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Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 1.9 “Moving Target”

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.

Eh, who cares?

Episode 1.9 “Moving Target”

(Dir by Mickey Dolenz. originally aired on April 27th, 1996)

When TC’s former lover, ex-model Rebecca Reynard (Jacqueline Collen), is nearly shot by a mysterious gunman, TC takes it upon himself to serve as her bodyguard.  Chris rolls her eyes because that’s how Chris reacts to every situation.  We’re nine episodes in and Chris still doesn’t really have a personality beyond being perpetually annoyed.  To the surprise of no one, Rebecca turns out to be hiding some deadly secrets of her own and TC comes to realize that his former and current lover is actually a stone cold sociopath.  This is one of those traumatic developments that will probably never be mentioned again.

(I thought TC had a girlfriend.  She was present in the pilot but has never been heard from since.)

Meanwhile, former boxer Victor returns to the ring to help Palermo win a bet against a smarmy lifeguard.  The boxing storyline — which features Victor facing off against the one opponent who beat him during his previous pugilist career — was actually interesting.  Too bad the show ended without actually revealing who won the big fight.  I think we were supposed to be satisfied with the fact that Victor found the confidence necessary to step back into the ring.  No, Pacific Blue.  You haven’t earned the right to end on a note of ambiguity.  Not yet.

This episode was directed by former Monkee Mickey Dolenz.  Unfortunately, not even a Monkee can make cops on bikes look cool.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 6.8 “The Kleptomaniac/Thank God I’m A Country Girl”

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

This week, we’re reminded that Fantasy Island is apparently the country music capitol of the world.

Episode 6.8 “The Kleptomaniac/Thank God I’m A Country Girl”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on December 11th, 1982)

Fred Simpson (Sherman Hemsley) is a kleptomaniac.  Whenever he sees anything shiny, he hears a bong in his head, explosions occur behind his eyes, and he has to steal it.  He always returns what he steals and pays back his friends but it’s still ruining his life.  No one trusts him.  He comes to Fantasy Island looking to be cured.  Mr. Roarke assigns Tattoo to keep an eye on Fred on the Island.  Unfortunately, Fred is still driven to steal an expensive necklace from courier Emily Carlisle (Roxie Roker).  Fred and Tattoo end up in jail!  Poor Tattoo!

(Seriously, what did Roarke think would happen when he gave that assignment to Tattoo?)

Now, to be honest, I’m not sure that Fred actually got his fantasy.  He and Emily do fall in love and he leaves the Island with her but I’m not sure his kleptomania was cured.  Maybe Emily will provide whatever was missing from his life that caused him to steal.  This episode is somewhat progressive in that acknowledges that kleptomania is an uncontrollable impulse, one that is usually linked to trauma.  (After my parents got divorced, I went through a phase of regularly skipping school so I could shoplift makeup from Target.  It was probably a cry for help on my part, though it just seemed like an adrenaline rush at the time.)  Still, what happens if Fred and Emily break up?  Fred’s got a serious problem and I hate to think that he spent all that money to come to Fantasy Island just so he could go home and get tossed in prison.

Meanwhile, Loretta Wentworth (Loretta Lynn) works at the local Fantasy Island diner.  Lorraine Wentworth (Heather Locklear), the daughter that Loretta gave up for adoption years ago, is coming to the Island to meet her mother for the first time.  Loretta’s fantasy is to be rich for the weekend.  Roarke gives her a nice house and a bunch of servants.  Lorraine is impressed until her jerk of a fiancé (Ted McGinley) tries to put the moves on Loretta.  In the end, things work out, of course.  Lorraine and Loretta grow close.  Loretta and her friends board a bus and say they’re going to Nashville so that Loretta can pursue her country music career.  How is anyone going to drive from Fantasy Island to Nashville?  There’s a big old ocean in the way.

