Tag Archives: Retro Television Reviews

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.19 “The Quilt of Hathor”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, Micki screws up and Ryan finds love!

Episode 1.19 “The Quilt of Hathor”

(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on May 2nd, 1988)

Looking to retrieve a cursed quilt that allows its owner to enter other people’s dreams and kill them, Micki and Ryan go undercover as members of the Pentite Sect.

Who are the Pentites?  Basically, they’re Mennonites except for the fact that they’re called Pentites.  They are a hard-worked and religious community, one that eschews modern technology.  The members of the sect dress modestly, they don’t sing or dance, and they do everything that their leader, Reverend Grange (Scott Paulin), tells them to do.

Effie Stokes (Kate Trotter) is in love with the Reverend and wants to become his wife.  She also happens to own the Quilt of Hathor and soon, she is entering the dreams of her romantic rivals and killing them.  While Effie is trying to win the love of Reverend Grange, Ryan is falling in love with Grange’s daughter, Laura (Carolyn Dunn).  Quicker than you can say Witness, Ryan is temping Laura to dance and being forced to fight Laura’s suitor, Matthew (Diego Matamoras), while balancing above an open flame pit.  I don’t think Mennonites do that, which is probably why the Pentites broke off from them in the first place.

Micki does figure out that Effie is the one with the quilt and she even manages to grab it away from her.  However, when she tells Ryan that it’s time to return to the antique shop, Ryan replies that he can’t go with her.  Ryan has fallen in love with Laura and is planning on living the rest of his life as a Pentite.

Micki returns to the shop and, heartbroken, she tells Jack that she lost Ryan.  Jack then reveals that she also managed to grab the wrong quilt.  So, basically, Micki really screwed up.

This is a two-part episode so I imagine that Micki will return to the Pentite community next week and hopefully, she’ll pay attention and grab the right quilt this time.  Will Ryan return to the civilization with her?  Considering that John D. LeMay didn’t leave the show until the end of the second season, I imagine he probably will.

This was a pretty good episode.  The scenes where Effie entered the dreams were well-directed and definitely achieved a nightmarish intensity.  Some of the Pentite stuff was a little bit silly but John D. LeMay really sold his decision to stay with the sect.  With everything that we’ve seen of Ryan on this show, his decision actually makes sense.  Ryan has always been the one searching for deeper meaning while Micki is the more down-to-Earth member of the team.

Next week: Part two of the Quilt of Hathor!

Retro Television Review: T and T 2.18 “Thicker Than Water”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990.  The show can be found on Tubi!

If you’ve ever watched T and T and thought, “I wish there was a lot less T in this show,” this week’s episode is for you!

Episode 2.18 “Thicker than Water”

(Dir by Harvey Frost, originally aired on May 8th, 1989)

This is a weird episode.

Ronnie (David Hewlett) and Steve (Gordon Michael Woolvett) are two brothers who have opened up a punk music venue in whatever part of Canada that T and T was filmed in.  From the start, everyone is trying to shut them down.  The other neighborhood business people claim that the club is bringing in a bad element.  The police are unsympathetic whenever a fight breaks out.  The fire department is always showing up with a list of regulations.  The sinister person who loaned them the money to start the club wants the brothers to burn it down for the insurance money.  Seriously, it’s not easy run a venue devoted to angry music that is best appreciated by people who like to fight.  But, in the end, the brothers stick together and refuse to let Canada beat them down.

Yay!  Take that, Trudeau!

(Yes, I know that Justin Trudeau was not in charge of Canada when this show was filmed but I’m too lazy to look up who was.  Actually, T and T always pretended that it was set in the U.S. so I guess I should blame the first Bush.  But seriously, everything about T and T screams Canada.)

So, why is this an episode of T and T?  Well, Amy is their lawyer.  (Sometimes, Amy practices criminal law and sometimes, she practices business law and sometimes, she just acts like a lobbyist.  There’s nothing Amy can’t do!)  Amy shows up at the club a few times.  T.S. Turner also shows up once or twice and says, “Little brother, when you believe in something …. YOU FIGHT FOR IT!”

