Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 4.7 “Close Encounters”

Posted on August 21, 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, John Doe No. 6 returns.

Episode 4.7 “Close Encounters”

(Dir by Eric Laneuville, originally aired on November 20th, 1985)

This episode begins with a jolt. Dr. Victor Ehrlich is actually choosing to be ethical as opposed to just kissing up. Ehrlich is currently doing a rotation in plastic surgery, where he’s working with Bobby Caldwell. Caldwell already disliked Ehrlich before Ehrlich even joined the department. Caldwell’s opinion is not improved when he discovers that Ehrlich has talked a patient out of getting an eye tuck that Caldwell recommended. When Caldwell confronts him, Ehrlich argues that the surgery wasn’t necessary and that Caldwell manipulated the man into agreeing because Caldwell’s department is currently on the chopping block. When Ehrlich threatens to go to Dr. Craig, Caldwell sneers. Dr. Craig is the one who personally recruited Caldwell to come to St. Eligius. Ehrlich, on the other hand, is just “the hospital clown.”

Yikes. When Bobby Caldwell was introduced two seasons ago, he was mild-mannered and likable and clearly on the show because Mark Harmon looked good without a shirt on. This season, Caldwell has been arrogant and self-destructive. The fresh scar on his face has become a symbol for the scar on his soul. Personally, I think Bobby is a much more interesting character now. Every soap opera needs a villain and, by the time the fourth season started, St. Elsewhere had definitely become a soap opera.

As for Dr. Craig, he’s not there to talk to Ehrlich because he’s accompanied his daughter-in-law to her hometown in Clinton, New York. Yvonne (Suzanne Lederer) has been in a coma ever since Stephen Craig flipped their car. In this episode, she finally opens her eyes but she still isn’t speaking or mobile. Along with helping to transfer Yvonne to a new hospital, Craig has another reason for going to New York. He’s promised Ellen that he will return with their granddaughter, Barbara. However, when Dr. Craig spends the night there, he discovers that Yvonne’s parents aren’t the backward monsters that he assumed they were. He sees that they love Barbara and that they are taking care of her. Though he doesn’t say it, one gets the feeling that Dr. Craig realizes that Ellen mostly just wants custody of Barbara so she can have a part of Stephen. In New York, Dr. Craig finally starts to understand why Stephen and Yvonne designated Yvonne’s parents as Barbara’s legal guardians. Dr. Craig returns to Boston without Barbara. “I hate you for this, Mark,” Ellen says.

Meanwhile, astronaut Col. Chuck Cochrane (David Ackroyd) has decided that his seizure and subsequent dream were all signs from God telling him not to return to space. NASA, concerned that Cochrane is going to give the program a bad name, sends Captain Gloria Neal (Betty White) to the hospital. (Gloria mentions that she was sent by Major Healey, which is undoubtedly a reference to Roger Healey from I Dream of Jeannie.) Because Gloria went to medical school with Dr. Westphall, NASA thinks that she’ll be able to influence him to discharge Cochrane from the hospital so that he can be taken back to Walter Reed and forced to rejoin the space program. Westphall, however, decides to support Dr. Morrison’s decision not to discharge Cochrane. Westphall goes on to tell Gloria that she’s not much of a doctor anymore. She’s just a PR agent for the government. “So, I guess we won’t be sleeping together,” Gloria replies.

Ugh, Westphall. I know that I spent a lot of time complaining about Dr. Westphall, but this episode really epitomized everything that I dislike about the character. When he’s not depressed, he’s self-righteous. Whenever anyone disagrees with him, he starts talking about his experiences volunteering at a clinic in Ethiopia, as if that experience automatically makes his opinion superior to anyone else’s. In this episode, he decides that it’s his place to judge Gloria’s life decisions. Seriously, Westphall is the worst!

Finally, John Doe No. 6 (Oliver Clark) is back. He’s recovered from the surgery that initially left him comatose. He can speak and move again but he still has amnesia. He’s back in the psych ward. While watching television, he suddenly realizes who he is. He’s Mary Richards from The Mary Tyler Moore Show! He decides that a fellow patient, Mr. Carlin (Jack Riley), is Mary’s friend Rhoda. Dr. Auschlander is Mary’s co-worker, Murray. He tries to throw a party in the psych ward and it’s awful because Mary’s parties are always awful! When he sees Gloria Neal walking down the hospital hallway, he thinks that she’s Sue Ann Nivens, the happy homemaker! “Excuse me?” Gloria asks, confused.

