Tag Archives: Retro Television Reviews

Late Night Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell 3.7 “Check Your Mate”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing Saved By The Bell, which ran on NBC from 1989 to 1993.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Screech is actually good at something!

Episode 3.7 “Check Your Mate”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on October 5th, 1991)

Bayside has got chess fever!  Screech Powers has advanced to the all-city chess finals, where he will be facing off against Valley High’s Russian exchange student Peter Breschnev (Matt Kaminsky), the grandson of a legendary player.  Screech fears that he won’t have a chance but then he remembers that he never seems to lose as long as he’s wearing the lucky red beret that Violet purchased for him.

Around the same time that Zack and Slater place a bet on the outcome of chess match, Allison (Hillary Hayes) shows up.  She says that she’s from a chess magazine and she wants to do a profile of Screech.  She even invites Screech to the magazine’s mansion so that he can swim in the pawn-shaped pool.  However, it turns out that Allison is actually a spy from Valley High and she’s been sent to sabotage Screech’s game.  Allison steals his lucky beret.  How can Screech win now!?

Usually, I can’t stand any episode that revolves around Screech and Violet but I have to admit that I do like this one.  Yes, Dustin Diamond and Tori Spelling are just as bad as usual (and Diamond really goes overboard with the goofy faces in this one) but, luckily, Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Mario Lopez are also present and they do some of their best work in this episode.  Zack and Slater, for instance, kidnap the Russian and tie him up in a broom closet.  Zack then pretends to be the Russian and forfeits the match after making one move.  Meanwhile, Slater reports on the match for Bayside’s radio station and he does so with just the right amount of earnest enthusiasm.  (Jessie: “And now the Russian is hopping out onstage in his underwear!?”  Slater: “What an exciting match so far!”)  Slater knows nothing about chess but he does know that he wants to see “that commie” defeated.  Amongst the guest stars, Hilary Hayes and Matt Kaminsky are perfectly cast and score some laughs of their own.  (“I’ll see ya …. at the Galleria.”)

In this episode, Screech nearly loses Violet when he lets his chess fame go to his head.  Violet forgives him but this would still be her final episode.  I guess dating a chess jock wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.21 “Game of Chance”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch, which ran on NBC and then in syndication from 1989 to 2001.  The entire show can be viewed on Tubi.

This week, Harvey has a gambling problem.

Episode 2.21 “Game of Chance”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on May 11th, 1992)

Harvey (Tom McTigue), the lifeguard who always appears in the opening credits but rarely does anything in the actual show, actually gets a storyline in this episode.

Harvey is on a boat in the ocean, taking part in a floating poker game. Mitch kayaks out to the game so he can tell Harvey to “fold” and get to work. Harvey, however, has a great hand. He wins everyone’s money. Unfortunately, a masked man then shows up and steals all the money for himself. (Whoever put this poker game together should have splurged a little on security.) Mitch and Harvey investigate the robbery and eventually discover that the thief owns an amphibious jeep. This leads to a less-than-exciting chase scene and Hasselhoff making jokes about a talking car.

Meanwhile, Shauni is frustrated because her father doesn’t approve of her dating Eddie. Even after Eddie saves Shauni’s older sister from drowning, her father continues to look down on him. Shauni finally decides to defy her father and move in with the man she loves. This would be really touching except for the fact that Shauni and Eddie have supposedly been living together for a while now. Just last week, someone asked Shauni what it was like to live with Eddie. I’m going to guess that this episode was originally meant to air earlier in the season but, for some reason, got pushed to the back.

This was all pretty silly, and the script itself felt like something left over from the first season, when Shauni was still a spoiled princess, Eddie was a rough-edged former delinquent, and John Cort was the resident trouble-making lifeguard.

Next week, the second season comes to an end.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Sledge Hammer! 1.7 “All Shook 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 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.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 4.12 “The Boom Boom Womb”

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 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, St. Elsewhere gets topical.