I’m going to guess that this was a backdoor pilot for a series that would have followed the brothers and their club.  I have no idea if the pilot led to a series.  It’s really hard for me to imagine what a potential series would have been like but I would say that I thought the club looked cool.  I liked the rebellious attitude of the bands that performed there.

Like most backdoor pilots, this is a bit of a wasted episode.  This is also the third episode in a row that hasn’t really featured Turner and Amy doing anything new.  The previous two episodes were both clip shows and this episode isn’t even about them.  These episodes are easy to review (yay!) but you do have to wonder what was going on behind the scenes during the latter half of the second season.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Highway to Heaven 1.22 “An Investment In Caring”

Posted on 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, Jonathan encourages everyone to violate federal law.

Episode 1.22 “An Investment In Caring”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on March 13th, 1985)

Helen Spencer (Eileen Heckart) is an annoying old busy body who lives in one of those charming city neighborhoods that are only found on shows like Highway to Heaven.  Even since her husband died, she has kept herself active by working as a cleaning lady at the Halstead Corporation, which is the same company that wants to not only tear down her neighborhood but also turn the local cemetery into a condo subdivision.

Fortunately, Helen’s new boarders just happen to be Jonathan Smith and Mark Gordon.  Jonathan encourages Helen to rally the neighbors to take a stand against Halstead.  He also encourages Paul Tarsten (Dane Clark), who was recently laid off from Halstead for being too old, to help Helen out.  With Jonathan’s guidance, Helen goes through the trash at Halstead, finds some stock reports that really should have been put through a shredder, and then use that insider information to buy and sell a bunch of stock until soon, she and her friends are the majority stockholders.

“Only in America,” Ms. Zabenko (Elsa Raven) exclaims not once but five times, just in case you were wondering how heavy-handed this episode was.

Helen is able to save her neighborhood, save the cemetery where her husband is buried, and also take over the company.  She also finds hints of romance with Paul, who is himself a widower.  Their mission accomplished, Jonathan and Mark leave town….

…. which is good because I don’t see anyway that Paul, Helen, and Ms. Zabenko aren’t eventually going to end up in federal prison.  Just about every piece of advice that Jonathan gave Helen led to her doing something illegal, from insider trading to corporate espionage to stealing from the office.  Only in America, Ms. Zabenko?  In America, we have laws against stock market manipulation.

This episode just irked me.  Whenever people talk about Highway to Heaven being an unrealistic and cheesy show, this is the type of episode that they’re thinking of.  It takes a lot to make a heartless corporation sympathetic but the overacted and rather smug neighborhood activists in this episode managed to do just that.  In previous episodes, Jonathan and Mark have appealed to businessmen to get them to change their ways.  In this episode, the head of Halstead isn’t given that opportunity.  Instead, Jonathan — acting on authority from GOD — encourages a bunch of people with no business experience and no way of knowing any better to commit a bunch of federal crimes.  Helen takes over the company but what does Helen know about running a company?  When Halstead goes bankrupt, a lot of people who had nothing to do with the former CEO’s plans will end up losing their jobs.  Way to go, God.

Finally, I should note that this episode begins with Helen’s former boarder telling her that he’s moving out because a voice in his head told him to move to Alaska.  It’s only because he leaves that Helen has the room to rent to Jonathan and Mark.  So, basically, promoting insider trading wasn’t enough for Jonathan.  He also had to ruin some poor schmuck’s life by telling him to move to a state that he knows nothing about.  Not since the Book of Enoch has an angel behaved so unethically.

Retro Television Review: In The Lion’s Den 1.1 “The Pilot”

Posted on 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing In The Lion’s Den, which aired on CBS in 1987.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by James Burrows, originally aired on September 4th, 1987)

When she lived in New York City, Dana (Wendy Crewson) had an apartment, a boyfriend, and a job working as a producer on a very successful game show.  But then she got fired and everything changed.  Now, she has moved to San Antonio so she can work as the new associate producer of Lion’s Den, a PBS program featuring a lion puppet named Maynard.

The man behind the puppet is Keith (Dennis Boutsikaris), an infamously temperamental actor who, every day, announces that he’s quitting show business and storms off the set.  Previously, it was up to Jerry (Jack Blessing) to coax Keith into returning to the set and shooting the show.  But now that Jerry has a job with Steven Spielberg, it’s up to Dana to keep Keith happy.

