Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 4.15 “Family Feud”

Posted on October 16, 2026 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 Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Daily Motion.

This week, Bobby Caldwell returns.

Episode 4.15 “Family Feud”

(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on January 29th, 1986)

After being gone for the last few episodes, Bobby Caldwell (Mark Harmon) returns to St. Eligius. As he explains it, he’s spent the last month or so with his family in Baltimore. He worked on his family’s farm and got in touch with what actually matters in life. Westphall is so happy to hear this that he immediately starts talking about the time he spent volunteering in Ethiopia.

Caldwell is ready to get his facial scar taken care of. He meets with an old colleague from medical school, Dr. Duncan Harper (Kip Gilman). Harper says that the operation should be simple and quick and then Caldwell will be ready to hit the bars again. As a precaution, Caldwell gives blood, just in case it’s needed during the surgery.

Later, a shaken Harper comes to St. Eligius and meets privately with Caldwell. Harper says that the lab did some standard tests on Caldwell’s blood and that it appears that Caldwell might have AIDS. Caldwell says there has to be some sort of mistake, but Harper shakes his head. Harper retested the blood himself. He asks if Caldwell has any lesions. Caldwell looks down at a spot on his hand and says, “I thought it was just an infection.”

Caldwell tells Westphall about his diagnosis. Westphall tells Caldwell not to give up hope, that a cure might be right around the corner. Caldwell replies that he’s probably got 15 months to live and he’s not going to stop working. After Caldwell leaves, Westphall meets with Auschlander and they both agree that they have no idea what to do.

Meanwhile, it’s Jack Morrison’s birthday! Clancy arranges for him to have a birthday party in the doctor’s lounge. She also continues to flirt with Fiscus. You might expect Morrison to be upset about that, but Morrison is too busy flirting with Mona, Fiscus’s ex! Yeah, we’ll see how that works out….

Finally, Augusta Endicott previously told Dr. Craig that she didn’t want to have a bypass, even if it meant that she would die otherwise. However, when the entire Endicott family comes to visit her, she changes her mind. (During the operation, Dr. Wade comments that Dr. Craig must really be looking forward to the next Endicott presidential campaign. Craig snorts and says that the Endicotts are a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals and he wouldn’t vote for them in a million years. I love Dr. Craig.) Sen. Gordon Endicott (Charles Cioffi) goes to the chapel to pray and ends up getting shot by a lone gunman.

Gee, who saw that coming?

The Endicotts continue to bore me. They’re just not that interesting as either characters or as thinly-veiled stand-ins for the Kennedy family. On the other hand, Bobby Caldwell’s storyline was powerful and Mark Harmon gave an especially good performance. (I just wish the show had made it clear that AIDS wasn’t meant to be some sort of narrative punishment for Caldwell’s previous bad behavior.) It will be interesting to see how the hospital deals with Caldwell’s diagnosis. Will he actually be allowed to continue to do his job? We’ll find out next week.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 4.14 “Family Ties”

Posted on October 9, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the matriarch of a powerful Massachusetts political family comes to St. Eligius.

Episode 4.14 “Family Ties”

(Dir by Allan Arkush, originally aired on January 22nd, 1986)

After Elliot makes a clerical error that leads to one of his patients getting a mohawk, he’s more than happy to be assigned to check on a sick gorilla. Elliot not only diagnoses the gorilla as suffering from a brain tumor (luckily, it’s not malignant) but also gets a date with the animal’s keeper, Dr. Valerie Harding (Diana Canova).

When Fiscus freaks out about getting older, he tries to push up his wedding date with Mona and pressures her to abandon her career to start a family immediately. After Fiscus interrupts an operation to argue with her, Mona dumps him. (“I told you he was a bubblehead,” Dr. Craig says.) When Fiscus learns that his sperm has been used in an IVF procedure, he becomes obsessed with tracking down the woman who might be having his child. He then runs into Morrison’s ex-girlfriend, Clancy (Helen Hunt), and is soon flirting with her.