Of course, Betty White did play Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. (St. Elsewhere itself was produced by Mary Tyler Moore’s production company.) Even more interesting, however, is that Jack Riley previously played Mr. Carlin on The Bob Newhart Show. Oliver Clark also appeared on The Bob Newhart Show, playing Mr. Herd, who was a member of the same therapy group as Mr. Carlin. As such, viewers who had previously seen The Bob Newhart Show (whether during its original run or, if you’re like me, via reruns) would have known that John Doe No. 6 was actually Mr. Herd. The episode’s biggest mystery is easily solved by those with a knowledge of television history. At the same time, it’s also interesting to note that Mr. Carlin presumably recognizes John Doe No. 6 but has yet to let anyone know.

It makes for a bizarre but enjoyable episode. Bobby is turning into a monster. The Craigs are headed for divorce. Dr. Westphall just insulted Betty White. But even with all that, it’s hard not to get caught up in John Doe No. 6’s joy. He’s going to make it after all!

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 4.1 “Remembrance Of Things Past”

Posted on June 26, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we begin season 4 of St. Elsewhere!

Episode 4.1 “Remembrance of Things Past”

(Dir by Bruce Paltrow, originally aired on September 18th, 1985)

This week, we start a new season of St. Elsewhere!

Dr. Cavenero is no longer listed in the opening credits. She’s not even mentioned in this episode, leaving her absence as a mystery. The last time we saw her during the third season, she was suffering from a cold so maybe she died. From what I’ve read, the real reason that she’s gone is because Cynthia Sikes, the actress who played her, objected to a season three storyline that would have featured her coming out as a lesbian.

From the start of this epiosde, St. Eligius seems like a happier place. A lot of that is because Dr. Westphall is gone. (That said, he’s still listed in the opening credits so we know, from the start, that will return.) Doctors Craig and Aushlander are a bit overworked having to cover Westphall’s duties but still, the residents seem to be a bit more hopeful than usual in this episode. Westphall’s perpetual glumness is no longer there to drag everyone down.

Morrison and Chandler have a conflict over a Vietnamese patient. Morrison wants to give the patient the best care possible. Chandler is upset because his older brother died in Vietnam and he feels like the patient doesn’t appreciate the sacrifice that Americans made during the Vietnam War. Morrison, of course, was an anti-war teenager. (There’s a reason why Helen Hunt calls him “boomer.”)

The whole Morrison/Chandler storyline felt a bit too heavy-handed to be effective. While I can believe that Chandler would have his own strongly-held opinions about the war, I have a hard time believing he would be as unprofessional as he was in this episode. Still, all of this does lead to a great scene where Morrison goes to Craig for the type of advice that he would usually get from Westphall and Craig responds by telling Morrison to get over it and concentrate on his job.

Seriously, I’ve been waiting for three seasons for someone to tell Morrison that.

Alfre Woodward joins the cast as Dr. Roxanne Turner, an OB-GYN. In this episode, she counsels an infertile couple. Dr. Turner wasn’t in much of the episode (and Alfre Woodard is not included in the opening credits) but I get the feeling that both she and the couple she was counseling are going to be around for a while.

The episode’s main storyline featured an amnesiac known as Joe Doe No. 6 (Oliver Clark). After John Doe escapes from the psychiatric ward and steals a suit, he’s mistaken for Dr. Jonas Wisner, who has beent sent to St. Eligius to evaluate its teaching program. John Doe No. 6 has a great time pretending to be Dr. Wisner and the doctors enjoy spending time with him. Unfortunately, the real Dr. Wisner (Joseph Ruskin) shows up and the fun ends.

Oh, how I loved watching John Doe No. 6 interact with the staff. Not only did it allow me to see the show’s characters through someone else’s eyes but it was also just an enjoyable storyline. It was a reminder that the hospital can be an entertaining place when Westpall isn’t wandering around the hallways.

