Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life on the Street 1.2 “Ghost of a Chance”

Posted on October 13, 2024 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 Sundays, I will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC! It can be viewed on Peacock.

This week, the search for Adeena Watson’s murderer begins.

Episode 1.2 “Ghost of a Chance”

(Dir by Martin Campbell, originally aired on February 3rd, 1993)

There’s been a murder in Baltimore. That, in itself, is not news. The pilot firmly established that murder is a fact of life in Baltimore. But, the victim of this crime is an 11 year-old girl named Adeena Watson, who left her home to go to the library and who never returned. The press is covering every detail. The police brass want an arrest and they want an arrest quickly. And the primary detective on the case is rookie Tim Bayliss, who has never even worked a murder case on his own before. Giardello refuses to replace Bayliss but he also makes it clear that he needs Bayliss to bring him something.

As for Bayliss, he spends most of this episode struggling. Not only does he not have the respect of his fellow detective but he also, as a rookie, doesn’t even have a desk until Giardello, in a fit of anger, knocks everything off an unoccupied desk and awards it to Bayliss. (So, was that desk just sitting there the whole time? I thought they didn’t have any available desks.) Because this crime is what is known as a “red ball,” (i.e., a murder that has attracted the attention of the media and the public), every detective is looking for Adeena’s murderer. While Bayliss obsesses on who Adeena was before she was killed, the rest of the squad does the practical things, like talking to neighbors and bringing in all of the city’s sex offenders for interrogation.

My heart broke for Bayliss while watching this episode. Kyle Secor did a good job of capturing both Bayliss’s outrage over the crime and his fear of failing to solve his first case as a primary. While Bayliss stared at Adeena’s body in the alley, Munch, Lewis, and Crosetti debated sports. And while their attitude may have seemed callous, this episode established that disconnecting is the only way to handle working Homicide. Bayliss, having not learned how to disconnect, grows more and more obsessed with Adeena. I cheered a little when Bayliss finally stood up for himself and even won the grudging respect of Frank Pembleton. That said, the change in Bayliss happened almost too quickly to be credible. Apparently, all it took was for Giardello to give him a desk for Bayliss to go from being meek and overwhelmed to being a confident and take-charge detective.

While Bayliss searched for Adeena’s killer, Much and Bolander dealt with a murder that happened in a wealthy neighborhood. The killer (Gwen Verdon) was a wife who snapped after 60 years of marriage. As she explained to Bolander and Munch, she and her husband had earlier promised each other that they wouldn’t get a divorce until the children died. Bolander has a crush on the coroner, Dr. Blythe (Wendy Hughes), but he’s worried about getting back in the dating game after his own divorce. When Munch asks Bolander how old he is, Bolander replies, “48.” Ned Beatty was a great actor and I’ve never seen a bad Ned Beatty performance. That said, it’s also hard for me to think of any film where he looked a day under 50.

Meanwhile, Kay tries to get a confession from a guy who is about to go on trial for murder. Felton laughs when Kay says that she was visited by the ghost of the guy’s victim. However, Felton makes up for being a jerk by helping Kay find the murder weapon. This whole subplot was odd to me, largely because Kay really doesn’t come across as the type to believe in ghosts. But whatever works, I guess! Melissa Leo and Daniel Baldwin did a good job in this episode, selling a storyline that had the potential to be a little bit too cute for its own good.

As the episode ended, the killer of Adeena Watson had yet to be captured. While the other detective drank at a wharf bar, Bayliss went to Adeena’s memorial service and stared at her coffin, haunted. It was a powerful moment but one that left the viewer worried about Bayliss’s sanity. Earlier in this episode, Pembleton said that a murder that goes 72 hours without being solved will never be solved. Bayliss is running out of time.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 2.15 “Tots ‘R’ Us”

Posted on October 12, 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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Edna has a good idea.

Episode 2.15 “Tots ‘R’ Us”

(DIr by J. Sumner, originally aired on February 1st, 1987)

I have no idea who J. Sumner was.

