Tag Archives: Retro Television Reviews

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check it Out 2.2 “Edna’s Phantom Romance”

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 the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

Season 2 continues with more inconsistent Howard and Edna weirdness.

Episode 2.2 “Edna’s Phantom Romance”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 10th, 1986)

Howard Bannister is, once again, the most unromantic man who has ever lived.

Now, I know that goes against what we’ve recently seen of Howard.  In fact, just last week, Howard agreed to go without a paycheck for two months so that he and Edna could have a vacation together.  This show has never been particularly consistent when it comes to its portrayal of Howard and Edna’s relationship.  When it first started, Howard was portrayed as being a jerk.  Then, he became a romantic.  Then he went back to being a jerk.  And then he become, yet again, a romantic.  And now, he’s back to being a jerk.  And Edna has gone from being snarky to naive to intelligent to naive again that it’s next to impossible to really say for sure who she is supposed to be.

Edna and Howard’s anniversary is coming up.  Edna wants him to take her to Hawaii.  Howard would rather stay at home and watch bowling.  It seems to be an impasse but myself, I’m wondering if Edna realizes that flying from Canada to Hawaii is not exactly something that one does on a whim.  I mean, you don’t just hop down to Hawaii for a few hours and then fly back, especially not on a retail worker’s salary.  Howard may be the manager but I doubt he has enough money to purchase a private jet.  Plus, Edna and Howard just took a 2-month vacation.  She could have gone to Hawaii then.

Edna, trying to get Howard’s attention, hires one of Leslie’s community theater friends to pretend to be her new boyfriend.  Howard freaks out after he sees Edna and the actor together.  Edna thinks that Howard is going to propose to her but instead, he breaks up with her.  “Oh, Howard!” Edna says before explaining that she was just paying the other guy to pretend to be in love with her.  Howard is surprisingly okay with that and the two of them get back together.  It’s interesting that Howard doesn’t care that Edna has basically spent a week lying to and manipulating him.

This was one of those really annoying and dumb episodes where every problem could have been resolved by people just talking to each other and not making assumptions.  Bleh.  I hate episodes like this.

On the plus side, Marlene’s constantly changing hairstyle remains the best thing about the show.  Here’s what she went with this week:

This episode was pretty dumb and I’m pretty sure that they already did a Howard-Screws-Up-His-Anniversary episode during the previous season.  If Check It Out! is already repeating itself (and especially if its repeating itself to diminishing returns), that means I’ve got a long few months ahead of me as I make my way through seasons 2 and 3 of this show.

Next week …. oh, who knows?

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 3.17 “Meet Your New Teacher: Batteries Not Included”

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

This week, a computer tries to take over Gabe’s class.  I wonder how Barbarino will react….

Okay, everyone, it’s Barbarino time!

Episode 3.17 “Meet Your New Teacher: Batteries Not Included”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on January 5th, 1978)

Barbarino’s not in this episode.

That may seem like an strange detail with which to lead off this review but, as far as the third season has been concerned, John Travolta’s performance as Barbarino has been one of the few consistently good things about Welcome Back, Kotter.  I’m going to guess that Travolta was absent from shooting because of the success of Saturday Night Fever.  Maybe he was off filming Grease.  That’s all understandable but still, the show really suffers when he’s not around.  Of the Sweathogs, he was the one who usually avoided turning into a cartoon.  In his way, he was the anchor of the group.  Plus, by this point, he was the only one who still looked young enough to be in high school.

Fortunately, John Sylvester White is in this episode.  If Travolta played an important role in keeping the show grounded, White’s unhinged performance as Woodman did an equally good job of keeping the show funny.  White could make even the simplest of lines hilarious by virtue of the incredible bitterness in Woodman’s voice.

This week, Mr. Woodman is excited because he’s purchased a computer that can teach!  He rolls it into Gabe’s classroom and informs Gabe that, from now on, he’ll be asking the computer for answers.

Obviously, it’s easy to roll your eyes at that bulky computer, especially since it appears to be more of a typewriter than anything else.  (I’m going to assume that is was state-of-the-art for the 70s).  Still, one could argue that this episode predicted the rise of A.I.  Gabe types in his questions and then the computer gives him an answer.  The computer has been programmed to always be correct.  Gabe complains that the computer can’t tell jokes but the Sweathogs don’t care.  They love the computer!  And, after a few days, Woodman returns to the classroom with a chart that shows how everyone’s grades have improved.