Despite having hired her, Keith does not know who Dana is when she shows up on the set.  He proceeds to re-interview her for the job, which means leering at her legs and trying to convince her to hug the puppet.  Keith, I think, was meant to come across as being a charming rogue but, every time he talked to Dana, I had flashbacks to interviewing for jobs after college and all of the guys who stared at my chest and legs while I explained my passion for art history.  Keith is a creep and the fact that he’s only nice when he’s talking through Maynard does nothing to change that.

It’s an eventful first day for Dana.  One of the show’s sponsors (played by Fred Applegate) offers to allow Dana to rent his house but it soon turns out that he’s a bit of a sleaze.  A neurotic writer (Brian Backer) fears that he’s going to lose his job because he wrote a script about football.  (“I hate football!” Keith yells.  Good luck living in Texas.)  Proving the everyone had to start somewhere, Marcia Gay Harden plays the receptionist who helps Dana get out of having to talk to her ex-boyfriend.  (“She’s meetin’ Willie Nelson.”)  Harden plays the role with a Texas accent and, while it’s definitely exaggerated, she does a good job with it overall.  (A quick check with Wikipedia revealed that, though born in California, Harden spent time in Texas when she was growing up and graduated from the University of Texas.)  Eventually, Keith throws his daily tantrum and Dana has to find her own way to keep him from quitting show business.

The main problem with the pilot is that Keith is too much of a jerk.  It’s hard to really care about someone who throws a tantrum every day, is abusive to his coworkers, and how uses an adorable puppet to sexually harass a woman who hasn’t even figured out where she’s going to be living in her new city.  Personally, I think Dana should have quit as soon as Maynard demanded a hug.

And audiences agreed.  This pilot aired once and that was it for In The Lion’s Den.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 1.21 “All In A Day’s Work”

Posted on 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 Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire show is streaming on Tubi.

A lot of talented people came together to create this week’s episode of Monsters!

Episode 1.21 “All In A Day’s Work”

(Dir by Allen Coulter, originally aired on May 6th, 1989)

Steven Rose (James Morrison) is a graduate student whose studies of ancient magic have accidentally summoned a creature who looks exactly like him and who also follows him everywhere that he goes.  Following the advice of a friend, Steven seeks help from a white witch named Fiona (Adrienne Barbeau).  Fiona is willing to help but first, she needs to pick up her son, Ian (Brandon Bluhm), from school.

When she returns to her apartment building with Ian, she discovers that the doppelganger is waiting in the hallway and apparently, it wants Ian’s soul.  Locking herself in her apartment with Steven and Ian, Fiona is forced to do the unthinkable.  She commits a mortal sin by summoning a demon named Belphamelech (Eddie Velez).  As she explains it to Steven, if she can get rid of his doppelganger than she will be forgiven for summoning a demon.  And if she can’t get rid of the doppelganger, it won’t matter what happens.

There were a lot of talented people involved with this episode.  Adrienne Barbeau, of course, is still well-remembered for her appearances in The Fog, Escape From New York, and Creepshow.  Nearly two decades after his appearance here, James Morrison would find fame as Bill Buchanan on 24 and as the prison warden on Twin Peaks: The Return.  Eddie Velez is still a regular on television.  This was one of the first shows to be directed by Allen Coulter, who go on to direct some of the best episodes of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire. 

Considering all of talent both in front of and behind the camera, it’s not a surprise that this is one of the better episodes of Monsters, an atmospheric and well-acted 21 minutes that nicely mixes horror with humor.  The episode works best when it contrasts Fiona’s magic powers with the normal activities of her everyday life.  She can get rid of demons and yes, she can cook up a love potion or two and yes, she knows all of the things to say to control a demon.  But, in the end, her main concern is making sure that her son gets to and from school without incident and that everyone has a good dinner in the evening.