J. Sumner is credited as being the director of this episode. (Up until this episode, Alan Erlich was the show’s regular director.) I’ve never seen the name before and it struck me as being such an odd name to use that I actually looked the director up on the IMDb. According to the IMDb, this episode of Check It Out! is the only thing that J. Sumner has ever been credited as having been involved with. That’s quite an accomplishment, making your entertainment career debut as a director Most people have to work up to it.

I kind of suspect that J. Sumner is a pseudonym of some sort. Maybe the real director didn’t want to be credited for this episode, though there’s nothing about it that’s really all that different from any other episode of Check It Out. It’s not a terrible episode but it’s also not a particularly interesting one, which is why I’m wasting so much time speculating about the identity of J. Sumner.

The episode takes place on Canadian Mother’s Day. Edna decides to turn the back offices into a daycare so mothers can leave their children while they shop. That actually does sound like a good idea to me. Whenever I go grocery shopping, I always seem to get stuck in line behind people who have multiple hyperactive children. Just last week, this little brat stepped on my foot while running around the store and his mother didn’t even apologize to me. Seriously, I was limping for hours afterwards! I should have called the cops and pressed charges….

Anyway, all of the moms and their kids eventually leave. Except there’s one child (played by Benjamin Barrett) left behind. He wears a nametag that reads “Orphan” but a call to the local orphanage reveals that no one is missing. Edna calls the police but tells them that the store will take care of the kid and hold onto him until his parents arrive. The police apparently say, “Okay, thanks for letting us know,” and then never bother to come out to the store. That doesn’t sound like typical police procedure when it comes to an abandoned child but who knows? This is a Canadian show so maybe that’s the way they do it in Manitoba.

Edna pressures Howard into using a sock puppet to talk to the kid. The previously silent kid is happy to talk to Goober The Sock. The kid’s name is Freddy. He stays overnight at the store with Edna and, in a really sad scene, Edna asks Freddy if he knows anything about adoption. Edna’s dreams of taking Feddy into her home are ruined when Freddy’s father (Walker Boone) shows up. Howard gives Freddy and his father tickets to a baseball game. Awww, that was nice!

This was a pretty simple episode and, to be honest, it was kind of boring. Howard and Edna are more fun when they’re weird than when they’re nice. As always, Gordon Clapp (as Viker, the electrician) got a few funny lines and made the most of his limited screentime. Otherwise, this was a sweet-natured but not particularly enthralling episode.

And if J. Sumner is reading this, say hi in the comments! We’d love to hear from you!

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 4.3 “Don’t Come Up And See Me Sometime”

Posted on October 12, 2024 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 Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1979. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Vinnie tries to move on with his life. The Sweathogs say, “No!”

Episode 4.3 “Don’t Come Up And See Me Sometime”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on September 25th, 1978)

Vinnie Barbarino has his own apartment!

And it’s a dump!

Seriously, if you watch enough 70s sitcoms, you know that no one is going to live in a nice apartment. For whatever reason, characters on 70s tv shows always lived in the ugliest apartments imaginable. But, even with that in mind, Barbarino’s apartment is terrible. The walls are stained. The couch is worn and has visible stuffing. Every time the train goes by, the entire apartment shakes and Vinnie’s bed falls out of its closet. It’s an awful apartment in an awful part of Brooklyn but then again, Barbarino is a janitor who hasn’t even graduated from high school so really, the crappy apartment is probably the most realistic part of this episode.

Vinnie is happy to have his own place because he has a serious girlfriend, Sally (Linda McCullough). Sally works as a nurse at the hospital. Vinnie can’t wait to spend time with her, though she has to break their first date when she’s assigned to work overnight.

Julie Kotter makes her first appearance of the season when she drops by to give VInnie a house-warming present and to show off her terrible new haircut. The present turns out to be towels. Vinnie is happy with the gift because he was feeling bad about stealing towels from the hospital.

