Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.19 “Sniper”

Posted on September 3, 2026 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, the first season of Hunter comes to a close.

Episode 1.19 “Sniper”

(Dir by James Whitmore, Jr., originally aired on May 18th, 1985)

Someone is using a sniper rifle to target blonde women who visit a national park. Hunter suspects that the sniper might have Army training, and he focuses his investigation on a nearby military base. Hunter’s instincts are correct. Early on, we’re shown that the sniper is Sgt. Dennis Balzer (Jack Starrett, the actor/director who also played the abusive cop who fell out of the helicopter in First Blood). Years ago, Balzer’s heart was broken by a blonde woman, and now he’s seeking revenge by killing every blonde he sees. It’s always odd to me how Hunter, a show about a detective, never seemed to try to generate any suspense as to who was going to turn out to be guilty. Instead, we usually learn the killer’s identity before Hunter does.

Meanwhile, Hunter also has to deal with something even scarier than a sniper: he’s being audited by the IRS. James Cromwell appears as the IRS agent, who eventually ends up auditing the entire department.

Since its very first episode, Hunter has been a violent show. Both Hunter and McCall have been portrayed as shoot-first, ask-questions-later types of cops, though Hunter does seem to be a much better shot than McCall. This episode was even more violent than usual, and the mix of innocent people getting shot in the head with comedic scenes about tax evasion sometimes felt a bit awkward. That said, who doesn’t hate the IRS? (Anyone who enjoys paying taxes is a commie sap.) I was glad to see that Hunter had the same attitude.

This episode brings the first season of Hunter to a close. Looking over the first season, it can be argued that more than a few of the episodes featured stories that felt a bit generic. The idea of Hunter being the son of a mobster was abandoned early on. And while the violence was undoubtedly part of the show’s appeal, it still feels strange that Hunter can kill so many people every week without getting into any trouble over it. What made this season work was the chemistry between Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer. Fred Dryer may not have been the greatest actor in the world, but he had an engaging smile, he could deliver a one-liner, and the showrunners obviously understood that the sight of the very tall Dryer crammed into a broken-down car would more than make up for what he may have lacked in range. As for Stepfanie Kramer, the first season showed that she could hold her own in the action scenes, and her banter with Dryer was usually the highlight of each episode. That was certainly the case here.

Next week, we start the second season!

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 4.22 “Hard Knocks/Lady Godiva”

Posted on April 23, 2024 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984. Almost the entire show is currently streaming on Daily Motion.

Welcome to Fantasy Island, where Mr. Roarke does whatever he wants.

Episode 4.22 “Hard Knocks/Lady Godiva”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on May 9th, 1981)

Sheila Godfrey (Michelle Phillips) comes to Fantasy Island with a simple fantasy, one that Mr. Roarke manages to totally screw up.

Sheila grew up in Montana and loves horses. Because she was often ill while she was growing up, she was often not allowed to ride as much as she would have liked. Now, she wants to be the world’s most famous female equestrian. To me, this seems like a pretty simple and straight-forward request. Sheila is asking to be famous for riding a horse.

Roarke, however, decides that Sheila’s fantasy is that she wants to be the most famous female equestrian in history. And, in Roarke’s opinion, that means that Sheila wants to be Lady Godiva. Now, setting aside the idea that Mr. Roarke is suddenly such a stickler for detail that he’s forcing Sheila to go with a literal translation of her fantasy (which is something that no other guest has ever had to deal with), is Lady Godiva truly the most famous female equestrian ever? Katharine Hepburn used to ride horses. Belle Starr used to ride horses. Joan of Arc rode a horse on occasion. What about Annie Oakley?

But let’s accept that Sheila’s fantasy is to become Lady Godiva. Roarke doesn’t even do that! Instead, he gives her a magic horse named Lancelot, which Sheila rides into medieval England. And, in the past, Lancelot turns into a donkey and Sheila is promptly arrested for poaching on a nobleman’s land. Sheila ends up a servant to Lady Godiva (Gunilla Hutton), who is being imprisoned in her own castle for criticizing the taxes that her husband, Leo (Ken Berry, who is very much not British), has placed on the people living on his land. When Leo says that he’ll release his wife and lower the taxes but only if she’ll agree to humiliate herself by riding her horse naked, Godiva agrees. However, before the ride, she is given a magic potion that knocks her out.