Woodman thinks that the computer is his ticket to a promotion.  He also thinks that the computer will finally allow him to fire Gabe.  (Sometimes, Woodman likes Gabe and sometimes, he tries to get him fired.  Normally, I’d complain about the inconsistency but the genius of John Sylvester White’s performance is that you just accept that Woodman’s insane and move on.)  The Sweathogs fear that Gabe will lose his job so Epstein sabotages the computer so that it gives wrong answers when Woodman tries to demonstrate it to a district representative.  Did you know the Harlem Globetrotters fought at the Battle of Waterloo?

It’s never really made clear how Epstein sabotaged the computer but no matter.  One of the flaws of AI is that, even though it acts like its thinking, it’s actually just repeating whatever it’s programmed to do.  This computer claims that the Globetrotters fought at Waterloo.  Decades later, Google Gemini would become infamous for creating ahistorical images of black and female presidents who were all presumably elected at a time when only white men were allowed to vote or run for office.  AI never changes.

I would have loved to have seen Barbarino interact with the computer.  He was seriously missed in this episode.  But Woodman’s unhinged personality made up for a lot of that.  This was fun, even if it still wasn’t nearly as memorable as any of the episodes from the first two seasons of the show.

As for this episodes jokes, Gabe tried to tell Julie a joke about his Uncle Magnovich.  Julie didn’t seem to care that much.  At the end of the episode, Gabe tried to tell the computer a joke.  The computer did not react.  “Don’t you get it?” Gabe typed.

“No,” the computer replied.

Poor Gabe!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.25 “What A Mother Wouldn’t Do”

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, a crib from the Titanic demands blood!

Episode 1.25 “What A Mother Wouldn’t Do”

(Dir by Neill Fearnley, originally aired July 18th, 1988)

After being told that her unborn child should be aborted because it’s just going to die anyway, Leslie Kent (Lynne Cormack) seeks peace inside an antique shop called Curious Goods.  The shop’s owner, Lewis Vedredi (R.G. Armstrong), shows her an antique crib that he says was on the Titanic.  Leslie is intrigued by the crib and, six months later, she is overjoyed when her friends reveal that they have purchased the crib for her as a gift.  Seriously, who wouldn’t want a crib that was once used by a baby who probably drowned in icy water when the Titanic sank?

The crib does have a special power.  It can cure sick babies!  Of course, the cure only works if the crib’s owner first kills seven people in a body of water.  After baby Allison is born, Leslie and her husband Martin (Michael Countryman) start killing random people in an effort to save their baby’s life.

It presents quite a moral quandary.  If Micki and Ryan don’t retrieve the cursed crib, Leslie and Martin will continue to kill.  However, if they do get the crib, Allison will die.  Are they prepared to sacrifice an innocent baby just to get their hands on the crib?  To its credit, Friday the 13th: The Series didn’t shy away from these questions.  In this episode, the villains are not unsympathetic.  Martin hates to kill but he’s trying to save his baby.  As for Leslie, the episode’s title says it all.  What wouldn’t a mother do to save the life of her baby?  As disturbing as the murders may be, they’re nowhere near as frightening as the cold and clinical way that Leslie is ordered to get an abortion at the start of the episode.

In the end, both Martin and Leslie end up sacrificing themselves to save Allison’s life.  But Allison disappears from her crib, leaving a terrified Micki to wonder if the evil within the crib has taken her.  Fear not.  As the final shot show, her babysitter Debbie (Robyn Stevan), grabbed the now healthy baby from the crib and then got on bus to start a new life.  The baby looks up at her and smiles for the first time.  Awwwww!

This was a good episode, with Micki and Ryan both coming to realize that the owners of the antiques are often as much victims as those they harm.  Chris Wiggins dif good job of portraying Jack’s single-minded determination to find all of Lewis’s cursed antiques while Lynne Cormack and Michael Countryman were poignant as two villains for whom you couldn’t help but feel some sympathy.

Next week, season one comes to an end!

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.4 “Cry Wolf”

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!

This week, someone from the past shows up but it’s not Amy.

Episode 3.4 “Cry Wolf”

(Dir by Alan Simmonds, originally aired on January 26th, 1990)

While filming footage for what is sure to be a riveting cinematic essay on urban decay, high school student Martina (Joanne Vannicola) films a drug deal going to down in an abandoned warehouse.  (The world of T and T was full of abandoned warehouses where people were either selling drugs or hiding stolen money.)  Unfortunately, Martina runs out of film before actually capturing the drugs being exchanged.  Everyone who sees the footage says that it doesn’t prove anything.