This episode really didn’t do much for me, despite the presence of Heather Locklear and Ted McGinley.  It was nice to see Tattoo get involved in someone’s fantasy and Roarke got to give a speech about the true meaning of love but neither fantasy really worked for me.  Loretta Lynn was a great singer but a very stiff actress.  This trip to the Island was not as memorable as it could have been.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.12 “Destruction Derby”

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 Prime!

Baker and Ponch — but mostly Ponch — get a chance to shine this episode.

Episode 3.12 “Destruction Derby”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on November 24th, 1979)

Ponch and Baker are working undercover!

That’s …. odd.  Aren’t they just members of the Highway Patrol?  I mean, don’t get me wrong.  I know that being a member of the Highway Patrol isn’t easy and I don’t mean to imply that they’re not doing an important job.  But it just seems like undercover work would be something that you would give to a detective.  It seems like you would need some sort of special training to do that. For a show that, in the past, has pretty much taken a day-in-the-life approach to its stories, a sudden undercover episode just feels weird.

Ponch and Baker are working at the local demolition derby, trying to uncover a drug ring that…. I don’t know.  I guess people who sell drugs enjoy demolition derbys.  To be honest, I get the feeling that someone in production said, “Let’s shoot a bunch of demolition derby footage and then we’ll just make up something stupid to justify it.”  When it comes to the derby, Baker is working as a member of the pit crew and, of course, Ponch is the one driving the car.  And, of course, Ponch turns out to be a natural because there’s nothing that Ponch can’t master.  Ponch also falls for the only driver who can beat him, the mysterious Billy Wakefield (Angel Tompkins).  This episode is from the 70s so, of course, there’s a scene where she takes off her helmet, her long blonde hair falls across her back, and I guess everyone at home is supposed to go, “A woman race car driver!?  What is this madness!?”

Baker is not totally wasted in this episode.  He gets to save Ponch’s life when the bad guys attempt to booby trap Ponch’s car.  He also gets to play tennis with Getraer and Grossman.  This episode may feature Ponch and Baker going undercover but it seems like the real plot is just Baker and Ponch doing fun California things.  This episode basically is a commercial for the state.  Look! the episode says, Tennis!  Handball!  Demolition Derbies!  Erik Estrada!  We’ve got it all!

Erik Estrada can be seen wearing a wrist brace in this episode, which I assume is a lingering result of the accident that he’s spent the last few episodes recovering from.  I make a lot of jokes about Estrada but, from watching the last few accidents, it is obvious that he was pretty seriously injured in that stunt-gone-wrong.  That, while recovering, he appeared on camera at all seems worthy of respect.  A major theme of this episode seems to be that Ponch is back and Baker, after having the lead role for a few episodes, in once again back to being a supporting player.  Thank you for your service, Larry Wilcox.

Anyway, this episode featured a lot of fast cars and a lot of crashes so I liked it.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi High 4.13 “Testing, One, Two Three”

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!

This week, everyone faces a test.

Episode 4.13 “Testing, One, Two, Three”

(Dir by John Bertram, originally aired on January 30th, 1990)

After being absent for the past few episodes, Joey and Caitlin are finally the center of this week’s story.  Both of them are struggling.  Joey, despite all of his efforts to study and pay attention in class, is still getting bad grades.  The school counselor thinks that Joey has dysgraphia, a learning disability that makes it difficult for him to express his thoughts in an organized fashion.  Caitlin, meanwhile, is going to have to appear in court as a result of getting arrested while vandalizing that nuclear plant.

