Mary Ann Gibson | Through the Shattered Lens

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 Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, Jonathan and Mark head to Broadway!

Episode 2.8 “The Smile In The Third Row”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on November 20th, 1985)

Fred Fusco (Lorne Greene) is a veteran actor who is appearing in a Broadway play. In the play, Fred plays a man who learns that he’s about to die. During the third act, Fred’s character actually does die and Fred ends the play with a monologue about owning the choices he made in his life before he ascends into Heaven (via a harness).

It’s a depressing play and the theater is usually half-empty whenever Fred performs. But one night, Fred claims that he spotted God sitting in the third row. Fred also says that God really enjoyed the show. When the news get out, the play becomes a huge success as audiences turn out to see a play endorsed by God. Fred becomes a huge celebrity and befriends a terminally ill boy who promises to say hi to God when he goes to Heaven. However, when Fred starts to talk about leaving his fortune to charity, both his sister (Mary Ann Gibson) and his nephew (David L. Lander) conspire to have him committed.

Fred also happens to be Jonathan and Mark’s later assignment. Mark gets a job at the theater while Jonathan puts on a collar and becomes Father Jonathan. While Mark is convinced that Fred is actually seeing God, Jonathan is skeptical because Jonathan doesn’t see God in the theater. Why, Jonathan asks, would God reveal himself to an actor but not an angel? There’s an interesting subtext here, as it quickly becomes obvious that Jonathan isn’t so much skeptical as he’s jealous. He even rather recklessly reveals to Fred that he’s an angel in his quest to convince Fred that he hasn’t actually seen God. Fred reveals that he’s willing to accept Jonathan’s word that he’s an angel but then asks why Jonathan is not willing to accept his word that he sees God in the theater.

Is God in the theater? At the end of the episode, Fred’s harness is broken but, at the end of the third act, he still ascends above the theater and then vanishes. The newspapers call it a hoax but the show suggests that, much like Elijah, he’s been assumed straight to Heaven. Is Fred meant to be a modern day Elijah? Would that therefore make his sister a modern-day Jezebel? Perhaps but, fortunately for her, she is never eaten by wild dogs.

As usual, there wasn’t much subtlety to be found in this episode of Highway to Heaven but it still worked surprisingly well. When Fred met the dying child, my first instinct was to roll my eyes at the obviousness of it all but those same eyes had tears in them by the time the scene was over. The episode benefitted greatly from Lorne Greene’s strong performance as Fred Fusco and Michael Landon’s strong portrayal of Jonathan’s mixed feelings about Fred’s claims. All in all, this was a strong episode.

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.

Tonight’s episode of Monsters is …. surprisingly good!

Episode 1.7 “The Legacy”

(Directed by Jeffrey Wolf, originally aired on December 3rd, 1988)

Dale (David Brisbin) is a film teacher and a writer who is hoping to make his name and reputation by writing the authoritative biography of actor Fulton Pierce. Pierce was silent film horror actor who, much like Lon Chaney Sr, was noted for his ability to physically transform himself into the monsters that he was playing. Dale not only wants to write about the events of Pierce’s life but he also wants to explain how Pierce was able to play so many different monsters.

In order to get into Pierce’s mind, Dale moves into Pierce’s former home. When Dale comes across Pierce’s old makeup box, he is convinced that he’s finally found the secret of Pierce’s success. When he opens the makeup box and looks at the mirror within, he seems not his face but instead the face of some of Pierce’s most fearsome characters, including a disfigured monster and a cackling mad scientist.

For the record, the mirror apparitions are inspired by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Thomas Edison’s Frankenstein, Phantom of the Opera, and maybe London after Midnight.

Dale’s girlfriend, a model named Debbie (Lara Harris), fears that Dale is wasting his time on a book that no one is going to care about. When she drops by the house and discovers that Dale hasn’t even been able to come up with an opening line for his masterpiece, she gives him an ultimatum. He can either spend the rest of his life trying to write his book or he can marry her but she’s not going to wait forever. She tells him to “Make up your mind!” Dale latches onto the phrase “Make up your mind!,” shouting that he now knows how Fulton Pierce pulled off his amazing transformations.

I was pretty much wearing the same outfit when I watched this episode.

At first Debbie thinks that she has made a real break-through with Dale but later, that night, she wakes up to find Dale standing in front of a mirror and staggering around like one of Fulton Pierce’s monsters. She also discovers that the first chapter of the book is just the phrase Make Up Your Mind written over and over again. Has Dale’s obsession led him to madness or has he truly been possessed by the spirit of Fulton Pierce?

Someone’s losing it.

This episode of Monsters was based on a short story by Robert Bloch and certainly, the plot is more intriguing than any of the stories that preceded it. How exactly does an actor become a character and, more importantly, can you play a monster without becoming one yourself? Can one enter the mind of a madman without becoming mad themselves? (One wonders if Bloch, who was reportedly very much a no-nonsense personality, was satirizing the excesses of method acting.) Though the episode is only 21 minutes long, the story doesn’t feel rushed and the deliberate pace helps to create a properly ominous atmosphere. Add in two strong performances from David Brisbin and Lara Harris and you have the best episode of Monsters so far.