Martina decides to take justice into her own hands.  I’m not really sure why.  Martina’s obsession with tracking down the drug dealers and getting them arrested feels somewhat unhinged and it’s a bit disturbing to see coming from a teenager.  I mean, Martina doesn’t know the drug dealers.  She is apparently not a user of cocaine.  She’s just decided that these people deserve to be taken down by her.  One gets the feeling that Martina is going to grow up to be a member of the secret police.

Martina’s investigation leads her to a suburban couple who capture her and make plans to eventually kill her.  Fortunately, Martina’s best friend is Joe Casper (Sean Roberge) and he is able to enlist his mentor, T.S. Turner, to save Martina’s life.

That’s right!  Joe’s back.  He was a semi-regular during the second season, appearing in the opening credits even though he rarely got to do anything on the show.  Still, the return of Joe would, in theory, be the perfect opportunity for the show to explain what happened to Amy.  Amy and Joe were close, after all. It seems like it would be natural for Joe and Turner to say something about missing Amy and perhaps provide us with a clue as to why Amy has been replaced by Terri.

However, that doesn’t happen.  In fact, Turner acts as if he barely knows Joe, despite the fact that he practically adopted him during the second season.  “Why are you kids always here?” he growls when he sees Joe and Martina in Decker’s gym.  And seriously, why is everyone always in Decker’s gym?  The place is a dump!  And is there no one at the gym who could tell T.S. that the hot pink bodysuit that he wears while boxing looks kind of silly?

Anyway, T.S. goes down to the suburbs and saves Martina.  As usual, it doesn’t take much effort because the drug dealers are all kind of wimpy whereas T.S. Turner is Mr. T.  It was only as things ended that I realized that Terri didn’t even appear in this episode.  With Amy gone and Terri not being all the important, T and T is feeling more and more like T.

This episode was pretty dumb but I did appreciate that the drug dealers were essentially just two suburbanites who had no idea what they were doing.  That was a nice twist.  But otherwise …. yeah, pretty dumb.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.5 “The Devil and Jonathan Smith”

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 …. it’s Halloween!

Episode 2.5 “The Devil and Jonathan Smith”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on October 30th, 1985)

It’s Halloween and Mark Gordon has got himself in some trouble.

Left alone while Jonathan helps a guy learn that gambling is never a good idea, Mark accidentally runs over a kid.  The child is taken to the hospital in critical condition.  Though Mark is told that the accident was not his fault, he still feels guilty and remarks to one doctor (Anthony Zerbe) that he would even give up his own soul for the child to get better.  And wouldn’t you know yet — suddenly, the child gets better!

It turns out that the doctor wasn’t a doctor at all.  He was Jabez Stone, a bookstore owner who works for the Devil (played, with two horns on his head, by Michael Berryman).  Jabez explains that unless Mark holds up his end of the bargain, the child will die.  He gives Mark a contract to sign, stating that he will give his soul to the Devil at the end of Halloween.  Without Jonathan around to advise him, Mark signs the contract.

When Jonathan does finally return from his mission, he’s not happy to hear about what Mark has done.  Jonathan explains that he can’t just order Jabez to destroy the contract.  Instead, he’s going to have to somehow convince Jabez to give him the contract.  In short, Jonathan is going to have to pull a con job.  Since he’s an angel, Jonathan is not allowed to lie or steal.  But there is a con artist named CJ Barabbas (Conrad Janis) who might be willing to help.

Or, CJ might be planning on tricking Jonathan into surrendering his own soul to Devil!  As CJ tells Jabez, he would be willing to do anything to make sure he got a cushy office job if he should happen to end up in Hell.  Is CJ planning on betraying Jonathan or is it just another part of the con?

Well, you can guess the answer.  We’re only in the second season of a five-season show and, if Jonathan lost his soul, that would make the rest of the series kind of awkward.  There’s never any doubt that CJ is playing a long con on Jabez and the Devil and it’s actually pretty easy to guess just how exactly he’s going to pull it off.  This isn’t The Sting.  It’s Highway to Heaven.

That said, this was a fun episode.  Michael Berryman and Anthony Zerbe both seemed to be having a ball playing such cartoonishly evil characters and Conrad Janis was actually rather charming in the role of CJ Barabbas.  Season 2 has gotten off to an uneven start but this episode was both humorous and, in its way, kind of touching.  Landon and French were close friends in real life and that friendship comes through as Jonathan tries to keep Mark from spending an eternity in Hell.