However, towards the end of this episode, Westphall showed up at the hospital. Craig and Auschlander were happy to see him. Westphall asked if he could have his old job back. Of course, he can! Really? Didn’t Westphall walk off the job? But apparently, he can just wander back into the hospital while wearing his hobo cap and all is forgiven.

The episode ends with Chandler taking an impromptu trip to Washington D.C. and visiting the Vietnam War Memorial. As I watched this, it occuured to me that the memorial was still fairly new when this episoe aired. Once I realized that, I understood why the show included the Morrison/Chandler storyline. It pays to know history.

Season 4 is off to a good start! I just hope Dr. Westphall doesn’t drag everyone back down.

Horror on TV: Circle of Fear 1.16 “Earth, Air, Fire, and Wind” (dir by Alex Singer)

Posted on October 16, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of the show that was once Ghost Story, six artists rent out a space to create and show their art. Unfortunately, they also find a trunk, one that contains six ancient glass containers. Everyone’s work starts to take a dark turn as the artists become more and more obsessed with the containers.

That plot description might not sound like much but this is a pretty good episode, one that’s full of atmosphere and sly humor. The script was by Harlan Ellison and D.C. Fontana. Anyone who has ever spent any time in a commune will be able to relate!

This episode aired on January 19th, 1973.

Hanging By A Thread (1979, directed by Georg Fenady)

Posted on August 19, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

A group of old friend who call themselves the Uptowners’ Club (yes, really) want to go on a picnic on top of a remote mountain. The only problem is that they have to ride a cable car up to the mountain and there are reports of potentially bad weather. It’s not safe to ride in a cable car during a thunderstorm. Drunken ne’er-do-well Alan (Bert Convy) doesn’t care and, since his family owns both the mountain and the tramway, his demands that he and his friends be allowed to ride the cable car are met. One lightning strike later and the members of the Uptowners’ Club are stranded in a cable car that is perilously suspended, by only a frayed wire, over treacherous mountain valley.

With no place to go, there’s not much left for the members of the Uptowners’ Club to do but bicker amongst themselves and have lengthy flashbacks that reveal every detail of their own sordid history. Paul (Sam Groom) is angry with Alan because Alan is now engaged to his ex-wife (Donna Mills). Sue Grainger (Patty Duke) is angry with everyone else because they don’t want to admit how their old friend Bobby Graham (Doug Llewellyn) actually died. The other members of the Uptowners’ Club are angry because there’s not much for them to do other than watch Duke and Convy chew on the scenery. Because of the supposedly fierce winds, someone is going to have to climb out on top of the cable car and repair it themselves. Will it be Paul or will it be cowardly drunk Alan? On top of everything else, Paul is set to enter the witness protection program and has got hitmen who want to kill him.

This made-for-TV disaster movie was produced by Irwin Allen. Are you surprised? It’s also three hours long and amazingly, Leslie Nielsen is not in it. It’s hard to understand how anyone could have produced a cable car disaster film and not given a role to Leslie Nielsen. Cameron Mitchell’s in the film but he’s not actually in the cable car so it’s a missed opportunity. Any film that features Patty Duke detailing how her friends got so drunk that they ended up killing the future host of The People’s Court is going to at least have some curiosity value but, for the most part, Hanging By A Thread gets bogged down by its own excessive runtime and lack of convincing effects. Hanging By A Thread came out at the tail end of the 70s disaster boom and it shows why the boom didn’t continue into the 80s.

Insomnia File #24: A Star is Born (dir by Frank Pierson)

Posted on April 25, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you found yourself awake and unable to sleep at 2:30 this morning, you could have always turned over to TCM and watched the 1976 film, A Star is Born.

A Star is Born gets off to a good start by having Gary Busey give Kris Kristofferson a hit of cocaine. As I pointed out on twitter, no movie that starts with Gary Busey offering cocaine to Kris Kristofferson can be all bad.

Anyway, Kris is playing John Norman Howard. John Norman Howard is a big 70s rock star, which means that he has a beard and a bad case of ennui. Despite all of the cocaine and whiskey, his career is on a downward spiral. Part of the problem appears to be that he only sings one song and, half the time, he still can’t bring himself to remember all of the lyrics. The song opens with John growling, “Are you a figment of my imagination or am I one of yours?” and John always ends up storming off stage before we can hear the rest of it.

