Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.13 “Eye of Death”

Posted on October 11, 2024 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, Ryan goes into the past.

Episode 2.13 “Eye of the Death”

(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on January 30th, 1989)

Atticus Rook (Tom McCamus) is an antiques dealer, one who is well-known to Jack. No one seems to really like or trust Atticus Rook. Everything about him seems to scream sleaze. But Atticus has somehow managed to get artifacts from the American Civil War that no one else has ever been able to find. His latest claim is that he will soon be selling Robert E. Lee’s sword.

How is Atticus accomplishing this? He has a cursed magic lantern that he uses to project old pictures onto his wall. He’s then able to step into the picture and enter the time period in which it was taken. (Hey, that sounds like a fun cursed object to own!) Atticus has been going into the past and telling Gen. Lee (Bernard Behrens) that he’s a spy. However, the information that he gives Lee is just stuff that he remembers from history class. Atticus thinks that he’s got a pretty good operation going but there are two catches. To go to the past, he has to kill someone in the present. To return to the present, he has to kill someone in the past.

Naturally, Ryan ends up in the past while trying to retrieve the magic lantern. Ryan meets General Lee and tries to present himself as also being a spy but it turns out that Ryan paid even less attention in history class than Atticus did. Ryan being Ryan, he also falls in love with a widow named Abigail (Brooke Johnson). As we all know, having Ryan fall in love with you is pretty much a death sentence on Friday the 13th. Abigail’s death does allow Ryan, Jack, and Micki to return to the present. Moving the lantern allows Atticus to get trapped in his own wall, where he suffocates while trying to return to the present.

This was a surprisingly good episode. I say “surprisingly” because you wouldn’t necessarily think that a low-budget Canadian show would do a great job of recreating the American Civil War but this episode pulls it off. The costumes, the sets, the words used by the people encountered by Ryan and Atticus, all of them work to make the episode’s Civil War setting feel very realistic. Tom McCamus is a great villain and Bernard Behrens is well-cast as Robert E. Lee. Even the obviously doomed romance between Ryan and Abigail works remarkably well.

I have to admit that I’ve always assumed this show took place in Canada, largely because of all of the Canadian accents and the Canadian scenery. This episode reveals that Friday the 13th is supposed to be taking place in the United States, despite the way that people pronounce the word “sorry.” When Ryan ends up in the Civil War, he says that he’s from Chicago. (It’s not necessarily a good idea to go back to the Civil War era and immediatly tell everyone that you’re a Yankee.)

Well, this show can pretend that the antique store is in Chicago if it wants to, but it’ll always be Toronto to me.

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.16 “TV Turner”

Posted on September 27, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to 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 T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, a documentary crew proclaims T.S. Turner to be the West’s greatest crime fighter.

Episode 3.16 “TV Turner”

(Dir by Patrick Loubert, originally aired on April 21st, 1990)

A Japanese television crew shows up at the Canadian police station and tells Detective Hargrove that they asked a computer for the name of the greatest crime fighter in North America. The computer replied with “T.S. Turner,” so they have traveled to Canada to interview Turner. The only catch is that they have no idea where Turner is and they don’t know anything about him.

Meanwhile, Turner is preparing to leave for his interview with the Japanese documentary team when …. wait a minute, I thought they didn’t know where to find Turner. I thought they hadn’t even called Turner before arriving in Canada. So, why is Turner getting ready to leave for his interview? This is a confusing episode.

Anyway, an old friend of Turner’s asks him to help her track down her missing husband, who lost his job after he was framed for a theft at work. Turner blows off the interview to search for him. This means that the film crew instead interviews Hargrove and then Terri about Turner. The film crew is disappointed to learn that Turner does not drink and he’s not a womanizer. A random criminal (Phillip Jarrett) gives an interview about the time he was arrested by Turner but it turns out that he’s thinking of a different Turner.

Finally, Turner shows up at the station. However, before he can do the interview, Terri’s latest client (Angelo RIzacos) grabs a gun and threatens to shoot his way to freedom. By an amazing coincidence, it turns out that the client is also the missing husband! Turner convinces the man to put down the gun by explaining that everyone now knows that he was framed for the theft.

(That said, the guy is still looking at serious jail time. He threatened to shoot up a police station!)

The film crew decides not to interview Turner because he’s not exciting enough. The end.