Interestingly enough, the episode ends in such a way that makes it feel as if it was meant to be a pilot for a television series that would have featured Fiona dealing with the supernatural on a weekly basis.  She ends the episode with both a new romance and a new assistant and it’s easy to imagine all of the future adventures that they could have all had together.  If this episode was meant to serve as a pilot, it didn’t lead to a series and that’s a shame because it definitely had the potential to be a lot of fun.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.4 “Target Gopher/The Major’s Wife/Strange Honeymoon/The Oilman Cometh”

Posted on 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

This week’s cruise is all about simple misunderstandings that could be easily cleared up by people just not acting stupid for a few seconds.  Unfortunately, that’s too much to ask.

Episode 4.4 “Target Gopher/The Major’s Wife/Strange Honeymoon/The Oilman Cometh”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on November 8th, 1980)

Lo and beware!  Here comes the idiot plot!

As I’ve mentioned many times in the past, there’s nothing that bothers me more than an idiot plot.  That is when a TV show — usually a sitcom — builds an entire episode out of a misunderstanding that could be easily cleared up by everyone just not being an idiot.  These are the type of episodes where everyone talks over each other and runs off before they can get a full explanation of what’s happening.  They are frustrating to watch.

This episode of The Love Boat has not just one idiot plot but several of them.  I usually love this show but this episode made me cringe from start to finish.

Consider:

Oilman Mason Fleers (Dale Robertson) has chartered the boat for his company.  He is not only giving everyone a free cruise but he hopes that he’ll be able to sign a big oil deal with Prince Hassan (Pat Harrington, Jr.), who is excited to see the ocean because “my country is covered in sand.”  Mason has arranged for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (playing themselves) to provide entertainment.  Even though the cheerleaders were on the ship last season, everyone acts as if this is the first time they’ve ever seen them.  Doc Bricker is especially excited to see them, even though it’s debatable that a glamorous NFL cheerleader from a land-locked city would ever fall for a middle-aged guy who works on a boat for a living.

Prince Hassan boards the boat looking for a new wife.  (He already has several but he specifically wants an American.)  When Mason’s assistant, Ted (David Cassidy, with a rather unflattering mustache), attempts to give Prince Hassan the gift of a computerized chess game, Prince Hassan thinks that Ted is actually giving him Ted’s girlfriend, Janet (Janet Gunn).  Prince Hassan thinks that Janet will be his new wife and he immediately makes plans for the marriage ceremony to take place on the boat.  Ted, Captain Stubing, and Janet could clear all this up by telling Prince Hassan the truth but instead, they just try to hide Janet from him.  And then Ted decides that maybe he could win Janet back from the Prince.

One word for all of this: Idiot.

Mason, for his part, falls for one of the cheerleaders (Jayne Ann Maxwell), and pressures her to spend time along with him.  Jayne reacts to this by randomly declaring her love for Gopher.  Gopher plays along so Mason decides to get revenge by walking up behind Gopher, surprising Gopher, and then collapsing to the deck and pretending that Gopher knocked him out.  Gopher is suspended from his duties while the cruise line investigates.  There were plenty of people on the deck at the time but no one steps forward to say that Mason clearly faked getting hit.  Or maybe someone could point out that Mason has spent the entire cruise harassing a cheerleader who is not interested in him.  But no one does.  Why?

Because this is an idiot plot.

Walter Henson (Al Corley) was planning on spending his honeymoon on the cruise but then he found out his wife-to-be cheated on him.  He left her at the altar.  He still takes the cruise but he brings his brother, Hud (Mark Pinter), with him.  When Doc, Isaac, and Gopher learn that Hud and Walter are both in the honeymoon suite, they assume that they’re a couple and, because this episode is 44 years old, start giving each other funny looks.  It doesn’t occur to anyone that Walter and Hud might have the same last name because they’re related.  When Hud falls for a cheerleader, he continually makes excuses to keep her from finding out that he’s traveling with his brother.  Why?

IDIOT PLOT!

Major Ross Latham (Robert Culp) boards the boat with his shy and modest wife, Nara (Nobu McCarthy).  Surprise!  Gloria Beaumont (Jo Ann Pflug) is also on the boat.  She and the major are old friends and soon, they’re spending all of their time together.  Julie and Vicki assume that Gloria is trying to steal Ross away from Nara.  Nara doesn’t suspect a thing.

