Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 2.6 “The Unkindest Cut”

Posted on November 26, 2025 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

Yay! Training camp is over!

Episode 2.6 “The Unkindest Cut”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on September 29th, 1986)

When arrogant quarterback Johnny Valentine refuses to enter drug rehab, Diana reacts by having him traded to Buffalo. Johnny may be a superstar but he won’t be playing for the Bulls. That means that Yinessa, the player who nearly kicked off the team twice, is now the starting quarterback. Yinessa also makes up with his girlfriend (Katherine Kelly Lang) so I guess he’s having a good week.

Bubba has to lose five pounds to retain his starting position. When he goes in to be weighed, it appears that he’s only lost four pounds. Bubba quickly takes off his gold watch and he makes weight! Good for Bubba, I guess.

Finally, Rick Lampert (Marcus Allen) shows up at training camp is given a number 32 jersey by T.D. Parker (O.J. Simpson). Lampert’s like, This is your number. Parker replies that the number now belongs to Lampert. Awwww! In the role of T.D. Parker, O.J. Simpson has a way of slashing his way to the heart of the matter,

Training camp finally ended with this episode and I’m glad about that because those training camp episodes were getting really dull. I have to be honest, though. We’re halfway through the second season and I still don’t feel like I know any of these characters. Donald Gibb occasionally makes me laugh as Dr. Death. And, as T.D. Parker, OJ Simpson seems like a really nice guy. Otherwise, though, this show feels oddly hollow. Of course, that may be because I’m watching the syndicated version, which apparently edited out a lot of nudity and bad behavior on the part of the players.

Oh well. Let’s see how the team does! This episode ends with Diana saying she wants to win a championship. Does Yinessa have it in him to lead the team with victory? With OJ Simpson as his coach, he better!

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 2.4 “Quarterbacks Tell No Tales”

Posted on November 5, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, a player’s reputation is on the line. Can he clear his name, even though all the evidence is stacked up against him?

Episode 2.4 “Quarterbacks Tell No Tales”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on September 15th, 1986)

T.D. Parker (played by O.J. Simpson) is pissed off! The normally affable former player is angry that someone is dealing cocaine to the Bulls. The press and the commissioner both assume that the dealer is rookie quartebrack Tim Yinessa. (That guy that Yinessa caught searching his room last week? He was a reporter.) T.D. isn’t so sure. He thinks that start quarterback Johnny Valentine (Sam Jones) is responsible for the team’s cocaine problem. T.D. eventually confronts Johnny and tells him to stop with the drugs.

“25% of this league retires injured,” Johnny says, “You’re proof of that.”

T.D. gets so angry that he proceeds to ~~stab Johnny to death~~ punch Johnny in the chest. “Welcome to the 25%,” he says.

No, T.D. Johnny said “retired” players. Johnny’s not retiring yet. Anyway, Johnny was so coked up that he probably didn’t even feel the punch.

As for Yinessa, he nearly gets kicked off the team when the real dealer plants some cocaine in his locker. Luckily, his roommate — Jamie Waldren (Jeff Kaake) — steps forward and confesses that he was the owner of the cocaine that the reporter found in the room. Diana orders Jamie to go to rehab. “Sure, I guess,” Jamie replies.

While that’s going on, Dr. Death and Mad Dog Smears continued to harass the rookies by ordering one of them to fake a suicide attempt as a part of a practical joke. At the bar where they hang out, they also sang a song against urine testing. I’m not really sure why anyone would want to hang out at the bar, as it seems like the whole place only exists so that Dr. Death and Mad Dog can put on painfully unfunny stage shows. Dr. Death and Mad Dog also told Yinessa that they would kill him if he agreed to random urine testing in order to prove his innocence. Personally, I think Dr. Death and Mad Dog should focus on their jobs. Maybe if they did a better job protecting the other players, T.D. wouldn’t have had to retire. I mean, you can tell it’s really cutting T.D. apart that he can’t play anymore.

So, Jamie is off to rehap, Yinessa is still on the team, and T.D. didn’t have to kill anyone. All in all, it was a productive week. To be honest, it’s difficult to judge this show based on traditional standards of good and bad. Technically, every episode is bad. This week, however, was slightly less bad than usual.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 2.1 “The Rookies”

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the 2nd season begins!

Episode 2.1 “The Rookies”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on August 25th, 1986)

It’s time for another season of Bulls football and …. hey, where did everyone go?