Episode 4.12 “The Boom Boom Womb”

(Dir by Nicholas Mele, originally aired on January 8th 1986)

When Elliot’s car gets stuck in the snow, Luther offers to help in return for Elliot looking after Luther’s homing pigeon. Elliot, whose father was a veterinarian, agrees. Unfortunately, when Elliot attempts to turn his sink into a birdbath, the pigeon is electrocuted after it accidentally pulls an electric shaver into the water. Elliot originally tells Luther that the bird flew out a window and then froze to death on the windowsill. Luther accepts the story. A guilt-ridden Elliot later tells Luther the truth, and Luther shoves him to the ground.

Watching this storyline, I thought about how bad I always feel for Luther. In many ways, he’s the smartest guy on the show. He’s certainly the most compassionate and the least judgmental. (Yes, he pushed Elliot, but Elliot did lie to him about how the bird died.) And yet, because he didn’t grow up rich, Luther is stuck working as an orderly, and the doctors frequently seem to look down on him.

While Elliot’s lying to Luther, Helen Rosenthal is trying to figure out why her youngest son, Jeff (Ina Fried), keeps acting out in school and at home.  She even takes him to see St. Eligius’s staff psychiatrist, Dr. Weiss (Philip Sterling).  Dr. Weiss’s diagnosis is that Helen’s son is basically growing up to be a jerk.

As for the rest of the episode, it was all about current events, 1986-style. Pru (Amanda Wyss), the developmentally challenged teenager who got pregnant during her last hospital visit, has an abortion even though she doesn’t know what that means. Dr. Morrison struggles to reconcile his pro-life beliefs with his job as a doctor. Dr. Ehrlich, who has no beliefs, performs the operation. Meanwhile, a bomber (Rob Garrison) blows up the Boston Women’s Clinic and, as the episode ends, is seen sneaking a bomb into St. Eligius.

This is typically the type of storyline that would feature Westphall wandering around glumly. Westphall, however, is busy at a hearing to determine whether his housekeeper, Morena (Edith Diaz), will be deported back to El Salvador. Westphall is worried about her being deported because she’s so good with Tommy. In other words, this is yet another example of Westphall making someone else’s problem all about himself.

This episode was a bit too heavy-handed for my tastes, but I did appreciate that Dr. Morrison was at least not portrayed as a monster for his views. When it comes to being heavy-handed, the New Amsterdam episode that aired in 2022 and dealt with Roe v. Wade being overturned will always be the champion. That episode featured a slow-motion montage of people staring at their phones, dropping their coffee cups, and, in one case, running down a street. (“Maybe she’s running to the clinic to get an abortion while she still can,” Erin said when we saw the opening of the episode.) Compared to that, this episode of St. Elsewhere is actually pretty even-handed.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 2.3 “The Biggest Man In Town”

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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, Hunter and McCall investigate a murder!  Yes, another one.

Episode 2.3 “The Biggest Man In Town”

(Dir by Bob Bravler, originally aired on October 5th, 1985)

When Charles Lattimer (Gregory Itzin), a man with no criminal record, is found executed gangland-style, Hunter and McCall suspect that it was more than just random California violence.  After they find out that Lattimer was last seen alive while having a tense lunch at an expensive French restaurant, they decide to go undercover in Lattimer’s home town, an exclusive resort full of rich people and women in bikinis.

Hunter, pretending to be an oceanographer, meets Lattimer’s girlfriend, librarian Amy Lauton (Nana Visitor).  McCall, pretending to be an aspiring singer, meets the biggest man in town, insurance tycoon Raymond Bellamy (Stuart Whitman).

Now, we already know that Bellamy is the one who ordered Lattimer’s death.  Bellamy is the man with whom Lattimer had his final lunch.  Lattimer was blackmailing Bellamy over a case of insurance fraud.  We also know that the execution was carried out by Sheriff Johnson (Don Stroud).  We know all this because we saw it at the beginning of the episode.  There’s no real mystery here.

Then again, this episode isn’t about mystery.  It’s about Hunter and McCall getting away from Los Angeles for a while.  It’s about McCall getting to sing three songs at the resort’s premier nightclub.  It’s about Hunter getting distracted every time a woman in a bikini walks by.  Mostly, it’s just about the chemistry between Hunter and McCall.  It doesn’t matter how many people die, they’ve always got a quip to trade.