Idiot.  Plot.

Needless to say, everything work out in the end but this episode leaned way too heavily on everyone being an idiot.  The Love Boat should be entertaining, not frustrating.  This was one of those episodes that just left me wanting to jump overboard.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.15 “Thief In The Night”

Posted on 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on Youtube!

This week, Baywatch Nights want to make sure that you know it’s a show about a lifeguard.

Episode 1.15 “Thief In The Night”

(Dir by Charles Bail, originally aired on March 2nd, 1996)

This week, we find Mitch actually doing some lifeguard work for once.  I would say that about 35% of the episode features Mitch in his red swim trunks and either hanging out at his tower or at Baywatch Headquarters.  At one point, Donna even mentions that, along being a club owner, she’s also training to become a lifeguard.  It feels as if the show’s producers are literally standing off-camera, yelling, “This is a Baywatch show!  We’re sorry for not doing more Baywatch stuff during the first half of the season!  Please start watching!”

As for this week’s case, Mitch, Garner, and Ryan are hired by the snooty yacht club to investigate who has been breaking into their boats and stealing valuable things.  The head of the yacht club is Jeri Ross (Kristine Meadows), who is so snooty that she hires Mitch and Garner and then starts to immediately complain about them investigating the yachts.  Still, Mitch needs the paycheck, though I’m not sure why since he already has a full-time job as a senior lifeguard.

Mitch figures out that the thief is a scuba diver but he still can’t figure out who the person could be.  Perhaps that’s because Mitch keeps referring to thief as being a “he,” when the thief is actually Nina Cutter (Christiana D’Amore), a former Olympic-class swimmer who is now trying to raise money to pay the lawyers who are trying to overturn the embezzlement conviction that landed her brother in prison!  Seriously, Mitch, get with the times!  Women are just as capable of robbing a yacht as men.  Myself, I’ve never robbed a yacht but if I ever felt like doing so, I imagine I could do it just as well as anyone else who has a morbid fear of swimming in the ocean.

Nina sees Mitch investigating the crime and she decides that maybe it would be fun to meet and date him.  When Mitch is pulling out of Baywatch HQ, Nina rollerblades behind his truck and pretends to get knocked to the pavement.  Mitch jumps out with his first aide kit but he doesn’t jump out in slow motion, which I think was a missed opportunity on the part of the show.

Mitch does fall for Nina but, once he figures out that she’s the thief, he still captures her and sends her to jail.  On the bright side, he also saves her from drowning after she hits her head on the bottom of passing boat.  Still — what the Hell, Mitch?  When did you become so judgmental?  What if her brother really is innocent?

This episode was pretty boring.  When Mitch wasn’t hanging out at his lifeguard tower, he was underwater in a wet suit and, as anyone who has watched a 60s diving film can tell you, there’s nothing more boring then watching people float around in wet suits.  It didn’t help that all the diving scenes took place at night so I really had to strain my already hyperopic eyes to even get a vague idea of what was happening in that dark water.  As well, there really wasn’t much chemistry, romantic or otherwise, between Nina and Mitch.

Seriously, I can’t wait for the supernatural episodes to finally start!

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 4.14 “The Chateau/White Lightning”

Posted on 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming on Daily Motion.

This week, we get a bad fantasy and a good fantasy.  Smiles, everyone!

Episode 4.14 “The Chateau/White Lightning”

(Dir by Leslie H. Martinson, originally aired on February 7th, 1981)

The first of this week’s fantasies involves the McAllister clan and the Scroggins clan, two feuding families from Appalachia who both come to Fantasy Island with the same fantasy.  They want to find the formula for a legendary type of moonshine called White Lightning.  The McAllisters are led by Clora (Carolyn Jones) and include her children, Ruth Ann (Wendy Schaal), Amos (Ed Begley, Jr.), and Otis (Richard Lineback).  The Scroggins are led by Norris (George Lindsey) and include his sons, R.J. (Randy Powell) and Bobby Joe (Ernie Lively).

Since both families have the same fantasy and they both want the recipe for themselves….

What?  Yes, this the bad fantasy.