It falls to Sheila to disguise herself as Godiva and take the famous ride. The servants respect her decision and turn their back as she rides by on a horse. Well, one guy does take a look and gets yelled at as a result. “You’ll always be known as Peeping Tom!”

Sheila returns to the present and is somehow not upset about the fact that she really didn’t get her fantasy. (Not only did she not get the fantasy she asked for but she didn’t even get the fantasy that Roarke claimed she was asking for. I mean, even if we accept that Sheila’s fantasy was to be Lady Godiva, that didn’t happen. Instead, she became a servant who pretended to be Lady Godiva.) Roarke agrees to send her Lancelot and also informs her that handsome Sir John Apensdale (Patrick Wayne), who Sheila fell in love with while in the past, was actually a Montana rancher who was having a fantasy of his own. And he’ll be happy to teach Sheila how to ride!

Meanwhile, Steve Pryor (Philip Levian) comes to the Island with the fantasy of being a hard-boiled detective. Roarke gives Steve his fantasy and even provides him with a mentor to offer him advice. Who is that mentor? The ghost of Humphrey Bogart (played by Robert Sacchi)! Only Steve can see Bogart, which leads to a lot of scenes of people wondering why Steve is talking to himself.

The case involves delivering a package, picking up a key to a safety deposit box, and dealing with a femme fatale (Martha Smith). It’s a pretty simple case, to be honest. But at least Steve gets to hang out with Bogart. And, to give credit where credit is due, Robert Sacchi’s Bogart impersonation was spot-on.

This episode was silly enough to be likable. That said, I do think Sheila could probably sue Mr. Roarke for not actually granting her fantasy. Seriously, I wonder how many lawyers Mr. Roarke kept on retainer.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Garden of the Dead (dir by John Hayes)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1972 film, Garden of the Dead, takes place in a prison camp that sits out in the middle of what appears to the bayous. The prisoners spend their days working on the chain gang, breaking rocks and cleaning highways. The tough-as-nails guards spend their days watching the prisoners and carrying around their rifles. This is the type of prison camp where the prisoners are all talkative and boastful and the guards all wear sunglasses and every day is just like the next.

A group of prisoners are trying to brighten things up on the chain gang by using some experimental formaldehyde to get high. I’m sure that won’t lead to any complications! When the prisoners later try to escape from the prison camp, they’re quickly captured by the guards who proceed to violate all sorts of laws by gunning the prisoners down and then ordering the other prisoners to bury the dead bodies in the prison camp’s garden.

That night, the dead prisoners come back to life as zombies. Does this happen because they were getting high off of the formaldehyde or is it because the chemicals themselves were leaked into the garden? The film doesn’t make it particularly clear but it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that they’re now zombies. You really don’t need a whole lot of explanations when it comes to zombies. The dead prisoners are still obsessed with getting high and they start to kill everyone in the camp as a part of their effort to get their precious formaldehyde.

I’ll just admit right now that I absolutely love Garden of the Dead. Some of that is because Garden of the Dead is a very short movie, clocking in at barely an hour’s running time. It was a film that was obviously designed to be the second half of a double feature but no matter! That short running time means that there’s no need for extra padding and the action move quickly. The film ends before the viewer gets bored with the somewhat repetitive zombie action. Seriously, we need to normalize 50 minute films.

Another thing that I love about Garden of the Dead is that it is full of foggy bayou atmosphere. The film itself was obviously shot on a very low budget and on very cheap film but the grainy images actually contribute to the film’s nightmarish feeling. The film captures the feeling of being isolated in the middle of nowhere. One reason why the zombies in this film are frightening is because there’s literally nowhere safe to hide from them. Even if you can get out of the prison camp, you’ll still have to brave the wilderness that surrounds it.

Finally, I liked that the zombies in Garden of the Dead were smarter than the average zombies. Instead of just stumbling around and trying to eat every living thing that they met, these zombies worked together to get what they wanted. I especially liked the spazzy zombie who was always running around the prison camp and jumping and yelling at everyone. These are zombies who clearly enjoy being zombies and it makes Garden of the Dead all the more effective.

Garden of the Dead is a grindhouse gem!