Then the Sweathogs show up, including a new blonde guy with a Southern accent. Washington says that the guy’s name is Beau (Stephen Shortridge) and he’s a new student at Buchanan High and in Mr. Kotter’s class. What’s odd is that the previous episode ended with Vinnie once again enrolled in high school and a student in Kotter’s class. So, why hasn’t he met Beau yet? Did Vinnie drop out after dropping back in?

After Vinnie and Beau debate which one of them is uglier, Vinnie gives everyone a tour of the apartment. He’s especially proud of his dining table.

Things are going fine until the Sweathogs start to talk about how they’re going to be spending all of their time at Barbarino’s new apartment. Vinnie, realizing the he just wants some privacy, asks all of the Sweathogs to leave. The Sweathogs get offended and say that Vinnie has let his new apartment go to his head.

The next day, at school, Gabe is shocked to see the Sweathogs shunning Vinnie. Woodman, however, tells Vinnie that he’s lucky. “I haven’t had a friend in 20 years,” Woodman says, “and look how happy I am!” Fortunately, Gabe is not quite so cynical and he’s able to help the Sweathogs realize that they need to give Barbarino room to live his own life. This episode ends with Barbarino, having nearly been driven mad by loneliness, happily allowing the Sweathogs, the Kotters, and Mr. Woodman into his apartment. But then Sally arrives and he kicks them all out.

This episode feels like a metaphor of sorts. Just as Barbarino was escaping the Sweathogs and starting his own life, John Travolta was escaping television for the movies. One has to imagine that, just as the Sweathogs were offended to be kicked out of the apartment, there were some Kotter people who weren’t necessarily happy about not being included in Travolta’s new Hollywood career.

This episode works surprisingly well. That’s largely because it’s a showcase for John Travolta. The scenes of Barbarino talking to himself come close to going on for too long but Travolta’s charisma carries the day. At the end of the episode, even Gabe and Julie look happy for a minute or two.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.13 “Eye of Death”

Posted on October 11, 2024 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, Ryan goes into the past.

Episode 2.13 “Eye of the Death”

(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on January 30th, 1989)

Atticus Rook (Tom McCamus) is an antiques dealer, one who is well-known to Jack. No one seems to really like or trust Atticus Rook. Everything about him seems to scream sleaze. But Atticus has somehow managed to get artifacts from the American Civil War that no one else has ever been able to find. His latest claim is that he will soon be selling Robert E. Lee’s sword.

How is Atticus accomplishing this? He has a cursed magic lantern that he uses to project old pictures onto his wall. He’s then able to step into the picture and enter the time period in which it was taken. (Hey, that sounds like a fun cursed object to own!) Atticus has been going into the past and telling Gen. Lee (Bernard Behrens) that he’s a spy. However, the information that he gives Lee is just stuff that he remembers from history class. Atticus thinks that he’s got a pretty good operation going but there are two catches. To go to the past, he has to kill someone in the present. To return to the present, he has to kill someone in the past.

Naturally, Ryan ends up in the past while trying to retrieve the magic lantern. Ryan meets General Lee and tries to present himself as also being a spy but it turns out that Ryan paid even less attention in history class than Atticus did. Ryan being Ryan, he also falls in love with a widow named Abigail (Brooke Johnson). As we all know, having Ryan fall in love with you is pretty much a death sentence on Friday the 13th. Abigail’s death does allow Ryan, Jack, and Micki to return to the present. Moving the lantern allows Atticus to get trapped in his own wall, where he suffocates while trying to return to the present.

This was a surprisingly good episode. I say “surprisingly” because you wouldn’t necessarily think that a low-budget Canadian show would do a great job of recreating the American Civil War but this episode pulls it off. The costumes, the sets, the words used by the people encountered by Ryan and Atticus, all of them work to make the episode’s Civil War setting feel very realistic. Tom McCamus is a great villain and Bernard Behrens is well-cast as Robert E. Lee. Even the obviously doomed romance between Ryan and Abigail works remarkably well.