Next week, Jonathan teaches a bunch of factory workers a lesson about pollution!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.3 “A Bond of Silk”

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 series is streaming on YouTube.

Never jump on a spider web!  Seriously.

Episode 2.3 “A Bond of Silk”

(Dir by Ernest D. Farino, originally aired on October 15th, 1989)

Nash (Marc McClure) is an oilman who has just married Portia (Lydia Cornell) and is taking her on a New York honeymoon.  A travel agent has arranged for them to be picked up at the airport in a limousine and driven to a posh hotel.  Sure, it’s strange that the hotel appears to be completely devoid of staff and other guests but Nash and Portia just assume that’s a part of the ambience.  As Portia puts it, they don’t have anything like this back in Lubbock!

(And right there is where I massively rolled my eyes.)

The honeymoon suite is in the basement of the hotel.  It doesn’t look like much.  Oddly, the closet is full of clothes from previous guests.  And, in the bedroom, there is what appears to be a giant web.  Nash declares that it must be a hammock and he jumps on the web.  He soon discovers that the web is sticky (duh!) and he’s stuck.  Portia correctly deduces that that web must have been spun by a giant spider.  She also figures out that no one who has ever checked into the room has ever left.  The travel agent, the limousine, the hotel …. they’re all a part of plan to keep the spider fed.

Nash insists that he’ll figure out a way out of the web but the more he tries to escape, the more stuck he becomes.  Finally, it falls to Portia to figure out a way to safely cross the web, free her husband, and get out the room.  Unfortunately, as Portia quickly realizes, the spider is waiting for her to attempt just that.

There was a lot about this episode that worked.  The hotel was a creepy location.  Nash’s struggle in the web was frightening and the visual of him getting more and more stuck in the web was effectively claustrophobic.  By today’s standards, the special effects were not particularly impressive but still, they were good enough to not totally take me out of the story.

That said, this was yet another episode where all of the action was dependent upon the characters acting in the dumbest ways possible.  Eventually, Portia reveals herself to have a lot of determination and to be a lot more clever than she originally came across.  Nash, however, remains an idiot through the entire episode and it’s hard to have sympathy for someone who sees a giant spider’s web and automatically thinks, “Hey, let’s jump into it!”  While neither spoke with a convincing Texas accent, both Marc McClure and Lydia Cornell were likable but the actions of their characters requires a bit too much suspension of disbelief.

As for next week’s episode, it appears that college students will be raising the dead!  Uh-oh.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.11 “That’s My Dad/Captive Audience/The Captain’s Bird”

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!

Merry Christmas!

Episode 4.11 “That’s My Dad/Captive Audience/The Captain’s Bird”

(Dir by Allen Baron, originally aired on December 20th, 1980)

It’s time for the Love Boat’s annual Christmas cruise and, appropriately enough, this cruise is all about family.

For instance, Captain Stubing has decided that the perfect Christmas gift for Vicki would be a parrot.  After the bird is brought on board, Stubing decides that the perfect place to hide it would be in Gopher’s cabin.  Gopher goes along with this because it’s something of a miracle that he hasn’t been fired yet.  I mean, when you’ve screwed up as much as Gopher has, you’re not really in a position to argue with your boss.  The only problem with all of this is that the parrot won’t talk.  Stubing isn’t happy about that so Isaac and Gopher try to teach the bird to sing a Christmas carol.  Instead, the bird starts saying, “Captain Stubing is a jerk!”  Uh-oh!

Meanwhile, singer Bobby Braddock (Jack Jones, who sang The Love Boat theme song) boards the ship with his wife, Susan (Laraine Stephens).  What Bobby doesn’t know is that his father, Richard (Allan Jones), and his mother, Lil (Dorothy Lamour), are also on the ship.  Bobby got his start as a part of Richard’s act and Richard has never forgiven Bobby for going solo.  Julie, Lil, and Susan all hope that they can bring father and son back together again.  Needless to say, Richard doesn’t appreciate being tricked into boarding a boat with his son.  He grimaces while listening to Bobby sing Winter Wonderland and then storms out of the lounge when Julie asks him to join his son on stage.  Merry Christmas, I guess!