Actually, not that many people die in this episode. Lattimer dies.  His father is murdered.  But otherwise, this episode is almost peaceful by Hunter standards.  For once. Hunter and McCall arrest the bad guys instead of killing them.  Getting out of Los Angeles must have mellowed them.

This episode was entertaining but forgettable.  The story was nothing special but the Hunter/McCall chemistry was enjoyable.  Hunter and McCall are solving crimes and having fun!  Good for them.

Retro Television Review: The Best Of Times

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!  This Thursday, I will be reviewing The Best Of Times, which aired its only episode on ABC in 1981.  The show can be found on YouTube!

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by Don Mischer, originally aired on July 31st, 1981)

The Best of Times opens with a teenage Crispin Glover in his bedroom. Looking straight at the camera, he introduces himself as “Crispin.” His unseen mother starts to yell at him about cleaning his room. Crispin smiles nervously and then introduces us to the kids he hangs out with. There’s Jill Schoelen, Julie Piekarski, Kevin Cortes, Lisa Hope Ross, David Rambo, Janet Robin, and “my friend” Nicolas Coppola.

Nicolas Coppola, of course, would soon be better known as Nicolas Cage. Both Cage and Glover made their screen debuts in The Best of Times. While Glover spends his time talking directly to the camera and smiling awkwardly, Cage spends his time exercising at the beach and talking about sports. The big school dance is coming up, and all of Crispin’s friends are either trying to find dates or the perfect pair of jeans or else they’re trying to join a band. Nicolas Cage, however, isn’t worried about any of that. He’s confident and smooth.

The plot of The Best of Times is not easy to summarize. The show was executive-produced by George Schlatter, the creator of Laugh-In, and it tries to imitate that classic show’s format, just with teenagers in the ’80s. There are quick blackout sketches. There’s a lot of corny one-liners. There’s a surprisingly large number of musical numbers. Crispin Glover puts on a pair of jeans, and all the girls in the cast start singing “Heartbreaker.” “Special guest star” Jackie Mason plays Mr. O’Reilly and rolls his eyes about the kids nowadays. Crispin looks at the camera and tries to explain why teenagers get a little crazy sometimes. “Try to remember,” he tells the parents watching, “when you were our age.”

There’s one dramatic moment. Nicolas Cage stands on the beach and gives a dramatic monologue about how, if war breaks out in El Salvador, he’ll serve his country. His father served in Korea and still suffers from PTSD. Nic hopes that there isn’t a war, but if there is, he’ll be there.

The Best of Times is energetic and relentless, and it’s also rather corny and predictable. It may have been made by the guy behind Laugh-In, but it feels more like a lesser episode of MADtv. (“Tonight, Mad TV looks at teenagers!”) With the exception of Crispin Glover and Nicolas Cage, most of the members of the cast are interchangeable. This show features not one but two dorky guys who can’t get dates to the big dance. That might be realistic, but it still feels like overkill.

That said, it is a pilot starring a young Nicolas Cage. Compared with the actor he would become, Cage is fairly restrained here. He’s likable, but he’s also clearly an actor carefully following direction. The only time he really gets to let loose is at the school dance. His moves are killer.

The Best of Times was not turned into a regular series. Nicolas, Crispin, and Jill Schoelen went on to become beloved cult actors. As for the rest of the cast, David Rambo is now an award-winning playwright, and Janet Robin is an acclaimed composer and guitarist. I doubt any of them remember much about this pilot, but I’m glad they’ve gone on to live the best of times.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 5.4 “Mind Games”

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 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, the Bulls sign a new player!

Episode 5.4 “Mind Games”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on November 1st, 1989)

The Bulls have signed college phenom Achilles Byron (Ronald William Lawrence) to the roster.  However, in order to his name on the dotted line, they also have to sign his loud-mouthed, wheelchair-bound father (Ron O’Neal).  Mr. Byron is tough taskmaster who constantly yells at Achilles and forces him to do extra drills.  Denardo isn’t happy about Mr. Byron’s presence on the sidelines.  Quite rightly, he explains to TD Parker and Kristy that there can only be one coach on the field.