Anyway, John ends up at this club in Hollywood that looks a lot like the place that Ryan Gosling opened up at the end of La La Land. While at the club, John gets into a fight with Robert Englund (who I assume was playing a young Freddy Krueger) and totally interrupts the performance of the Oreos.

Who are the Oreos? They’re a folk-singin’ power trio. There’s One (Venetta Fields) and Two (Clydie King). (According to the credits, that’s actually their names.) And then there’s Esther Hoffman, who has a truly horrid perm and who is played by Barbra Streisand. One and Two are black. Esther, who stands right in the middle whenever they perform, is white. And they’re called The Oreos!

Uhmmm, yeah…

Anyway, we really don’t learn anything about One or Two, beyond the fact that they are totally and completely devoted to Esther. When Esther gets them fired from recording a cat food jingle, they just smile and laugh. Sure, why not!? After all, it’s not like struggling musicians need money or anything. When Esther interrupts a performance to yell at John, One and Two smile and laugh. When Esther, under John’s tutelage, becomes a big star and basically abandons the Oreos, One and Two show up at a recording session and smile and laugh.

Last night was my first time to actually see A Star is Born, though I had heard and read quite a bit about it. Of all the versions of A Star is Born, this one made the most money at the box office but it also got the worst reviews. Reportedly, the film’s production was a trainwreck with Barbra Streisand and then-boyfriend Jon Peters fighting with … well, everyone.

And yet, like so many cinematic trainwrecks, you simply cannot look away from it. This version of A Star is Born gets so many things wrong that it becomes rather fascinating to watch. Perhaps the scene that epitomizes A Star is Born comes when John refuses to perform his one song at a benefit concert and instead, brings out Esther and has her perform her songs. First off, John’s hard rock band suddenly transforms into a Broadway orchestra and John’s audience — who presumably had paid money to hear that growling song about imagination — is overjoyed to instead have to listen to Esther’s style of lite pop/rock. (Actually, to even call it rock is to needlessly stretch the definition of rock to its breaking point.) Making the scene even more bizarre is that 1) John is basically exploiting a benefit concert to launch Esther’s career and 2) since the concert was being performed to support the American Indian Movement, the disembodied head of a Native American woman keeps appearing over Esther’s shoulder while she’s performing songs that have absolutely nothing to do with the cause that the concert is supposedly supporting. It’s kind of the cinematic equivalent of that Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial.

Anyway, things get even better when John buys an empty field and, in a ten minute montage, John and Esther literally build a house. Seriously, I’m not kidding. At no point do we see anyone other than John and Esther working on that house and yet, within a matter of minutes, they have an adobe mansion to live in. I had no idea it was so easy to build a house. It makes me wonder why people waste money buying houses when they can just buy an empty field and build their own.

(Maybe they’re scared of the poltergeists. Imagine how different this version of A Star Is Born would have been if it ended with Esther grabbing John and screaming, “YOU MOVED THE HEADSTONES BUT YOU LEFT THE BODIES, DIDN’T YOU!? YOU LEFT THE BODIES!”)

Kris Kristofferson is well-cast as John Norman Howard but the film is pretty much centered around Barbra. That, in itself, wouldn’t be a problem if not for the fact that Barbra is completely miscast. She’s a great singer but she’s not a rock singer. You never believe that the same people who want to hear John sing his one song would also want to hear any of Esther’s songs. The fact that the film is basically 140 minutes of everyone insisting that Esther is the future of music only reminds us of the fact that she’s not. Her style is throwback to the past, which is one reason why everyone’s grandmother loves Barbra Streisand.

This wouldn’t be such a big deal if Barbra and Kris actually had any chemistry but they really don’t. There’s a scene where Barbra and Kris take a bath together and Barbra puts makeup on Kris’s face. Between two people who have chemistry, that would be sexy and sweet. Between Kris and Barbra, it’s just kind of icky and you find yourself wondering who took the time to light the hundreds of candles surrounding them. Whenever Barbra and Kris kissed, I worried for her just because all I could think of was the stubble burn that Esther would have to deal with later.

Yet, in the end, the film makes so many mistakes that it becomes one of the most watchable movies ever made. It may not be good but it sure is entertaining.