Anyway, Mr. Roarke gives them a map that will lead them to White Lightning still on Fantasy Island.  The two families race to be the first to reach the still, not realizing that the still is guarded by an old man with a rifle and that old man is Mr. Roarke in a fake beard.

You will probably not be surprised to learn that Mr. Roarke pretending to be a moonshiner is the best part of this fantasy.  Seriously, I hope everyone involved with this series appreciated the dedication that Ricardo Montalban brought to bringing even the most ridiculous of scenes to life.

This was a dumb fantasy and, from the minute the two families stepped off the plane, it was obvious that they’re going to end up setting aside their differences and working together.  The hillbilly stuff just felt out of place on Fantasy Island.  Let’s move on and let’s do so quickly.

The other fantasy is a bit more fun.  Vicky Lee (Pamela Franklin) is writing a book about her grandmother, a silent screen actress who died under mysterious circumstances.  Her fantasy is to interview her grandmother’s former co-star, Claude Duncan, who lives in seclusion in a Fantasy Island chateau.  Mr. Roarke tries to dissuade her from entering the chateau and warns her that her fantasy might be dangerous in ways that she could never imagine.  Vicky says that she can take care of herself.

In the chateau, she meets Karl Dixon (David Hedison), who looks exactly like Claude Duncan!  She assumes that Karl must be Claude’s grandson but the audience knows better.  For one thing, we’ve noticed the statue of Pan in the chateau’s courtyard and we’ve also noticed that its eyes glow whenever something strange happens.  It turns out that Claude Duncan and Karl Dixon are one in the same!  Claude has remained young by offering up sacrifices to Pan.  And it appears that he’s planning on making Vicky his latest sacrifice.

Vickey Lee’s fantasy was silly but entertaining, in the way that the best episodes of Fantasy Island often are.  I always prefer the fantasies that have an element of the supernatural and that’s certainly the case with this one.  At one point, Duncan even claims that Mr. Roarke has no power in the Chateau, which leads me to once again wonder about who truly rules Fantasy Island.  If Mr. Roarke was truly in control of Fantasy Island, why would he allow Claude Duncan to live there?  In an interview, Ricardo Montalban suggested that Fantasy Island was a form of Purgatory and that Mr. Roarke was more of a caretaker than a ruler.  This fantasy would certainly suggest that to be true.

(The fantasy also features a charmingly weird scene where Mr. Roarke suddenly appears on a television screen in the chateau so he can tell Vicky that she’s in danger.  Strange Mr. Roarke is the best Mr. Roarke.)

So, this week gave us one bad fantasy and one good fantasy.  Fortunately, the good fantasy was really, really good.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 1.15 “Surf’s Up”

Posted on 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 Freevee!

This week, Ponch and Baker hit the beach!

Episode 1.15 “Surf’s Up”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on January 19th, 1978)

At the beginning of this week’s episode, Ponch and Baker are miserable.

Los Angeles, the city that they’ve taken an oath to protect, is no longer as friendly as it once was.  The highways are congested.  The chases are long and tedious.  The citizens don’t seem to appreciate the highway patrol’s hard work.  When Baker is forced to throw a reckless driver on someone else’s hood in order to arrest him, the owner of the car (Fran Ryan) yells at him for scratching her car and threatens to sue the department.

Ponch and Baker need a break!

At first, Getraer is dismissive of their concerns.  He points out, quite sensibly, that he can’t approve their request for a temporary transfer just because they’re having a bad day.  They work in Los Angeles and not every day is going to be a perfect day.

“Thanks a lot, pal,” Ponch snaps.

“I’m your sergeant,” Getraer starts, “if you want a pal….”

“Join the Police Athletic League, we know,” Baker says.

Fortunately, for Ponch and John, the Malibu division has a few men who have gotten the flu so Getraer, realizing that he doesn’t want to have to listen to Ponch and Jon whine for a whole week, finally agrees to giving them a temporary transfer.

The rest of the episode follows Ponch and John as they patrol Malibu.  It turns out that Malibu has the same problems as Los Angeles but it’s also closer to the beach.  (“You can hear the ocean from headquarters!” an excited Ponch says.)  Not only do Ponch and Baker stop a car theft (and save the baby who was trapped in the back seat) but they also catch a gang of van thieves.  Ponch also takes a few kids from the neighborhood to Disneyland, in order to make up for having incorrectly accused one of them of having stolen a radio and bunch of sunflowers.

