Pete Wilcox – 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 Fridays, I will be reviewing SLEDGE HAMMER!, a cop comedy which ran on ABC from 1986 to 1988. The entire series can be found on Prime!

Trust him. He knows what he’s doing.

Episode 1.7 “All Shook Up”

(Dir by Jackie Cooper, originally aired on November 7th, 1986)

15 Elvis impersonators have been murdered in the city. Doreau wonders how anyone can be so evil. Sledge Hammer wonders about the person who draws the chalk outlines at crime scenes. “What type of life is that?”

Captain Trunk, who spends this episode dealing with a migraine, is upset that there aren’t more clues as to the identity of the murderer. Hammer suggests that it will be easier to solve the case once more Elvises have been murdered. To Trunk’s disappointment, Hammer turns out to be right. A woman witnesses the 16th murder and reports that the killer was not only dressed like Elvis but he was also carrying a golden microphone!

It’s time for Sledge Hammer to go undercover! Doreau enrolls him in a school for Elvis impersonators and then accompanies him to the National Elvis Impersonator Semi-Finals. The highlight of the episode is Sledge Hammer imitating Elvis. He can’t do the voice and he can’t do the dance moves but he’s totally convincing when he draws a gun and shoots it. Later, he shows off his karate moves and wins a trophy.

As for the murderer, he turns out to be the janitor (Raymond Ma) at the Elvis school. He feels that he’s the best Elvis in the world. Unfortunately, for him, he’s electrocuted when he accidentally holds his golden microphone too close to a live wire. With the city safe for Elvis impersonators, Sledge announces that he’s going to Graceland.

This week’s episode was just ludicrous enough to work. Between the Elvis puns and all of the bad singing and dancing, it kept me laughing (or, at the very least, smiling). As usual, David Rasche’s enthusiastic performance more than made up for any jokes that didn’t quite land. This was also a good episode for Anne-Marie Martin, who played Doreau’s relationship with Hammer with just the right combination of frustration and affection.

Sledge Hammer has left the building but he’ll be back next week.

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network! It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, we start season 4!

Episode 4.1 “Glass Houses”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on July 26th, 1998)

The fourth season of Pacific Blue opens with many changes.

Palermo and Victor have retired. Cory is now dating Doug Fraser (Owen McKibbin). At the start of the episode, Cory and Doug accompany TC and Chris to Vegas, where they are married by — you guessed it! — an Elvis impersonator.

TC is now in charge of Pacific Blue and, while Chris and Cory both make plans to take the sergeant’s exam, TC focuses on bringing in some new blood. At the police academy, he recruits two recent graduates — hyper-competent Jaime Strickland (Amy Hunter) and edgy rebel Russ Granger (Jeff Stearns). He asks and gets undercover cop Monica Harper (Shanna Moakler) transferred to Pacific Blue so that she can go undercover to break up a meth operation at the local college. Everyone is shocked when Monica turns out to be young and blonde. Were they expecting a 40 year-old undercover college student?

Not happy about having to ride a bicycle, Russ decides to insert himself into Monica’s undercover operation. Monica and Russ meet the two main dealers, Quincy (Joe Michael Burke) and Cherry (Michelle Beauchamp). They discover that they’re getting their drugs from a chemistry professor (Robin Thomas). What they don’t do is make an arrest. Quincy and Cherry murder the professor and escape after setting off a bomb in the chemistry lab.

TC is not happy with his new cops. In fact, the episode ends with him telling them that he has doubts about whether or not to keep them at Pacific Blue. Fortunately, we the viewers know that they’ll be okay because they are all now listed in the opening credits.

Also listed in the opening credits is Bobby Cruz (Mario Lopez), the campus cop who drags Monica out of the laboratory right before it explodes. Bobby has a history. He was a member of the LAPD but, disgusted by the anti-Mexican racism that he saw, he became a campus cop instead. (Where I went to college, the campus cops were the biggest joke around.) TC offers Bobby a chance to be a member of Pacific Blue. Bobby says that he’ll think about it. We all know that means yes.

And that’s a good thing because this show could definitely use more Mario Lopez! In fact, the only reason I started reviewing this stupid series was because I knew Mario would be joining the cast eventually. Let’s hope Mario’s magic starts to make things better soon!

As for this episode, it was …. well, it wasn’t good. Other than Lopez, none of the new characters really made much of an impression. But, I am an optimist. I have hope.

Never give up hope.