Tag Archives: review

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.4 “The Big Thaw”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

I don’t even know how to describe this episode.

Episode 4.4 “The Big Thaw”

(Dir by Richard Compton, originally aired on October 23rd, 1987)

The Vice Squad raids a decrepit building, expecting to find drugs.  Instead, they find a container that holds the frozen body of a dead reggae singer.  Robillard Nevin died after eating a poisoned fish but his body was frozen so it could be thawed out once a cure had been found.  Several different groups of people — including Nevin’s widow and, for some reason, Izzy — all want the body.

Wait …. what?

This is a Miami Vice episode?  Miami Vice, as you may remember, is supposed to be a stylish and cynical show about two detective fighting a losing war against the Miami drug underworld.  Miami Vice is the show that often ends with Crockett and Tubbs looking on in anger as they realize that all of their efforts have been for nothing.  This is the show that often ends with a sympathetic character either getting shot or shooting someone else.  This is the show in which there are no happy endings and every episode — at least in the past — seemed to conclude at the cost of Sonny Crockett’s soul ….

Well, you get my point.

What the Hell is this?

The fourth season of Miami Vice is off to an uneven start.  That’s not a surprise.  After four seasons, not every episode is going to be a winner.  It happens to the best of shows.  But, seriously, how did we go from Crockett and Tubbs driving in the middle of the night while Phil Collins sings In The Air Tonight to Crockett and Tubbs trying to protect a cryogenically frozen corpse?  I guess the show was trying to keep things fresh by trying something new but this episode was just too ridiculous to work.  Not even Tubbs bringing out his fake Caribbean accent could save this episode.

By the way, cryogenics and all that …. it doesn’t work!  It’s waste of money!  But, hey, whatever.  Do what you want.  It’s your life.

Music Video of the Day: The Lion and the Cucumbers by The Vampires’ Sound Incorporation (1971, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The song is probably best known for appearing on the Jackie Brown soundtrack but it was actually written for the 1971 Jess Franco Film, Vampyros Lesbos.  The music video is made up of scenes from Franco’s wonderfully surreal film.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi High 2.4 “A Tangled Web”

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 Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1989 to 1991!  The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi

This week, everyone’s lying.

Episode 2.4 “A Tangled Web”

(Dir by Kit Hood, originally aired on November 26th, 1990)

We’ve got three plots going on in this episode.  Let’s start with the one that no one cares about.

Alex, who may appear in the opening credits (he’s wearing glasses and smiling) but who hasn’t really made much of an impression as a character in the 5 years that he’s been a Degrassi regular, has a crush on Tessa.  Tessa has a crush on Joey.  Arthur — hey!  Arthur’s still on the show! — decides to help out by leaving notes in both Tessa and Alex’s lockers.  Tessa and Alex meet up after school, each expecting to find someone else.  Tessa seems kind of annoyed but Alex swears to Arthur that they actually had a good time talking.

Let’s move on to the plot that only director Kevin Smith, famous for his teen crush on Caitlin, would care about.  Caitlin finally confronts her father about his cheating.  She also tells her mother.  Caitlin’s mom is like, “We’re trying to work through it, mind your own business for once!”  As usual, Caitlin is stunned to discover that life is complex and I’m sure her friends will have to listen to her complain about it for the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, Wheels is being a little brat again, refusing to study and lying to his grandmother about his grades.  She finally grounds Wheels but Wheels sneaks out anyway so that he can go to the Gourmet Scum concert with Joey and Snake.  Uh-oh …. the car that the three of them bought breaks down!  Wheels says that this is all Joey’s fault.  They’ve missed the concert and now, Wheels is going to be in a huge amount of trouble when he returns home.  And Wheels is right about that!  In fact, his grandmother kicks him out of the house!

There was a lot of drama in this episode but it all felt a little bit familiar.  We went through a whole storyline about Wheels acting like a jerk during Degrassi Junior High.  It’s hard not to feel like the show is repeating itself here.  And seriously, when did Wheels become such a jerk?  In this episode, he does apologize to Joey but then, he asks if he can stay with Joey and his family.  Uhmm …. gee, Wheels, didn’t you get caught stealing a bunch off money the last time you stayed at Joey’s house?  Interestingly enough, the episode doesn’t make clear where Wheels stayed after his grandmother kicked him out.  I mean, where is Wheels going to live?  Since Wheels is actually an orphan, shouldn’t grandma have called the Canadian version of Child Protective Services to come pick him up?  The whole thing just seems odd!

Now, of course, if you know your Degrassi history, you know what’s going to happen to the characters in this episode.  Tessa is going end up sleeping with Joey, having an abortion, and leaving town.  Wheels is going to end up in prison after driving drunk and killing a kid.  Joey and Caitlin will eventually fall in love again but it won’t work out and grown-up, middle-aged Caitlin will end up sleeping with a college student.  And Snake will become the principal of Degrassi.  As for Arthur, he’s going to start a computer software company with Yick Yu. And Alex …. well, no one really cares.