A few thoughts:

  • Claude — or “Clode” as he wants to be called — once again shows himself to be the worst ever when he says he’s not sure if he can go to court with Caitlin.  Claude is the one who convincing Caitlin to vandalize the plant in the first place and, when the cops showed up, he abandoned her.  Big-time rebel Claude actually asks his parents for permission to skip school to go to Caitlin’s court date.  They say no, just as Claude knew they would.  What a putz!
  • “My parents aren’t liberal like yours!” Claude whines to Caitlin.
  • Maya actually puts off a doctor’s appointment so she can go to Caitlin’s medical appointment!  Good for you, Maya …. except, doctor’s appointments can kind of be important, too.
  • Actually, now that I think about it, why should anyone be going to court with Caitlin?  Caitlin made the decision to spray paint her stupid slogans on her own.  Claude shouldn’t have abandoned her but Caitlin shouldn’t have been there in the first place.  Caitlin acts as if Claude should take her punishment for her but actually, Claude being a coward doesn’t mean that Caitlin is somehow absolved.  She knew she could get in trouble when she climbed over that fence.
  • This episode is a good example of why Caitlin drives a lot of people crazy.  Caitlin has a problem and everyone else is expected to drop everything and spend all of their time worrying about it.
  • Joey, meanwhile, has a real problem to deal with.  He feels stupid.  He’s not dumb, not at all.  But his grades remain stubbornly bad and he’s just been told that he has a scary-sounding “condition” and that he’s going to have to take a special class to learn how to function.  And yes, there’s no shame in having a learning disability.  I have ADHD so when Joey talked about struggling to organize his thoughts, I knew exactly what he was saying.  But, when you’re the one hearing the words “learning disability,” it’s scary!  My heart went out to Joey in this episode.
  • Evil bully Dwayne made an appearance, harassing Joey after he overhears Joey describing him as being a gorilla.  Joey and Dwayne get into yet another fight.  Joey gets detention.  Dwayne gets suspended.
  • Caitlin is also in detention, as a result of slapping Claude.  Caitlin and Joey are still not getting along but we know that’s going to change.
  • Finally, there was one other subplot.  The students in a difficult biology class were excited to learn that Alex (John Ioannou) had an advanced copy of the big test.  Alex’s older brother saved all of his old tests.  Alex gives Tessa a copy of the test but makes her promise not to let anyone know.  Tessa lets everyone know.  Everyone in the class passes!  They don’t get caught.  But the teacher says its obvious that the test was too easy so he decides to toss out the results and give everyone a new test …. WHAT!?  CAN HE DO THAT!?  What the heck, Canada!?
  • Incidentally, I never would have passed Algebra II if my sister hadn’t saved all of her tests.  Thank you, Erin Nicole!

And that’s it for the week.  Remember — in yourself, you must believe!

#SundayShorts presents ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR (1987) – Rutger Hauer helps lead another great escape during World War II!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Since Sunday is a day of rest for a lot of people, I present #SundayShorts, a mini review of a movie I’ve recently watched.

The 1987 movie ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR is the historical re-creation of the escape from the Nazi Death Camp Sobibor, where approximately two hundred fifty thousand Jews were executed. Of the approximately six hundred prisoners who attempted to escape, around three hundred succeeded with somewhere between 50 and 60 surviving to see the end of the war.

The plot of ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR revolves around Leon Feldhendler (Alan Arkin), the leader of the Jewish prisoners at Sobibor, who eventually comes to realize that they are being held in nothing more than a death camp. He figures out that the only people being allowed to live are the goldsmiths, seamstresses, shoemakers, and tailors; these are the people who are able to repair the shoes, recycle the clothing, and melt down any silver or gold for the Nazis. He also knows that once the trains stop coming in, all the remaining Jews will be murdered. As such, he and a group of men devise a plan for every prisoner to escape by luring the Nazi officers into the prisoners’ barracks and killing them as quietly as possible. With the help of a group of highly skilled Jewish, Russian soldiers, led by Sacha Pechersky (Rutger Hauer), their plan was put into action on October 14th, 1943, leading to the largest escape from a prison camp of any kind in Europe during World War II. 

ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR is an excellent film, and it’s currently streaming on Amazon Prime and TUBI as I type this. If you enjoy THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963), I promise you will enjoy this film. It’s very hard to watch at times, as most Nazi concentration camp movies are, but you can’t help but be completely invested when the prisoners attempt their escape at the end. It’s always important to remind ourselves of the levels of evil and heroism that our fellow humans are capable of. ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR does an excellent job of that. 