Weird episode. I was expecting it to be a clip show but instead, it was just people talking about how Turner didn’t drink, have sex, or fight any supervillains. I guess the idea was to show that Turner was a good man and that’s what made him a hero. That’s a nice message but it also leads to Turner losing his chance to be the subject of a documentary. Turner’s just too good for the world, I guess.

Let’s give some credit where credit is due. After sleepwalking through most of season 3, Mr. T actually seemed to be invested in this episode and the scene where he talked the guy into putting down his gun was very nicely done and acted. As an actor, Mr. T had zero range but he could be likably earnest and that’s certainly the case here.

Anyway, this was an odd episode, even by T and T standards. There’s only five more to go!

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.2 “Hargrove’s Call”

Posted on March 29, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, T.S. investigates a shooting involving a retired police officer. I wonder what Amy would think of all this.

Episode 3.2 “Hargrove’s Call”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on January 13th, 1990)

Bitter, retired cop E.V. Richter (J. Winston Carroll) lives alone, in a house that sits in a neighborhood that has seen better days. He spends his days drinking and his nights fighting with the teenagers who live in the neighborhood. One night, the teens are setting off firecrackers in an alley behind Richter’s house. When Richter yells at them, one of the teens starts to approach his house with a firecracker. Richter shoots him and then tries to plant a gun on the body. However, by the time the police arrive, the gun has disappeared.

The wounded teen’s mother recruits Terri and Turner to prove that her son wasn’t carrying a gun when he was shot. While Turner investigates and tries to discover what happened to the gun, Detective Dick Hargrove (David Hemblen) most deal with his own suspicion that his former colleague is not being honest about what happened.

This was an interesting episode, in that Richter was definitely the bad guy but he also had a legitimate reason to be upset. Setting off firecrackers behind someone’s house is pretty obnoxious and responding to homeowner’s complaint by trying to toss a firecracker at him is …. well, actually, it’s kind of illegal. At least, it is down here. Maybe it’s different up in Canada. Maybe in Canada, they settle disagreements with firecrackers all the time, I don’t know. That said, when Richter tries to plant the gun, he reveals that he’s gone over the edge and it becomes apparent that if he hadn’t shot the kid over the firecrackers, he would have shot him over something else. T and T will never be known as a nuanced or particularly thoughtful show but at least this episode tried to do something more than just follow the standard “Mr. T growls and beats people up” plot.

That said, I still find it weird and distracting that everyone on the show acts as if Terri has always lived in the neighborhood and has always been some sort of crusader. Two episodes into season three and there’s still been no mention of what happened to Amy or why Terri is now suddenly the one in charge. Are we meant to assume that Terri was always around but not just seen during the first two seasons? Or did something happen to Amy that required Terri to move to Toronto or wherever this show is supposed to take place? The lack of even the most rudimentary of explanations feels weird and distracting. Obviously, T and T was never a stickler for continuity but having a major character just vanish without explanation is a big deal. Shouldn’t Turner be out looking for Amy or something?

Maybe that’ll happen next week. We’ll see!

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.1 “Cracked”

Posted on March 22, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the final season of T and T begins with some changes!

Episode 3.1 “Cracked”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on January 6th, 1990)

The first episode of the third season begins with all new opening credits. We no longer hear about T.S. Turner’s backstory. I guess it no longer matters that Turner was framed for a murder that he didn’t commit and that crusading lawyer Amy Taler got him out and put him in a suit and tie to work as a private investigator.

That’s not all though. Amy herself is no longer listed in the opening credits. Instead, there’s a new T in T & T. Kristina Nicoll joins the cast as “Terri Taler.” Judging by her last name, it’s easy to guess that she is meant to be Amy’s sister. Of course, if the credits didn’t specifically tell you that Terri’s last name is Taler, you wouldn’t have the slightest idea who she was. This episode begins with Terri already well-established as a neighborhood activist and as Turner’s partner. Amy is not even mentioned. It’s as if she just vanished and suddenly, there was Terri.

I have to admit that really bothered me. It’s true that Amy didn’t get to do much during the second season and I can understand why Alex Amini might have wanted to do other things than just stand in the background while Mr. T growled. But Amy was still technically the co-lead and it just feel wrong to not even have someone say, “Hey, what happened to Amy?”

(Joe Casper is also gone without explanation but Joe was never that important of a character to begin with.)