Next week, life goes on.

 

Song of the Day: The Twilight Zone Theme by Marius Constant

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Technically, the French composer Marius Constant did not set out to write the theme song for The Twilight Zone.  In the 50s, CBS commissioned Constant to compose a number of short pieces for CBS stock music library, basically as musical stingers that could be used for radio shows.  In 1960, when The Twilight Zone needed a theme song, an enterprising CBS employee combined two of Constant’s composition to create the iconic Twilight Zone theme.

Enjoy our short but haunting song of the day.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.16 “My Hero, Mr. Bannister”

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 and Peacock!

This week features some adorable kittens!

Episode 3.16 “My Hero, Mr. Bannister”

(Dir by Jayne Schipper, originally aired on January 3rd, 1988)

Stockboy Derek (Andrew Miller) admires Howard and decides that, in order to be like his idol, he’s going to drop out of high school and devote himself to becoming manager of a grocery store.  Howard has to show Derek has stupid that would be.  Fortunately, Derek comes to his senses by the end of the episode.  No one wants to grow up to be Howard.

This was a weird episode, largely because everyone acted as if Derek was a regular member of the cast despite the fact that this was only his second appearance on the show.  (He appeared earlier in the season, in yet another episode that was devoted to his character.)  One of the oddest things about this season is that it keeps introducing characters who seem like they’re going to be regulars — Howard’s brother, the executive from the company that bought Cobb’s — but who then never show up again.  Or in Derek’s case, they showed up on more time.  Seen today, all of these episodes feel like backdoor pilots for shows that were never actually put into production.  That doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily bad episodes, of course.  While Derek’s storyline was a bit forgettable, the third season has still been a marked improvement over the first two.

This episode featured a B-plot about an adorable cat named Marvin who decided to live in the store with “Mrs. Marvin.”  They had kittens!  And the kittens were adorable.  I’m a cat person so I enjoyed that.  Otherwise, this episode was fairly forgettable.

Retro Television Review: 3 By Cheever 1.3 “The Five Forty-Eight”

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 3 By Cheever, which ran on PBS in 1979.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime and found on YouTube.

This week, we finish up 3 By Cheever with an adaption of one of his best-known short stories.

Episode 1.3 “The Five Forty-Eight”

(Dir by James Ivory, originally aired on James Ivory)

Laurence Luckinbill stars as Blake, a business executive who rides the train into the city for work and then back to the suburbs when it’s time to return to his perfect home.  One day, as Blake heads to his train, he comes to be aware that he’s being followed by his former secretary, Miss Dent (Mary Beth Hurt).  Blake is concerned because Miss Dent made quite a scene when she was fired from her job a little while ago.  Of course, a part of the reason why she was so upset was because Blake had earlier seduced her, something that he has a habit of doing when it comes to his secretaries.  On the train, surrounded by neighbors (including one that Blake can’t stand because of his long hair), Blake finds himself sitting next to Miss Dent.  She explains that she has a gun in her purse.  As the train heads for its destination, Blake’s confident facade crumbles and he is soon as humiliated by his former secretary as she was by him.  And yet, this being a Cheever story, one wonders if Blake is even capable of realizing why any of this is happening to him.

The final episode of 3 By Cheever was an adaptation of one of John Cheever’s best short stories.  As directed by James Ivory, this adaptation can feel a bit overdrawn.  The short story, for instance, opens with Blake on an elevator, already preparing to head home on the train.  Ivory’s adaptation opens with Blake at the start of his day and we see a lot of things — like Blake’s antagonistic relationship with his long-haired neighbor — that Cheever simply mentioned.  It takes a while for Miss Dent to finally sit down next to Blake and Ivory doesn’t do much to build up any sort of suspense while we’re waiting.

On the plus side, the film reveals Ivory’s skill when it comes to working with actors as both Luckinbill and Mary Beth Hurt give excellent performances.  Luckinbill goes from being oily and overconfident to being a neurotic mess by the end of the show while Hurt does the opposite, going from being meek to commanding.  Both the original short story and Ivory’s adaptation succeed in making you wonder what the future could possibly hold for either one of the two characters.  They both seem to reach a point of no return and it’s hard to imagine Blake going back to his suburban home and his train rides and his motel hook-ups but, then again, this is a Cheever story so the implication is that he does just that, untouched by the fact that he nearly lost his life due to his own behavior.  As for Miss Dent, she reclaims her self-respect by going to an extreme.

This was the last episode of 3 By Cheever.  This was an interesting series of adaptations, even if Cheever’s prose does seem to work best on the page than literally translated to film.  Next week, a new series will being in this spot.

Song of the Day: Theme From The Third Man by Alex Karas

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s song of the day is the haunting zither theme of The Third Man.  Whenever I hear this music, I immediately think of Orson Welles, emerging from the shadows with that charming smile on his face.  I also think about poor Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), being chased through Vienna by that little kid who wouldn’t stop yelling at him.  And, of course, there’s that famous final shot….