Still, as bad as Bobby Braddock has it, it’s nothing compared to what’s going on with young Scotty (Meeno Peluce).  Looking to escape an abusive life at home, Scotty sneaks on board the ship by telling the crew that another passenger, Jeff Dalton (Dirk Benedict), is his father.  Scotty then proceeds to follow Jeff around the boat.  Jeff has no idea that everyone thinks that he is Scotty’s father.  When Jeff meets a woman and politely tells Scotty to scram, the crew is scandalized.  When Stubing sees the bruises on Scotty’s back, he assumes that Jeff is responsible.

Well, don’t worry.  Things may look bleak at the halfway mark but everything works out in the end.  Jeff realizes that maybe he would like to be a father to a random runaway.  Richard realizes that he can forgive his son for wanting to make his own way.  Crew members dress up like Santa Claus and Vicki has a happy holiday on the ocean.

You know what?  This was a silly episode but I enjoyed it.  I’m a sucker for Christmas episodes and this one had enough comedy and drama to keep me entertained and the story involving Scotty and Jeff even touched my heart a little.  This was definitely a cruise worth taking.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.21 “A Closer Look”

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 You tube!

Mitch has yet another old friend who needs help!

Episode 1.21 “A Closer Look”

(Dir by Bernard L. Kowalski, originally aired on May 11th, 1996)

Another old friend of Mitch’s had a problem.

Seriously, how many old friends does Mitch have and why are all of them always getting involved in something dangerous?  And why is it always Mitch’s responsibility to help them out?  I mean, doesn’t Mitch ever just want to tell them to take care of their own problems?  Mitch isn’t Superman, after all.  He’s a middle-aged guy who is already struggling to balance his day job with his night job.  STAND UP FOR YOURSELF, MITCH!

Anyway, Dewey Morgan (Gary Collins, looking like Robert Redford in All Is Lost) is worried that his model wife, McKenna (Lisa Schad), has been replaced by an imposter.  As he explains it, she’s been different ever since she returned from a health spa.  She looks the same but there’s just all sorts of little differences.  It’s the type of things that only an intimate acquaintance — like a husband, for instance — would notice.

Mitch is skeptical.  He thinks that maybe Dewey is just upset because McKenna has recently left him and is now finding success as a model.  Still, Mitch decides to investigate because Dewey is an old friend.  It’s never really made clear how Mitch and Dewey became friends in the first place but Dewey does spend a lot of time in a wet suit and on a surf board.  So, I guess having a shared love of having a mid-life crisis on a beach is the bond that holds Mitch and Dewey together.

Personally, I think it would have been interesting if Mitch and Ryan had discovered that McKenna actually was McKenna and Dewey really was some sort of unbalanced stalker.  That would have been a nicely unexpected twist and it would also have forced Mitch to reconsider his loyalty to all of his old friends.  It would have given the show a chance to say something about the dangers of a beach bum having a mid-life crisis.  But that’s just not the Baywatch Nights way.  It turns out that the real McKenna is dead and the woman claiming to be Dewey’s wife is an imposter.

Usually, I enjoy melodramatic nonsense like this but this episode featured both a murder and an attempted murder and all of that violence felt somewhat out-of-place.  Baywatch Nights works best as goofy fun.  Having people actually die kind of takes away from the goofiness and it makes me wonder how Mitch is holding up mentally.  I mean, he just wanted to make some extra money as a private investigator.  Instead, he’s being regularly exposed to the worst that humanity has to offer.

The first season is nearly over and that’s good because, as this rambling review might indicate to the careful reader, I’m getting kind of bored with it.  The second season is a lot of fun because Mitch and Ryan spend 22 episodes dealing with aliens, vampires, and Vikings!  But, before we can get to all that, there’s one more first season episode to go.

We’ll deal with it next week.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 4.20 “Delphine/The Unkillable”

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.

Smiles, everyone, smiles!

Episode 4.20 “Delphine/The Unkillable”

(Dir by Cliff Bole, Originally aired on April 11th, 1981)

For our first fantasy, Dr. Paul Todd (Randolph Mantooth) is a paleontologist who feels that the first life on Earth was silicon-based and that the missing link lives underneath a volcano on Fantasy Island.  He comes to the Island with his girlfriend, Liz (Annette Funicello) and his assistant, Kyle (Alex Cord).  With Roarke’s weary approval, they head off to the volcano to search for proof of Todd’s theory.