I have to admit that I’ve always assumed this show took place in Canada, largely because of all of the Canadian accents and the Canadian scenery. This episode reveals that Friday the 13th is supposed to be taking place in the United States, despite the way that people pronounce the word “sorry.” When Ryan ends up in the Civil War, he says that he’s from Chicago. (It’s not necessarily a good idea to go back to the Civil War era and immediatly tell everyone that you’re a Yankee.)

Well, this show can pretend that the antique store is in Chicago if it wants to, but it’ll always be Toronto to me.

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.18 “Suspect”

Posted on October 11, 2024 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!

This week, we have yet another surprisingly serious episode of T and T.

Episode 3.18 “Suspect”

(Dir by Ken Girotti, originally aired on May 5th, 1990)

On trial for having physically abused his girlfriend, Giles (Tom Melissis) can only smirk when his girlfriend, Ally (Isabelle Mejias), takes the stand and says that she doesn’t remember who beat her. Far less amused is Ally’s lawyer, Terri (Kristina Nicoll).

After telling Ally that she needs to recant her testimony and testify against Giles, Terri starts to receive threatening letters. While Turner immediately suspects that Giles is the one behind the threats, it turns out that it’s actually Ally! Ally explains that she’s actually an ex-convict named Deborah, a former client of Terri’s who got sent to prison. This, of course, leads to a huge question — why didn’t Terri recognize Ally when she agreed to serve as her attorney? And how did Ally manage to fool everyone into thinking she was Ally when she’s actually Deborah? Ally doesn’t say anything about getting plastic surgery or anything like that. She also implies that her last encounter with Terri was only a year or two ago. (Seeing as how Terri wasn’t even on the show until the start of this season, it couldn’t have been that long ago.) Terri immediately recognizes the name Deborah but she didn’t recognize Deborah when she was standing right in front of her. Wow, Terry …. and I thought I was self-centered!

No worries, though! Despite all of the threats, Terri agrees to not turn Ally into the police as long as Ally testifies against Giles. I don’t know if I could so easily overlook a harassment campaign but whatever. The important thing is that Giles goes to jail and Ally is free to continue leading a double life.

This episode featured good performances from Isabelle Mejias and Tom Melissis and I appreciate any show or film that ends with an abuser getting sent to either prison or the graveyard. But the story itself felt really rushed. This is one of those episodes that would have benefitted from a longer running time because there was a lot to unpack in just 30 minutes. As well, it’s hard not to feel that Ally’s backstory would have had more impact if Amy was still on the show. Season 3 (and the show itself) are nearly over and I still don’t feel like I really know how Terri Taler is supposed to be. Amy was established, over the course of two seasons, as a whip-smart attorney who had a long history as a crusader. Terri, on the other hand, still feels like someone who just showed up nowhere.

Like last week, this was a surprisingly serious episode of T and T. The episode didn’t quite work but the show still deserves credit for trying.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.20 “Summit”

Posted on October 10, 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, Jonathan and Mark do their bet to save the world from nuclear annihilation. Good for them!

Episode 2.20 “Summit”

(Dir by Dan Gordon, originally aired on March 5th, 1986)

Maria Malinoff (Eda Reiss Merlin), a Russian immigrant, is dying. Before she dies, she wants to see her son one last time.

The good news is that her son, Andrey Malinoff (Nehemiah Persoff), is currently in the United States. Even better, Mark and Jonathan have been assigned to let Andrey know that his mother wants to see him and to convince him to set aside his bitterness and see her.

The bad news is that Andrey is now the deputy premier of Russia and the reason why he’s in the United States is to attend a summit with the President (voiced by Frank Welker). Andrey is a communist who doesn’t believe in angels or American exceptionalism!

Mark and Jonathan are able to get jobs as waiters for the summit. (It helps that there is another angel working at Camp David.) They are even able to get Andrey away from his handlers long enough to take him to see his mother. Andrey is convinced that Jonathan and Mark are with the CIA and their whole “mission” is a trick to keep him from attending the summit. Mark dislikes Andrey because he’s a Russian and he think his country is superior to America. Jonathan dislikes Andrey because he’s abrasive and refuses, at first, to accept that Maria is his mother.

