’s the fault of the writers who obviously assumed that writing a “strong woman” meant making her act like a bitch no matter what the situation.  TC’s character trait is that he has a permanent chip on his shoulder even though every episode so far has essentially been a TC love fest.  He’s second-in-command of the bike cops.  He’s never held responsible for his mistakes.  He comes from a rich family.  Lt. Palermo praises him nonstop.  And yet TC always seems like he’s bitter about something.  And, as with Chris’s permanent bad mood, it’s just because the show’s writers didn’t bother to give him a personality beyond always acting like he has something to prove.  The episodes hints at an attraction between Chris and TC but they would really be a terrible couple.

This episode finds a radio sex therapist (Maura Peters) being stalked by Jordan Crane (Denis Forest, playing the same type of creepy psycho that he played on multiple episodes of Friday the 13th), a listener who is obsessed with her and who murders anyone who he thinks is getting too close to her.  TC has a crush on the sex therapist.  Chris dislikes the sex therapist and thinks TC is dumb because of course she does.  Chris and TC run afoul the homicide detective, Bart Browning (Barry Lynch), who is investigating the case.  Browning doesn’t have much respect for cops who ride bicycles.  Palermo, Chris, and TC go out of their way to change his mind.

So, yes, this is yet another episode where Pacific Blue tries to convince us that cops on bikes aren’t as dorky and useless as they look.  Every time Browning makes fun of them, we get a shot of the bike cops chasing a thief or investigating a lead.  The problem is that Browning does have a point.  The cops do look really silly on their bikes.  The fact that they often have to pick up and carry their bikes doesn’t help.  And listen, this is not an anti-bicycle thing.  I have a bike,  I occasionally ride it in the park.  (What I don’t do is ride it in the middle of the street.)  When you’ve got asthma like me, cycling is a good way to keep your lungs healthy.  But if I need the police, I want to see a squad car and I don’t want to have to deal with anyone wearing shorts.

While this is going on, Victor and Cory investigate a thief who hires strippers to perform in stores and bars.  While everyone is distracted, the thief robs the place.  This storyline actually did make me laugh a little.  All of the male witnesses could perfectly describe the strippers but none of them even saw the man sneaking behind the counter with a gun.  In the end, the thief is captured in an elaborate undercover sting.  Cory and Chris pretend to be the dancers while Palermo pretends to be the bartender and the thief soon discovers everyone else in the bar is a cop as well.  At least in this storyline, Chris’s bad mood had to do with being annoyed with the objectification of women as opposed to being mad because someone offered her a place to stay so she wouldn’t die of heatstroke.

Finally, Elvis discovers a lot of holes on the beach and thinks that the aliens are coming.  It turns out that a local golf course was just stealing the sand for their sand traps.  I’m glad that worked out!

As much as I’ve complained, this episode of Pacific Blue was a slight improvement over the previous few episodes, if just because the the subplots were vaguely interesting and/or amusing.  Chris and TC continue to be the weakest part of the show.  Hopefully, they’ll get some new personality traits soon.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th 1.18 “Brain Drain”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, Jack falls in love but, unfortunately, someone is stealing brains.

Episode 1.18 “Brain Drain”

(Dir by Lyndon Chubbuck, originally aired on April 25th, 1988)

Jack, Ryan, and Micki go to the Natural History Museum of Ontario to try to retrieve a trephinator, which is a device that the ancient Greeks apparently used to measure the size of people’s heads.  The belief was that the bigger head someone had, the more intelligent they were.  While at the museum, Jack runs into a former girlfriend, Dr. Viola Rhodes (Carrie Snodgress).  Jack is so happy to run into Viola that he soon seems to forget about the trephinator but instead finds himself planning their upcoming wedding.

(Just to make clear, Micki canceled her engagement so she could spend the next few years of her life tracking down cursed antiques but Jack can apparently just decide to get married out-of-the-blue without it being an issue.)

Well, Jack may have other things on his mind but that trephinator is still out there and it’s dangerous!  It has been incorporated into a chair that allows a formerly developmentally challenged man to steal the brain fluid of others and use it to increase his own intelligence.  Stewart Pangborn (Denis Forest) used to be a test subject but now he’s a scientist.  When he decides that Viola will be his next victim, Jack’s wedding plans are put in danger.

Even after watching this episode, I have no idea what a trephinator is, what it looks like, or how it was incorporated into the big bulky chair that Pangborn used to steal other people’s brain fluids.  Was the trephinator the big needle that would be forcibly inserted into the base of the skulls of Pangborn’s victims?  I don’t know but I do know that the whole point of Friday the 13th was that Chris, Jack, and Micki were searching for cursed antiques.  Overall, it’s helpful to actually be able to look at the screen and say, “Oh, there’s the antique.”

The episode had quite a few flaws, from the bulkiness of the chair to the apparent ease by which Pangborn was able to set himself up as a scientist at the museum.  (Do they not do background checks in Canada?)  The episode’s dialogue had a “It’s only first draft, we’ll think of something better later” quality to it and the performances, even from the usually reliable Denis Forest, felt subpar.  The idea of Jack meeting an ex-girlfriend and falling in love had potential but there was very little chemistry between Chris Wiggins and Carrie Snodgress.  If anything, Jack’s romance reminded the viewers of how strange it was that neither the handsome Ryan nor the beautiful Micki ever seemed to have any amorous admirers.

It was a disappointing episode this week but apparently, next week will feature Ryan joining some sort of Amish death cult.  That sounds promising!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.16 “Tattoo”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 Friday the 13th, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, a pair of tattoo needles cause trouble!