Fortunately, Achilles scores the game-winning touchdown in his first game and Mr. Byron announces that Achilles no longer needs him.  Mr. Byron also reveals that he was driving drunk on the night that he crashed his car, injured his spine, and killed Achilles’s mother.  Wow, that’s a lot to dump on a kid who just won a football game.  Luckily, Achilles had already figured out all of that on his own.  Achilles is like No hard feelings and I’m going to say, “Ouch,” on the behalf of the deceased Mrs. Bryon.

Denardo, as a sign of respect, rolls Mr. Byron out of the locker room.  Denardo also threatens to roll Mr. Byron down a flight of stairs.  Mr. Byron suddenly starts laughing.

1st & Ten has this weird habit of tossing new characters into the mix and expecting us to get emotionally invested in them despite the fact that we’ve never seen them before and we’ll never seem them again.  I’ve already checked with the IMDb.  This is the only appearance of the character of Achilles Byron on the show.  The Bulls agreeing to let Mr. Byron sit on the sidelines never made any sense and the final revelation about the night he was driving drunk came out of nowhere.  It almost felt like a parody of badly-done melodrama.

While all of that was going on, Dr. Death was briefly brainwashed by a cult.  It doesn’t look like he’ll ever get his killer instinct back!  But then an opposing player calls Dr. Death a “pinhead” and he snaps out of it.  He scores a viscous tackle that leaves the other player so dazed that that he wanders over to the wrong sideline.  Obviously, he has a concussion but the laugh track tells us not to worry about it.

Dr. Death getting brainwashed actually was kind of funny.  Ron O’Neal, best known for starring in Superfly, does a lot of yelling as Mr. Byron.  It’s not exactly a good performance but one gets the feeling that was more the fault of the script than O’Neal.  This was another curiously insubstantial episode of 1st & Ten.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 8.13 “Paying the Piper/Baby Sister/Help Wanted”

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!

Welcome aboard!  We’re expecting you….

Episode 8.13 “Paying the Piper/Baby Sister/Help Wanted”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on December 1st, 1984)

Cheryl Enicker (Rue McClanahan) is sick of her husband, button manufacturer Harold (Donald O’Connor), taking her for granted.  When she gives him a watch that cost $1,200, Harold points out that, since she gets all of her money from him, he basically bought the watch himself.  Cheryl gets upset and hands Harold an invoice, listing everything that she’s done as a wife and mother for 25 years and demanding that Harold pay her half a million dollars.  That’ll show him!  After the episode, I was kind of of curious as to why the invoice was only for half a million dollars.  It seems like it should have been more.  I did some calculations and discovered that $520,00 in 1980 was the equivalent of $2,000,000 today.  Wow!

Recent high school graduate Patty Springer (Dana Plato) can’t understand why her much older sister, Eleanor (Jaime Lynn Bauer), is freaking out about Patty hanging out with Peter Barkan (Christopher Knight).  Eleanor goes as far as to kiss Peter in order to make Patty think that Peter is cheating on her.  Patty’s mother, Eve (Vera Miles), suggests that Eleanor should tell Patty the truth.  Eleanor isn’t actually Patty’s sister.  Eleanor is …. Patty’s mother!  And Eve is actually Patty’s grandmother.  Needless to say, Patty is shaken by this news but she accepts it by the time the cruise ends.  The Love Boat was only an hour show so most cases of generational trauma had to be resolved fairly quickly.

Kim Carlisle (Michelle Johnson) is the niece of a friend of Captain Stubing’s.  Kim shows up, saying that her uncle said Stubing would find something for her to do on the ship.  Kim goes from department-to-department, screwing things up.  She removes all of the labels from the wine bottles so she can wash them.  She snaps a picture of a man cheating on his wife.  However, when she starts doing aerobics, several passengers join her.  Kim is hired to be the new recreation director and — WAIT A MINUTE!  I thought that was Charo’s job!  Well, apparently, Charo is out and Kim is in.