Of course, we don’t actually see Ponch at Disneyland.  We just hear about afterwards.  What we do see is Ponch and Baker hanging out on the beach and trying out a jet ski.  As I watched this episode, it occurred to me that CHiPs really wasn’t a police show as much as it was an hour long commercial for California.  The theme of this episode appeared to be, “Even if Los Angeles is too crowded and smoggy for you, you can still go to Malibu, meet and date two flight attendants, and conquer the ocean on a jet ski!”  And really, this show is at its most effective when it focuses on being a travelogue.  I imagine quite a few people watched this episode in 1978 and thought to themselves, “I have to get to Malibu!”

Scenery aside, this is a bit of a dull episode.  The van thieves were not particularly impressive villains and even the show’s famous chase scenes felt a bit perfunctory.  As a drama, this episode fell flat but it worked wonderfully as a commercial.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.3 “Whatever Works”

Posted on 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, we learn how Sonny affords all of those wonderful toys.

Episode 2.3 “Whatever Works”

(Dir by John Nicolella, originally aired on October 4th, 1985)

Have you ever wondered how Sonny Crockett afford that nice Ferrari on just a cop’s salary?  To be honest, it hadn’t really occurred to me.  I just assumed that everyone in the 80s owned a Ferrari.  I’ve been more concerned with how Sonny manages to maintain his undercover identity despite the fact that he spends almost all of his time hanging out with his fellow cops.  I mean, surely, someone in the Miami underworld has noticed that “Sonny Burnett” sure does seem to have a lot of friends who worked Vice.

Regardless, in this episode, we learn that Sonny doesn’t actually own the Ferrari.  Instead, it’s a vehicle that the department loans to Sonny so that he can maintain his cover.  Apparently, the Ferrari once belonged to an actual drug dealer.  Unfortunately, the Miami Police Department desperately needs to make some money at their next police auction so Maxwell Dierks (Robert Trebor), a weaselly bureaucrat, decides to repossess Sonny’s Ferrari and auction it off.

Sonny spends most of this episode obsessing on his car.  While the rest of the Vice Squad laughs at Sonny’s misfortune, local informant Izzy Moreno tries to trick Dierks into giving him the car so that he can return it to Sonny.  I hope Sonny appreciates who his true friends are.  Anyway, Castillo eventually pulls some strings to save Sonny’s car.  Maybe Sonny should have gone to him in the first place but, then again, Castillo is kind of intimidating.  He literally never smiles.

While Sonny is obsessing on his car, someone is killing cops and leaving behind Santeria charms.  Despite having grown up in Florida and being a veteran vice detective, it appears that Sonny has never before heard of Santeria.  However, Castillo and Tubbs know all about it.  Castillo is even friends with a Santeria priestess (Eartha Kitt) who explains that the killers did not view the cops as being policemen but instead as being fellow criminals.

It turns out that there’s a group of cops who have been shaking down drug dealers and now, they’re being killed one-by-one.  For all the talk of Santeria, the solution to the problem is actually pretty straight forward.  The Vice squad tracks down the people doing the killing and, after a shoot-out, the bad guys surrender.  And that’s the end of that.

Oh, this episode.  It had potential but it just fell flat.  The Santeria stuff felt tacked on and it was pretty obvious that the episode’s writers were more interested in Sonny trying to get his car back than in the episode’s main storyline.  Even the Eartha Kitt cameo felt a bit perfunctory.

On the plus side, this episode did feature a band singing Bang A Gong in the middle of a bar fight.  That was pretty cool.  The band was called Power Station and apparently, it was an off-shoot of Duran Duran.  What’s interesting is that the members of the band are portrayed as being old friends of Sonny, to the extent that they applaud him as he beats up a bad cop.  It brings a real “The name is Dalton” energy to the scene.

This week’s episode was a bit disappointing but next week’s episode is apparently a classic.  I look forward to watching and reviewing Out Where The Buses Don’t Run.