Episode 1.16 “Tattoo”

(Dir by Lyndon Chubbuck, originally aired on March 7th, 1988)

Tommy Chen (Leonard Chow) is a first generation Chinese-American who has a gambling problem.  He owes several thousand dollars to the local gangsters and his grandfather, Lum Chen (Keye Luke), is no longer willing to help cover his costs.

However, Tommy thinks that he’s found the perfect solution for his problems.  He has two cursed tattoo needles.  All he has to do is tattoo something on someone’s body.  That tattoo will come to life and, as long as the tattooed person dies, Tommy will win whatever game that he’s playing.  With a gangster demanding that he pay his debts by the end of the night, Tommy is going from gambling den to gambling den, drawing tattoos and making money.  Unfortunately, he owes so much that almost every dollar that he makes is taken away from him as soon as he receives it.

And, of course, he also has Ryan, Micki, and Jack trying to track him down as well.

I had mixed feelings about this episode.  On the one hand, the tattoo needles are a totally impractical weapon because Tommy, who is a little bit on the small side, has to find a way to get his victims to lie still and not resist while he tattoos him.  His first victim is a half-conscious woman at an Opium den and that’s at least believable.  But, by the time Tommy is tattooing a gangster, you have to wonder if there isn’t a more practical way for him to make money.

On the other hand, the sight of the tattoos coming to life and crawling (or slithering) up their victims is definitely a frightening one.  One tattoo turns into a giant spider.  Another turns into a coral snake.  One tattoo turns into a fist that bursts out of someone’s chest.  (That made me jump.)  The needles may be impractical but if you have a thing about spiders and snakes (as I do), it really won’t matter.  They’re too frightening for the viewer to spend too much time worrying about the logic of how they actually work.

Fortunately, Ryan and Jack are able to recover the needles and use them to kill the latest tattoo before it can claim a victim.  Unfortunately for Tommy, he’s playing Russian roulette at the time.  Even more unfortunately for Micki, she’s standing close enough to get splattered by blood when Tommy’s gun turns out to have a bullet in the chamber.  I have to admit that I’ve never gotten the appeal of Russian roulette.  I’ve always assumed it must be a guy thing.  Myself, I see the gun being traded back and forth and I say, “Yikes!”

Next week, a cursed electric chair falls into the hands of a dentist …. AGCK!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.10 “Tales of the Undead”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 Friday the 13th, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, Ryan learns why you never meet your heroes.

Episode 1.10 “Tales of the Undead”

(Dir by Lyndon Chubbock, originally aired on January 25th, 1988)

Comic book fan Ryan is shocked when he witnesses the murder of the owner of his favorite comic book store.  He’s even more shocked by the fact that the murderer appeared to a legendary comic book character, a robot who was created and drawn by an artist named Jay Star.

Micki is skeptical when Ryan tells her that he thinks one of his favorite comic book characters has come to life.  Despite having dealt with a cursed doll and quill that could kill someone just by being used to write that person’s name, Micki draws the line at living comic book characters.  However, Ryan does some research and discovers that a cursed comic book was indeed purchased from the store.

Seriously, think about this.  Ryan not only witnesses a murder but the murder is committed by his favorite comic book character and then he discovers that it’s all linked to the cursed antique store where Ryan just happens to work.  That’s an amazing coincidence!  Jack would probably be concerned about how all of that came to happen but, oddly enough, Jack is not in this episode.

Instead, it falls to Ryan and Micki to track down the comic book.  This leads them to the man who created the robot, Jay Star (played by special guest star Ray Waltson).  Jay Star created the robot in the 40s and became a hero to comic book readers everywhere but he feels that he wasn’t properly compensated for his services.  (This is something that happens far too often to real comic book artists as well.  Some people have definitely gotten a lot of money as a result of all the Marvel films but the families of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko have not.)  The comic book company kept the rights to his character and they refused to publish the issue in which Jay killed him off.  The company is still making money off of Jay’s work while Jay lives in obscurity as a recluse.  At the start of the episode, Jay Star does not own the cursed comic book.  However, he does manage to track it down and steal it from its current owner, Cal (David Hewlett).  Soon, Jay is transforming into the killer robot and seeking revenge on everyone who he feels has betrayed him.

This was one of the stronger episodes of Friday the 13th.  What really set this episode apart from some of the ones that came before and after was that Ryan had a personal stake in recovering the cursed item.  As he explains it to Micki, comic books were the one constant he had during his dysfunctional childhood.  He grew up admiring artists like Jay Star and dreaming of being one of them and of being a hero who could solve all of the world’s problems.  In this episode, Ryan discovers that his hero is a murderer and John D. LeMay does a very good job of playing Ryan’s disillusionment.  The episode ends on a rather sweet note, with Micki encouraging Ryan to remember Jay Star for his talent and not for his crimes.

The episode is also distinguished by Ray Waltson’s empathetic performance as Jay Star, a villain for whom you can’t help but have some sympathy.  When Jay transforms into the killer robot, the episode itself switches to comic book-style animation, which is one of those gimmicks that works far better than one might expect.  Even the robot was about as scary as a monster on a low-budget show like this could possibly be!

This was a good episode.  I hope Ryan never stopped drawing.

Horror on TV: Friday the 13th The Series 1.10 “Tales of the Undead” (dir by Lyndon Chubbock)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of Friday the 13th: The Series, Ryan is convinced that an old comic book monster has come to life and is now killing people!  Could it all be connected to a cursed pen that was sold to the creator of the comic book?  

Watch and find out!

Tonight’s special guest star is Ray Walston, who played embittered comic book creator Jay Star.  From what I’ve recently learned about how the comic book industry treats its artists and writers, I can’t really blame him for being bitter.

Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/PKfrRHQ1fY4