As for the episode itself, the neighborhood is sick of being home to a crack house. While Terri encourages everyone to protest in front of the house and to take pictures of anyone going inside (which sounds like a good way to get some people killed, to be honest), T.S. tracks down the owner of the house and demands that he work with the police to get the crack dealers out of there. T.S even goes undercover as a drug dealer so that he can get into the house himself….

Seriously, in what world, could Mr. T ever go undercover? I mean, even in-universe, it’s established that T.S. is one of the people protesting the crack house. How are the dealers not going to recognize T.S. Turner? And before anyone says it’s because they’re smoking crack, let me just say that I have some doubts as to whether or not they actually were using that house as a crack house. Seriously, it was the neatest and cleanest crack house that I’ve ever seen.

(Not that I’ve seen many crack houses, mind you. I once lived across the street from someone who stole copper wiring for a living and his house was a mess so I assume a crack house would be even worse.)

Eh. The third and final season is not off to a great start, you all. Hopefully, next week, we’ll get an explanation as to why there’s now a different T in T and T.

Film Review: The Secret Life of Pets (dir by Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney)

Posted on July 26, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you own a pet, then you know the experience of wondering what they do all day while your away from the house. My sister Erin and I own a black cat named Doc. When I leave the house in the morning, he’s usually sleeping on the couch. When I come back home 8 hours later, he’s usually still there.

“Doc,” I’ll say, “didn’t you do anything while I was gone!?”

“Meh,” Doc will reply, before getting up, stretching, and then hopping off the couch. He’ll then lead me into the kitchen and demand that I feed him. Once he’s been fed, he’ll hop back up on the couch, curl up, and wait for Erin to come home.

Now, personally, I think that’s all an act. There’s no way that any living creature could spend 8 hours doing nothing. My theory is that Doc spends the day patrolling the house, taunting the dogs next door, and watching old movies on TCM. But, until I learn to speak his language (because he has shown next to no interest in learning how to speak English), I will never be able to talk about classic Hollywood filmmaking with him. And that’s a tragedy.

The new animated film, The Secret Life of Pets, shows us what pets do when their owners aren’t around. (Or, at the very least, it shows what a small group of animals in Manhattan do.) Some pets party. Some hunt. A lost guinea pig named Norman (voiced by the film’s director,Chris Renaud) wanders through the heating ducts and tries to find his way home. Chloe (voiced by Lake Bell), a Tabby cat, lays about her apartment and talks about how apathetic she is.

Meanwhile, a terrier named Max (Louis C.K.) spends all of his time eagerly waiting for his owner, Katie (Ellie Kemper), to come home. Max is very proud of the fact that he and Katie are best friends. His life revolves around her, so you can imagine his surprise when Katie comes home with a new dog. Duke (Eric Stonestreet) is a gigantic and shaggy mongrel. Even though Katie says that Duke is now a part of the family, Max takes an immediate dislike to him. When Duke’s attempts to be friendly are ignored, he responds by turning into a bully.

(In Duke’s defense, he has just gotten out of the pound. Before he was captured, he was owned by a kindly old man but, one day, Duke got out of the house and got lost. When you consider what Duke has suffered, you can’t help but feel that he has the right to be a little bit grouchy.)

After Max and Duke both get lost while being taken for a walk, Max decides to help Duke get back to his old home. Meanwhile, under the leadership of Gidget (Jenny Slate), a Pomeranian who has a crush on Max, all of the other pets try to track down their friend and help him return home before he’s captured by animal control.

And, then there’s the revolutionaries. Living in the sewers, a group of former pets are plotting to overthrow their former owners. They are being led by a bunny named Snowball, who is not only a sociopath but also sounds exactly like Kevin Hart.

Anyway, The Secret Life of Pets is a cute film. It never quite escapes the shadow of Toy Story 3 (which it frequently resembles) but it’s genuinely sweet and Louis C.K. does such a good job voicing Max that even a cat person like me couldn’t help but fall in love with that neurotic little dog. There are a few jokes that don’t quite work (To cite just one example, the film introduces a hawk voiced by Albert Brooks and then fails to really do anything with the character) but you really can’t go wrong with talking animals. The Secret Life of Pets is a cute little crowd pleaser. It might not make you think in the way that a great Pixar film can make you think but it will definitely make you laugh and leave you feeling good.

It might make you cry, too! There’s a montage of various owners coming home and being greeted by their pets and it caused my mismatched eyes to tear up because it was just so sweet!

I think I’m going to go give Doc a hug now…