Here are five interesting facts about the film:

  1. Y’all know how much I love Rutger Hauer. He won a 1988 Golden Globe for his performance as Sasha Pechersky.
  2. Not only did Hauer win a Golden Globe for his performance, the movie itself won as the “Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television.”
  3. Over 30 million Americans saw this movie when it premiered on CBS on April 12th, 1987.
  4. Shortly after the revolt depicted in the film, Camp Sobibor was closed down and any trace of its existence was removed. Pine trees were later planted on the site.
  5. The movie ends with famed newscaster Howard K. Smith narrating the fates of the survivors on whose accounts the film was based. It’s an amazing, uplifting, and sometimes heartbreaking way for the outstanding movie to end. 

I highly recommend ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR. It’s an important film and one of the greatest films that Rutger Hauer ever worked on. Enjoy the trailer below!

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 3.5 “The Last Of The Watermen”

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

If you’re checking with the imdb and saying, “You’re reviewing these out of order!,” I’m reviewing them in the order that they were meant to air as opposed to the order by which NBC showed them.

Episode 3.5 “The Last of the Watermen”

(Dir by Richard Pearce, originally aired on December 9th, 1994)

We learn a bit more about the personal lives of Baltimore’s Homicide detectives with this episode.

For instance, we discover that Munch and Gee living in the same neighborhood.  When Gee, whose washing machine has broken down, visits the local laundromat, he’s not necessarily overjoyed to see Munch sitting there.  Munch talks and talks.  Gee lights a cigar and tries to read his newspaper in peace.  Munch keeps talking.  Gee points out that it’s the weekend and he doesn’t like to talk to anyone on the weekend.  Sunday is his day.  Munch nods and then keeps talking.  Gee stands up and moves to another part of the laundromat.

We also get to meet Kay Howard’s family.  Disgusted by the latest murder scene that she and Beau have come across and the fact that an elderly woman was murdered and her tongue was subsequently cut out and then stuffed down her throat (yikes!), Kay decides that she’s due some vacation time.  She leaves Baltimore and drives out to the local fishing village where she grew up.  She spends time with her father and her brother and a guy who she once had a romantic relationship with.  She visits her mother’s grave.  It’s interesting to see Kay outside of Baltimore and to see how she interacts with family.  It was so interesting that I was kind of annoyed that she still ended up working a murder.  A local environmental activist is murdered.  Kay worries that the murderer might have been her brother but it turns out to have been another fisherman.  I mean, I get it.  The show is called Homicide and Kay is a detective but still, I would have been just as happy if the show had just focused on her family and their rituals.  This episode is 30 years old but the scenes of the blue collar fishermen talking about how they were being “regulated” out of their life’s work still rang true.

While Kay was visiting family, Felton got a temporary new partner and you’ve probably already guessed that it was Pembleton.  This is not the first time that Pembleton has been assigned to work with Felton.  The pilot featured that classic scene of Pembleton checking car-after-car while Felton complained about Pembleton always having to be right.  Felton and Pembleton do make for an interesting team, if just because they do seem to sincerely dislike each other.  (I also enjoyed Gee’s half-smile as Pembleton reacted to the news that he would be working with Felton.)  In this case, Pembleton and Felton working together didn’t lead to any great fireworks, other than Felton reacting with shock at the idea of Pembleton preferring hockey to basketball.  The killer of the elderly woman turned out to be her grandson who said he did it because she wouldn’t stop talking.  That was sad, to be honest.  Grandmothers are supposed to talk.  Felton and Pembleton dragged the kid off to jail.

This was an okay episode.  After the emotional powerhouse of Crosetti, it was good to get something that was a bit more lowkey.  It was nice to be reminded that everyone has a family.