Eventually, though, Maria starts to talk about what Andrey was like as a child. Realizing that she is who she says she is, Andrey sits with his mother and talks to her until she passes away. Then, he returns to the summit a (slightly) changed man. He may still be a communist but at least now he knows the meaning of the word compassion. Mark takes a few minutes to ask Andrey and the President to work out their differences, explaining that everyone in the world is scared of nuclear war. The President, who is heard but not seen, is touched by Mark’s plea and agrees to have a long conversation about peace with Andrey.

Having apparently brought about world peace, Mark and Jonathan head off to their next assignment.

This episode — which was one of the few to be directed by neither Michael Landon nor Victor French — just felt silly, especially when compared to the strong episodes that came before it. Nehemiah Persoff does a lot of blustering in the role of Andrey but he never convinces us of the character’s emotions or his transformation. As an anti-communist, I enjoyed listening to Mark insult the Russians but otherwise, this well-meaning episode was a definite misfire.

Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.13 “Mom Returns”

Posted on October 10, 2024 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 Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, Jason and Scott’s mom returns to America and quickly decides to leave again.

Episode 1.13 “Mom Returns”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on January 17th, 1999)

With their Dad stuck in San Diego on his birthday, Jason and Scott decide to throw a wild party at the house. The music is loud. The house is crowded. Murray jumps off the second floor balcony. The police show up and start dancing. Oddly enough, Stads shows up and there’s absolutely no awkwardness between her and Jason, despite the fact that they just broke up.

Everything is going great until Michele (Carol Huston) shows up.

Michele is Jason and Scott’s mother, the one who sent them to Malibu so that she could take a job in Saudi Arabia. She’s returned home and Jason and Scott panic that she’s going to order them to return to New York. When they overhear Michele talking to their Dad about getting married again, Jason and Scott are convinced that their parents are getting back together.

Of course, this being a Peter Engel-produced show, it’s all a big misunderstanding. Michele is getting married again but she’s marrying a guy that she met in Saudi Arabia. In fact, she’s planning on spending another year in Saudi Arabia. I guess she likes not being allowed to drive and having to cover herself from head to toe while living in the middle of the desert. Still, when Jason and Scott start wearing suits and behaving like perfect angels in an attempt to convince their mom to let them stay in Malibu, their Dad decides to play a trick on them and basically allows them to believe that he and Michele are getting back together….

Wow, what a fucking asshole.

Seriously, it’s rare that I curse but this is one of the worst things that I’ve ever seen a television father do. I’m a child of divorce. I know exactly how it feels to fool yourself into thinking that your parents are going to get back together. That’s not something joke about.

Their father also jokes about sending his sons to Saudi Arabia. He even gives them some keffiyehs to wear. The audience laughs. Today, of course, Scott and Jason would just look like a typical Ivy Leaguer.

Anyway, after this episode, I understand why Michele got a divorce and couldn’t wait to get away from the kids. She probably could have escaped to a less misogynistic country but I guess she was desperate.

While all of this was going on, Sam and Stads competed to see who could raise the most money for charity. Stads really got over Sam kissing her boyfriend quickly! Both of them recruit Tracy to help them raise money. Tracy walks around the beach in a bikini and says, “Who wants to give me money?” It works.

This was a dumb episode.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.17 “One Wolf’s Family”

Posted on October 9, 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, Jerry Stiller is a werewolf!

Episode 2.17 “One Wolf’s Family”

(Dir by Alex Zamm, originally aired on February 11th, 1990)

In this rather heavy-handed episode of Monsters, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara star as Victor and Greta, two immigrants who have built a successful life for themselves in America. Victor is very proud of his heritage and his success. He’s even more proud of the fact that he and Greta are pure-bred werewolves. He expects his daughter, Anya (Amy Stiller), to marry a purebred werewolf.

(Ben was apparently busy when they shot this episode.)

