Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.11 “The Monster Part II)

Posted on May 23, 2024 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, the story of Julian and Scotty continues!

Episode 2.11 “The Monster Part II”

(Dir by Victor French, originally aired on December 11th, 1985)

This week’s episode of Highway to Heaven begins where last week’s episode ended.

Julian (Jeff Kober) has been charged with attempting to murder Rachel McCullough (Annabella Price) and the whole town is ready to convict him because he has a birthmark on his face and a bratty kid named Ridley (Peter Billingsley) claims that he saw Julian push Rachel. Rachel, having hit her head, is in a coma and not expected to survive. Julian is pressured to accept a plea bargain but he protests that he’s innocent and that he loves Rachel. He would never had hurt her, no matter what the ignorant townspeople believe.

Only Jonathan and Scotty (James Troesch) believe that Julian is innocent. After Jonathan saves the depressed Scotty from drowning in his swimming pool, Scotty agrees to put off suicide so that he can defend Julian at his trial. Scotty does so from his motorized wheelchair and, as he explains to the jury, he knows what its like to be treated a certain way because you look different. With ease, Scotty demolishes Ridley’s testimony and puts the smug prosecutor in his place. All of the reporters in the courtroom are shocked when Julian is acquitted but the prosecution really didn’t have a case, beyond Julian having a birthmark on his face. Scotty gets back together with his wife (Margie Impert) and Rachel not only wakes up but she wakes up with her sight restored. Despite Julian’s fear, Rachel loves him even more when she can see his face.

Awwwwwww!

(Where is Mark during all this? He doesn’t show up until the final few minutes, probably because Victor French was busy directing this episode.)

Even if one sets aside that this episode is nearly 40 years old, it still feels old-fashioned. This is the type of courtroom drama where the trial watchers gasp at each piece of testimony. As far a courtroom procedurals go, this episode went more for melodrama than realism but that’s to expected with this show. It was heartfelt and earnest and Jeff Kober gave a touching performance as Julian.

Probably the most interesting thing about this episode was the number of times Jonathan got mad at people. He got mad at Julian’s original lawyer. He got mad at Scotty for trying to drown himself. He called Scotty’s wife a “jerk” to her face. He gave the prosecutor a dirty look during the latter’s opening statement. He even got annoyed with Julian’s overly protective mother (Ann Doran). Jonathan may be an angel but this episode suggests that even angels lose their patience.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.10 “The Monster: Part One”

Posted on May 16, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Scottie returns! Unfortunately, he’s a drunk now.

Episode 2.10 “The Monster: Part One”

(Dir by Victor French, originally aired on December 4th, 1985)

It’s another week and another visit to a small town for Jonathan and Mark.

This time, Mark thinks that they are only in town to visit his cousin, Diane (Margie Impert), and her husband, Scottie (James Troesch), the quadriplegic attorney who appeared in a few episodes during the first season. Mark tells Jonathan that, when he last spoke to Diane, she said that she had something important to talk to him about. Mark assumes that Diane is pregnant but actually, it turns out that Diane and Scottie’s marriage is in trouble. Scottie may be an attorney but he has no clients and Diane has gone back to work to help pay the bills. Feeling like a failure, Scottie has taken to drinking.

While Mark deals with Diane and Scottie, Jonathan has an assignment. He working as a handyman for Ella McCullough (Barbara Townsend) and her blind daughter, Rachel (Annabella Price). At first, Rachel is bitter and stand-offish but Jonathan wins her over by encouraging her to leave her little cottage and explore the world. While relaxing at a nearby creek, Rachel meets a man (Jeff Kober) who is out for a walk. Rachel tells the man that he startled her and then mentions that the neighborhood kids talk about a monster named Julian. Julian lives in the woods and drags off bad kids.

“My name’s Clark,” the man lies.

Actually, the man’s name is Julian but you can understand why he might not want to admit that after listening to Rachel describe him as being a monster. Julian is not a monster, of course. He’s a sensitive sculptor who just happens to have a very large birthmark covering half of his face and neck. Having been ridiculed all of his life, Julian lives with his mom (Ann Doran) and rarely talks to anyone. Still, Julian falls in love with Rachel and Rachel falls in love with …. Clark.

Julian finally finds the strength to visit Rachel at her cottage. However, when she tells him that she will be having an operation to resort her sight, Clark yells that he’s Julian and then he runs back into the woods. Rachel chases after him. When she trips and hits her head on a rock, Julian runs over to her and tries to help. Unfortunately, that’s when the police arrives and promptly arrest Julian for assault.

Julian’s going to court! Hey, does anyone know an attorney who needs a shot of confidence and who has a unique understanding of what it’s like to be an outsider? We’ll find out next week because this is a two-part episode!

Reviewing a two-parter is always difficult. Tonight’s episode ends with the story nowhere close to being finished. I can’t judge the overall story but I can say that Jeff Kober gave a touching performance as Julian and he was the best thing about the first part of The Monster. As for Scottie, he needs to stop blaming everyone else for his own lack of confidence. Hopefully, that’s a lesson he’ll learn during the second part of this episode.

We’ll find out next week!