This cruise was pleasant but forgettable, which seems to be becoming the norm for season 8.  It didn’t take me long to guess the big twist about Eleanor being Patty’s mother.  Poor Dana Plato.  Knowing what I now know about her life and what the future had in store for her adds a definite melancholy feel to this episode.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.20 “Trust”

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 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, Cory makes another stupid mistake.

Episode 4.20 “Trust”

(Dir by Terence H. Winkless, originally aired on April 11th, 1999)

When her best friend is murdered, Cory assumes that the killer is her friend’s ex-boyfriend, Mark (Joel Gretsch).  FBI profiler Jerry Beck (Eric Scott Woods) agrees.  In fact, he claims that Mark is a serial killer who has been stalking and killing blondes across the country.  Cory, who blames herself for her friend’s death and who has recently broken up with Bobby Cruz, works with Jerry to try to stop Mark’s reign of terror.  But what if Jerry Beck isn’t who he says he is?  What if the real Jerry Beck was murdered and an imposter took on his identity?

This is one of those episodes where Monica pretty much figures out what’s going on but everyone ignores her because both the characters and the show itself seem to have a bizarre hated for her.  Every episode in which Monica appears seems to feature Monica doing better detective work than everyone else on the bike patrol and getting absolutely no credit for it.  In this case, Cory does eventually admit that Monica was right so I guess that’s progress.

Oh, this was a stupid episode.  Having an FBI profiler turn out to actually be a serial killer isn’t a bad idea but having the killer somehow steal the identity of an actual FBI agent without anyone noticing is one of those things that just asks for too much of a suspension of disbelief.  Having Cory then fall for the fake FBI agent while she’s supposed to searching for the killer of her best friend was just another example of Cory basically acting like an idiot.  That’s been a frequent thing with Cory this season.  It’s odd because Cory used to actually be the smart member of the bike patrol.

While Cory is trying to avenge her friend’s death, Granger hooks up with a woman that he meets online.  Jamie is skeptical that CyberVixen is going to be the next Mrs. Granger.  It’s always funny to me to see television shows that attempted to deal with the Internet in the 90s.  You can always tell that they were written by aging boomers who weren’t quite sure what the Internet was and probably expected it to just be a brief fad.

To me, the funniest moment in this episode was the members of Pacific Blue realizing that Cory was alone with a serial killer so, instead of calling a squad car, they all just hopped on their bicycles and rode over to Cory’s apartment.  I mean, would it kill them to take a car for once?  I imagine they would have gotten over to the apartment quicker.

This episode was pretty dumb.

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 2.19 “The Class of 2020”

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 Saved By The Bell: The New Class, which ran on NBC from 1993 to 2o00.  The show is currently on Prime.

“One thing I’ll never forget is when the writers were too lazy to come up with a new episode so we just did a clip show instead….”

Episode 2.19 “The Class of 2020”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 19th, 1994)

Screech and Belding are making a documentary to put in the time capsule for the class of 2020.  Wow, those 2020 graduates will be amazed to see what the world was like before they were born!

Megan and Bobby are interviewed.  Lindsay and Tommy are interviewed.  Rachel and Brian are interviewed.  There’s a lot of dialogue like “Remember that time we thought we got Mr. Belding fired?” and “I’ll never forget the time my friends helped me out.”  Yep, it’s a clip show.  One of the clips comes from the previous week’s episode.

Two things of note:

One of Lindsay and Tommy’s clips features Weasel and Scott from the previous season.  That makes this episode the only time that anyone during the second season actually acknowledged that Scott, Weasel, and Vicki used to go to Bayside.

Secondly, Rachel and Brian talk about falling in love over the summer at the country club.  But this episode ends with Screech and Belding talking about how Screech’s first year as Belding’s administrative assistant is coming to an end.  None of the students met Screech until he started working as Belding’s administrative assistant, as the start of the school year.  But they all know Screech in the country club episodes.  In fact, Screech is the one who hired them.  So, the country club episodes have to have taken place during the summer after Screech’s first year as Belding’s academic assistant.  So, this clip show apparently includes clips from the future.  Maybe Brian and Rachel are time travelers.

Anyway, it’s a clip show.  Who cares?