And they do find proof!  After Kyle attempts to sexually assault Liz, she falls through a crevice and finds herself in the lair of …. well, it appears to be someone who is waring a rubber suit but Paul and Kyle are convinced that they’ve found their silicon man!  (Kyle attempting to force himself on Liz is seemingly forgotten.)  The Silicon Man appears to be immortal, which proves to be a bit of problem when it decides to carry of Liz.  But then the Silicon Man falls in a pool of lava and dies so I guess he wasn’t immortal.  At the end of the show, Tattoo suggests that the The Silicon Man was made of lava and that’s why he was vulnerable to it but …. what?

Mr. Roarke doesn’t seem to be that worried about the Silicon Man or the fact that one of the island’s volcanoes is spewing lava.  He’s more concerned with his goddaughter, Delphine (Ann Jillian).

According to Roarke, Delphine is the daughter of one of the Island’s oldest families.  She has spent the last few years off the Island, working as an assistant for a magician named The Great Zachariah (Carl Ballantine).  Delphine’s secret is that she actually does have magical powers!  She’s the one who does all of Zachariah’s tricks for him.  However, Delphine now wants to marry Greg (Don Galloway) and she doesn’t want him to know that she can move stuff with her mind and make people materialize out of thin air.  Her fantasy is to lose her powers.

Zachariah, not happy about the prospect of losing his assistant, comes to the Island and teams up with fortune-telling Madame Cluny (Doris Roberts) to trick Delphine into revealing her powers and driving Greg away.  Myself, I’m not really sure I understand why her magic powers would be a deal-breaker.  I mean, Delphine can literally do anything!  And, as we see in this episode, she only uses her powers for good.  Why would Greg have a problem with that?

On the plus side, Ann Jillian (who starred in another show that I reviewed on this site, Jennifer Slept Here) gives a good performance as Delphine and it’s easy to imagine an alternate version of the show where she played Roarke’s sidekick.  On the negative side, the rest of the show and both of the fantasies are just silly and never make any sense.

This was not a memorable trip to the Island.  Seriously …. silicon?

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 1.21 “Crack-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 rides with Getraer!

Episode 1.21 “Crack-Up”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on March 9th, 1978)

After causing an accident that lands Officer Baker in the hospital, street racer and tow truck drive Niles (Joey Aresco) has a psychotic break and decides that he wants to put as many police officers in the hospital as possible.  He starts driving recklessly in his tow truck, all the better to get the attention of highway patrol officers.  Soon, Officer Grossman has joined Baker in the hospital.

Meanwhile, with his partner laid up, Ponch faces his greatest nightmare.  His temporary partner is none other than Sgt. Getraer!  Getraer tells Ponch that he expects Ponch to do everything by the book.  He expects Ponch to follow orders and observe official procedure.  Ponch, however, is more concerned with saving lives and getting results than following the book.  Ponch is a rebel!

And that’s fine, except for the fact that there’s never been anything about Erik Estrada’s performance that has ever made Ponch seem like he’s actually the rebel who everyone claims he is.  Estrada plays Ponch as someone who is quick to smile and quick to brag on himself and quick to get annoyed if a motorist doesn’t pull over for him.  In short, Estrada has always been convincing when he plays Ponch as being a jackass but far less convincing when it comes to convincing us that Ponch is a cop who deliberately breaks the rules for the greater good.

While Getraer and Ponch get on each other’s nerves, Baker lies in bed and insists that he’s ready to get back on his bike.  Wanda (Phyllis Diller), who is visiting her husband in the hospital, frequently stops by to tell jokes.  When I saw this episode was going to be co-starring Phyllis Diller, I cringed because CHiPs seems like the type of show that would screw something like that up.  But actually, Diller gives a really good performance as Wanda and her scenes were the best in the episode.  She told a lot of jokes but, as she admitted to Baker, she was only joking to distract herself from worrying about her husband.

In the end, things work out.  Baker gets back on his bike.  Getraer and Ponch come to respect each other.  And, eventually, Niles the mad mechanic is captured.  To be honest, it’s kind of weird that it took so long to capture Niles.  After Baker was injured, Niles called the police to say that someone has stolen his car an hour or so before.  He also got another mechanic, Ray (Gary Sandy), to lie and provide him with an alibi.  But then, Niles went driving around in his tow truck and that’s what he was driving when he injured Grossman.  So, really, a smart cop would have said, “Hey, that stolen car belonged to a tow truck driver and now, another office has been injured by someone driving a tow truck!  Maybe we should go talk to that guy again….”

This episode was better than I was expecting, largely due to Phyllis Diller and the comedic interplay between Officers Grossman and Baker.  As always, the California scenery was the real star of the show and the state looked lovely.