A Blast From The Past: The Fourth Man (dir by Joanna Lee)

Posted on October 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s Blast From The Past comes to us from 1990 and it’s a scary one.

In The Fourth Man, Peter Billingsley (yes, the kid from A Christmas Story) plays Joey Martelli, an insecure high schooler who thinks that he’ll be more attractive to girls if he becomes more like his best friend, friendly jock Steve Guarino (Vince Vaughn, making his film debut and already physically towering over everyone else in the cast). With Steve’s encouragement, Joey tries out for the track team and, to everyone’s surprise, he makes it!

Joey is now an athlete. He finally has friends. Girls (including Nicole Eggert) are talking to him. His father (Tim Rossovich) is finally proud of him. But Joey soon discovers that staying on the track team is not an easy task. His coach tells Joey that he has to pick up his speed. Feeling desperate, Joey does what so many other television teenagers before him have done. He starts taking steroids! (Dramatic music cue!) Soon, the kid from A Christmas Story is breaking out in pimples, throwing temper tantrums, and becoming a rage-fueled monster! Joey only took the steroids because he wanted to be as cool as Steve but, unfortunatey, Joey learns too late that Steve’s success and popularity are not due to how big and strong he is but to the fact that he is played by a young Vince Vaughn.

(Myself, I was fortunate enough to go to a high school where the emphasis was placed more on the arts and intellectual pursuits than athletic success. My school didn’t even have its own football field. We had to share with the high school down the street! Anyway, as a result, I don’t think knew anyone in high school who was abusing steroids and I never had to deal with anyone suddenly flying into a rage and punching a hole in a wall or any of the other stuff that always happens whenever anyone abuses steroids on television.)

The Fourth Man was written and directed by Joanna Lee, who is perhaps best known for playing Tanna the Alien in Ed Wood’s Plan Nine From Outer Space. (Lee, it should be noted, had a very long and respected career as a writer and director of television dramas. In many ways, she had the career that Ed Wood imagined that he would someday have.) Along with Billingsley and Vaughn, the cast includes horror mainstay Adrienne Barbeau as Joey’s mother and football player-turned-horror-actor Lyle Alzado as a man who has his own history with steroids. The film has good intentions and a good message about not taking shortcuts and being happy with who you are but I imagine that most people will just want to watch it to see Peter Billingsley descend into roid rage. And I will say that, for all the film’s melodrama, there is something a little bit disturbing about watching fresh-faced Peter Billingsley turn into a physically aggressive bully.

From October of 1990 (and complete with the commercials than ran during the program’s first broadcast), here is The Fourth Man.

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #36: Term Life (dir by Peter Billingsley)

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa recently discovered that she only has about 8 hours of space left on her DVR! It turns out that she’s been recording movies from July and she just hasn’t gotten around to watching and reviewing them yet. So, once again, Lisa is cleaning out her DVR! She is going to try to watch and review 52 movies by the end of Thursday, December 8th! Will she make it? Keep checking the site to find out!)

I recorded Term Life off one of the Starz channels on November 13th.

Vince Vaughn co-starred in two movies in 2016 and both of them were a little bit different from the fratty comedies for which he is best known. One of the movies was Hacksaw Ridge, in which Vaughn was cast against type as a tough drill sergeant. Hacksaw Ridge is one of the best films of the year and it features Vaughn’s best work since he appeared in 2007’s Into The Wild. The other film was Term Life, which had a very limited released in April and is now popping up on cable.

In Term Life, Vaughn plays Nick Barrow. Nick is a thief but he doesn’t actually steal anything. Instead, he plots heists and then sells his plans to the highest bidder. However, Nick has somehow managed to get in trouble with the mob, with a corrupt cop (Bill Paxton), and with … well, with everyone. I say somehow because it wasn’t always clear why everyone was so obsessed with killing Nick. They just were.

Knowing that his days are probably numbered, Nick takes out a life insurance policy on himself. He names, as the sole beneficiary, his estranged daughter, Cate (Hailee Steinfeld). With his reluctant daughter accompanying him, he goes on the run. While Nick and Cate finally start to bond and repair their damaged relationship, the very bad men searching for Nick kill a lot of people.

So, this is a weird one. At times, this film is a typical generation gap comedy, with Vaughn playing the former-cool-guy-turned-befuddled-dad who freaks out when he sees Cate’s bra hanging from a shower rod. This part of the film is actually kinda likable. Vaughn and Steinfeld are believable as father-and-daughter and their scenes together are sweet if predictable.

But then you’ve got the rest of the film, which is basically Bill Paxton brutally murdering people. The violence comes on so strong that it feels totally out-of-place when mixed in with scenes of Nick and Cate bonding. It’s such an abrupt tonal shift that it makes it impossible to get into the film.

Term Life has a cobbled together feel to it and it doesn’t help that it features the type of heavy-handed narration that feels as if it was added at the last minute in a desperate attempt to bring some sort of coherent structure to a messy film. On the plus side, both Vaughn and Steinfeld are believable and you occasionally care about their father-daughter relationship. On the negative side, likable characters keep dying.

In other words, see Hacksaw Ridge.