So, how will Victor react when he discovers that Amy’s fiancé, Stanley (Robert Clohessy), is a were-hyena!?

*sigh*

Okay, I will give some credit here. The scene where Victor meets Stanley and they all gather around the kitchen table for dinner does have some funny moments. Stanley, being a hyena in human form, cannot stop laughing, even when he’s being insulted. And when Jerry Stiller launches into a rant about how no daughter of his is going to hang out on the roadside and eat trash, I did laugh. This was largely due to Jerry Stiller’s delivery of the line. Jerry Stiller was always funny whenever he started to rant.

Otherwise, this episode was pretty disappointing. There’s a subplot about a nosey neighbor named Agnes (Karen Shallo). Agnes is upset to discover that her neighbors are werewolves that keep dead bodies in their refrigerator so that they’ll have something to snack on. “It’s bad enough that they’re immigrants!” Agnes says. And yes, I get it. Agnes is supposed to be a small-minded suburbanite who doesn’t understand that America is a country of immigrants and all the rest. The problem is that, regardless of how Agnes feels about immigrants, she has every right to be concerned about living next door to a werewolf who keeps a dead body in his refrigerator. When she sees Victor eating a foot, it totally makes sense that she would be upset about it. The show’s satire would have worked if Agnes’s sole objection to them had been that they were immigrants. (It would have been even funnier if Agnes has absolutely no problem living next door to werewolves as long as they were born in America.) But by making them werewolves and having Agnes be upset by the fact that they were werewolves, the show instead suggests that Agnes might have a point.

Not that it matters. Stanley turns into a hyena and rips off Agnes’s head and brings it to Victor and Greta as a gift. Stanley is accepted into the family while Jerry Stiller howls a the moon.

Political satire is always hit-and-miss and this episode was definitely a mess. It’s a shame because Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara were definitely funny people. (If you’ve ever seen the documentary Have A Good Trip, there’s a scene where Ben Stiller tells a story about accidentally taking several tabs of LSD in college and, in a panic, calling his father for help. “I know what you’re going through,” Jerry told him, “I once smoked an entire Pall Mall cigarette.” “My father was Jerry Stiller, not Jerry Rubin,” Ben explains.) This is one of those episodes that I was really hoping would be good but it just didn’t work.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.27 “Maid for Each Other/Lost and Found/Then There Were Two”

Posted on October 9, 2024 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, a baby is abandoned, an aunt visits, and for some reason, Joe Namath is on the boat.

Episode 4.27 “Maid for Each Other/Lost and Found/Then There Were Two”

(Dir by Howard Morris, originally aired on May 9th, 1981)

Ted Harper (Joe Namath) boards the boat with his best friend, Richard Henderson (Fred Willard). Ted and Richard were fraternity brothers. While in college, the members of the frat decided that, whenever one of them got married, some money would be contributed to a pot. The last single member of the frat would end up getting all of the cash, which is now up to $60,000. Ted and Richard are the last two single members of the frat and they’re competing to see who can hold out the longest.

(Can we just agree that guys are weird?)

Ted has a plan to get the money. He’s gotten his ex-girlfriend, Paula (Karen Grassle), to agree to trick Richard into falling in love with and marrying her, in exchange for some of the money. However, Richard is smarter than Ted realizes and instead offers Paula even more of the money to get Ted to marry her. However, Karen falls for Ted for real. Karen and Ted do get married when the ship docks in Mexico. When Richard announces that he paid Karen to marry Ted, Ted is hurt at first but then he realizes that he was willing to do the same thing to Richard and nothing matters more than love. Awwww!

Now, it may seem strange to cast Joe Namath and Fred Willard as friends. To me, it’s even stranger that this was not the first time that Joe Namath, who was not much of actor, appeared on The Love Boat. Just as he did the last time he was on the boat (and also just as he did when he last visited Fantasy Island), Namath wanders through the story with a goofy grin on his face.