Why is Clancy back at the hospital? Morrison slipped on a wet floor and injured his knee. He has to have surgery. Clancy comes up with Morrison’s little-seen son, Pete. Pete, for his part, wanders over to Ken Valere (George Deloy), who, along with his wife (Deborah May), has been having second thoughts about whether to use a surrogate. Meeting Pete inspires the Valeres to adopt. So I guess that plotline is finally over, and I won’t have to ignore it anymore.

The majority of this episode is taken up with the arrival of Augusta Endicott (Dorothy McGuire), the matriarch of one of Massachusetts’s most powerful political families. She’s also the widow of a notorious anti-Semite, one who kept Auschlander from getting appointed to a state board in the 1960s.

From the minute Augusta and her family show up at the hospital, it’s obvious that they’re meant to be stand-ins for the Kennedys, even though Endicott is not an Irish name. (One gets the feeling the Endicotts are meant to be WASPy Episcopalians.) I always find it curious when an obvious Kennedy stand-in turns up on a television show. Does that mean St. Elsewhere takes place in a universe where the Kennedys don’t exist? The parallels are so obvious that it seems strange no one would point them out in-universe. This show is set in Boston. It seems as if someone would say, “Hey, Augusta Endicott sure has a lot in common with Rose Kennedy.”

Augusta is in the hospital for a checkup. She’s having heart problems, but she tells Dr. Craig that she would prefer to let nature take its course rather than spend the rest of her life having surgeries. Augusta also arranges for Auschlander to finally be appointed to the state medical board.

I’m getting the feeling that the Endicott family is going to be around for at least a few episodes. I can’t say I’m particularly enthused about the idea, but I get it. This is a show about Boston. You’ve got to have Kennedys.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 6.7 “This Year’s Riot”

Posted on September 7, 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

This week, it’s Balboa Day!

Episode 6.7 “This Year’s Riot”

(Dir by Richard A. Colla, originally aired on November 28th, 1982)

It’s Balboa Day weekend, and that means the beach is going to be full of drama and bikinis. (Full disclosure: Before this episode, I had never heard of Balboa Day before. I guess it’s a California thing.) Ponch and Bobby are assigned to keep an eye on things on a small island off the California coast. When an irate homeowner pulls a shotgun on teenagers who keep trespassing on his property, it’s up to Ponch and Bobby to talk him down before someone gets hurt. When a wealthy woman (Julie Newmar) tries to establish a nude beach, it’s up to the Highway Patrol to tell everyone to put some clothes on.

Meanwhile, Doc (Gary Morgan) is selling drugs on the beach and causing trouble. He even sells some to Grossman’s socially awkward nephew, Russell (Robbie Rist). Luckily, Ponch is there to chase Doc down. When Doc makes it onto a barge, he thinks he’s escaped. He grins and mockingly waves goodbye. Ponch rides his motorcycle off the dock, glides through the air, and lands on the barge.

“And he calls me a hot dog!” Bobby says, watching.

And really, that’s all Bobby can do. It’s certainly not as if Bobby or any other member of the Highway Patrol would have been allowed to take down the episode’s main villain. That’s not how things work when Ponch is around. When Larry Wilcox said that he was tired of the producers always favoring Erik Estrada and left after season 5, the producers could have taken that as a sign that the show didn’t always have to be exclusively the Ponch Show. Instead, they appear to have learned the opposite lesson. During the sixth and final season, the series is more about Ponch than ever. Of course, in the role of Bobby, Tom Reilly isn’t exactly the most convincing cop in the world. He comes across as a bit spacey, like a California beach bum who somehow got through the Police Academy. Larry Wilcox was always believable as a cop. When it came to riding a motorcycle and looking manly while writing tickets, Wilcox could easily keep up with Estrada. Reilly, on the other hand, always seems like he’d rather be surfing.

Ponch gets the bad guy in this one and makes the beach safe for people of all ages. Seriously, is there anything Ponch can’t do? As for the episode itself, it was bland but likable, largely because of the beach scenery. Robbie Rist is best remembered for playing Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch. He’s even more annoying as Russell here. Not only is he rude to his uncle, he’s also dumb enough to take drugs before trying to go sailing. What a dummy. It’s a good thing this is the Ponch Show and Ponch can do no wrong. Otherwise, Russell would have been in a lot of trouble.

Next week, Ponch falls in love.