As soon as the opening credits for the first episode of the second season started, I noticed that there were quite a few people missing. Delta Burke, Reid Shelton, Prince Hughes, and Cliff Frazier were all listed. However, not listed were Geoffrey Scott, Sam Scarber, Clayton Landey, Ruta Lee, Marshall R. Teague, Michael V. Gazzo, and Robert Miranda. That’s the majority of the cast!

Instead of Geoffrey Scott’s veteran quarterback Bob Dorsey, we now have Jason Beghe as rookie quarterback Tom Yinessa. We now have Stan Kamber as assistant coach Fred Griner. We now have Marcus Allen as rookie running back Rick Lambert. And, as the veteran running back T.D. Parker, we have …. O.J. SIMPSON!

Oh yeah, this isn’t going to be awkward.

O.J, only appears for a few minutes in this episode. As T.D. Parker, he talks to his wife about how much he loves playing football and how he feels that he has one more season left in him as the Bulls’s starting running back. Uhmm …. I thought Carl Witherspoon was the Bulls’s running back. All last season, Carl was the Bulls’s running back. What the Hell is T.D. Parker talking about? Is he delusional? Maybe he’s a crazed fan who just thinks that he was the running back last year. All of that said, T.D. does come across as being a very nice guy and definitely someone who you can trust to slash his way through all of the ego and hype surrounding professional football.

(Probably not coincidentally, the other Bulls assistant coach is played by A.C. Cowlings, who was a friend of O.J.’s. Remember A.C?)

Anyway, this episode deals with rookie training camp. While the veterans get a week off, rookies like Tom Yinessa try out for the Bulls. Yinessa played football in the Army and the only reason he’s being given a tryout is because “Captain Pete” is a friend of Denardo’s. Denardo is shocked to discover that Yinessa is a good quarterback but he’s already got two veteran quarterbacks and Diana has signed a deal to bring in a third. Denardo is forced to cut Yinessa. Yinessa smashes the mirror in Denardo’s office and says that he’s done Denardo a favor because now Denardo won’t have to face what’s he done. Okay, weirdo….

Yinessa returns to his job at the auto yard and Bulls football continues! While hotshot rookie Rick Lambert continues to ask for more money before he’ll even show up at training camp, Diana is informed that the players are threating to strike if the League institutes mandatory drug testing. Diana says a strike will bankrupt the team. Why are the Bulls always on the verge of going bankrupt? Diana needs to hire better people to look after the books.

Here’s my prediction for the rest of the season! Yinessa will be back because he’s in the opening credits. And, whatever problems may come up, O.J. Simpson will always cut right to the heart of the matter.

As for this particular episode, it got the job done. It re-introduced us to the team and, even more importantly, it seemed to signal that all of the nonsense from the first season — the Mafia, Diana’s ex-husband and all the rest of it — was over with. The show is ready to move on so let’s give it more of a chance than Coach Denardo gave Tom Yinessa.

Back to School Part II #42: Keith (dir by Todd Kessler)

Posted on September 16, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, fuck this movie.

Keith tells the story of Natalie Anderson (Elisabeth Harnois), who is seventeen and has her entire life ahead of her. She’s smart. She’s popular. She’s talented. She’s going to be her school’s valedictorian and she’s going to go to a great college on a tennis scholarship! She even has a wonderful boyfriend, a South American exchange student named Rafael (Ignacio Serricchio). It’s all great, right? Except Natalie doesn’t ever have any fun!

But she’s got a new lab partner! His name is Keith (Jesse McCartney). Keith is sarcastic. Keith is rebellious. Keith doesn’t care if he’s popular. He doesn’t worry about the future. He lives in the moment! And he’s determined to make sure that Natalie lives in the moment too! Keith is also totally obnoxious but I think we’re supposed to find him charming.

It would help, of course, if Keith was actually an interesting iconoclast. Instead, he’s a movie iconoclast. He talks, acts, and looks like every single teenage iconoclast that we’ve ever seen in every teen film ever made. As a result, he comes across as being totally inauthentic. Jack Kerouac would have kicked him out of a moving car.

Now, it turns out that there’s a reason why Keith is so sarcastic. He has a tragic secret. But you know what? It doesn’t mater. Considering how serious his secret is, I hate to put it like that. But if Keith proves anything, it’s that tragic things occasionally happen to total assholes.

In the end, we’re supposed to believe that Keith has taught Natalie how to enjoy life but, really, it just seems like Natalie is just imitating Keith. And since Keith just came across like an imitation of every imitation of James Dean ever filmed, Natalie is a now an imitation of an imitation of an imitation.

Thanks a lot, Keith!

Anyway, Keith is on Netflix right now. Look for it listed under films about brainwashing.