Speaking of goofy, Gopher is super-excited when his wealthy aunt Loretta (Jane Powell) boards the boat. Loretta, however, is scared to tell Gopher that she has lost all of her money and is now working as a maid. Loretta need not have worried. I mean, it’s not as if Gopher has a particularly glamorous job. Plus, Loretta’s not going to be poor for long, not after she meets and falls in love with wealthy Duncan Harlow (Howard Keel).

Finally, Eddie Martin (Gary Burghoff) is a mechanic on the Love Boat who decides to abandon his baby with the captain. The captain, who apparently doesn’t know much about the people who work for him, has no idea who the baby’s father is. But when the baby is taken ill and needs a transfusion of super-rare AB blood, Eddie is forced to stand up and accept the responsibility of being a father. Good for him, I guess. Personally, I like fathers who don’t abandon their babies in the first place.

This was a fairly bland episode. The fourth season is nearly over and, with this cruise, everyone seemed to mostly be going through the motions. This episode seemed like a collection of stories that the show had already handled (and handled better) in the past.

Next week …. season 4 comes to an end!

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.12 “The Magic Camera/Mata Hari/Valerie”

Posted on October 8, 2024 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. Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites. Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

This week’s episode presents your erstwhile reviewer with a bit of an ethical quandary.

Episode 5.12 “The Magic Camera/Mata Hari/Valerie”

(Dir by Don Chaffey and Don Weis, originally aired on January 16th, 1982)

I don’t feel completely comfortable about reviewing this episode of Fantasy Island and I’ll tell you why.

Occasionally, Fantasy Island would broadcast an extra-long episode. These episodes would typically feature three fantasies as opposed to the usual two. Unfortunately, when these long episodes were syndicated, one of the fantasies would be edited out so the episode would fit into an hour-long slot. Usually, the editing was not particularly smooth, either. The end result would usually be an episode that seemed oddly paced and the performances of Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize would often seem uneven as well. As such, it’s neither easy nor particularly fair to review those edited episodes. When it comes to reviewing, I always want to see the complete episode.

And yet, now that the original Fantasy Island is no longer streaming anywhere (seriously, what the Hell, Tubi?), I’m stuck using the episodes that I have on my DVR. And that means reviewing the edited, syndicated versions of these episodes.

As you can probably guess, this is one of those edited episodes. The Valerie fantasy was removed for syndication. That’s a shame because Valerie featured the final televised performance of actor Christopher George, a charismatic B-movie veteran who is pretty popular around the Shattered Lens offices. It also featured Michelle Phillips, though apparently she did not return as the mermaid who she played earlier on the show. I’d love to review Valerie but I can’t. And that sucks,

As for the other two fantasies, one is basically a remake of the Lillian Russell fantasy, except this time Martha Harris (Phyllis Davis) goes into the past and finds herself transformed into her great-grandmother, Mata Hari. She gets to dance. She gets to spy. She gets thrown in prison and sentenced to death but, fortunately, her life is spared when the firing squad’s rifles are filled with blanks and she’s given a drug by one of the men who is in love with that makes her appear to be dead. This was a enjoyable fantasy, mostly because of the costumes and the melodrama.

The other fantasy features Bob Denver, coming to the Island for the second week in a row. This time, he’s a photographer who wants to take the type of pictures that the world’s greatest photographers couldn’t. Because of the awkward way the fantasy was stated, the photographer ends up with a camera that takes pictures of the future. At first, the photographer is really happy and uses his camera to commit a little insider trading. But then he takes a picture of a newspaper and sees a headline announcing his death in a fiery auto accident. Uh-oh!

Again, neither of the two fantasies is bad (though the second one does require a certain tolerance for Bob Denver that some people may not have) but it was hard for me to enjoy them knowing that I was missing out on a third fantasy. For that reason, I assigning this episode a grade of incomplete. If I ever get a chance to watch the complete episode, uncut, I’ll revisit this review but until then, I really can’t give an overall grade to this episode.

Finally, for those keeping track, both Julie and Tattoo join Roarke when it’s time to greet the guests. That’s only second time that’s happened this season.