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Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 4.10 “Out of the Past”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

After last week’s trip to “the future,” this episode returns to 1988.

Episode 4.10 “Out of the Past”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on December 7th, 1988)

As a show, 1st & Ten has a weird habit of introducing new characters and pretending as if they’ve always been around even if they’ve never been seen or even mentioned before.  In this episode, we meet Coleman King (Richard Lawson), the team’s veteran running back who fears that he’s on the verge of being dropped from the Bulls.  Coleman is also an old friend of TD Parker’s (O.J. Simpson).

TD is conflicted.  He knows that Coleman is past his prime.  The Bulls are on the verge of signing a new running back and, when they do, TD knows that he’s probably going to have to cut Colman from the team.  As a former player, TD knows how painful it is when your professional career is murdered and no one is held responsible for it.  Complicating matters is the clear attraction between TD and Coleman’s wife, Della (Vanessa Bell Callaway).

While TD tries to figure out how to protect both the team and Coleman, Ernie Denardo runs into his ex-girlfriend, Brenda (Shannon Wilcox), at a bar.  Brenda has some scary people after her because of her unpaid gambling debts.  She tells Denardo that she has money on the next Bulls game.  If the Bulls win by more than ten, her debt will be paid off and then she and Denardo can be together.

The next day, the Bulls are on the verge of winning by 9.  With only a few seconds left in the game, Denardo has the team kick a field goal so that they can win by 12.  Denardo returns to Brenda’s apartment and discovers that she’s gone.  It was all a scam, hatched by Brenda and her real boyfriend.

In tears, Denardo tells TD that he has to quit as coach of the Bulls.

TD argues that Denardo didn’t do anything wrong because he didn’t have money on the game.  TD points out that the field goal unit needed the practice and that the Bulls need as many points as possible to clinch home field advantage in the playoffs.  The episode ends with TD embracing the sobbing Denardo.  Awwww!  Is there nothing an OJ Simpson pep talk can’t fix?

After last week’s bizarre episode, this was a traditional 1st & Ten episode.  This episode served as a reminder of just how bland OJ Simpson was as an actor.  That said, Reid Shelton did a good job as the grief-stricken Denardo and the gambling subplot at least did have a few interesting twists.  By the standards of 1st & Ten, that makes this episode a success.

Shark Week Review: Avalanche Sharks (dir by Scott D. Wheeler)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

2012’s Avalanche Sharks takes place during Spring Break.

Woo hoo!  SPRIIIIIIIIING BREAAAAAAAK!  If there’s anything that I truly miss about college, it’s Spring Break!  What do you think about when you think about Spring Break?  You think about the sun,  You think about the days and the nights spent lazily lounging in a bikini.  You think about the binge-drinking and the drug-taking and one night stands that you regret the next morning and the realization that you’re only young once.

Avalanche Sharks has all of that.  It also has a lot of snow and also sharks.

SHARK BREAK!  Woo hoo!

These aren’t any old sharks.  These are ghost sharks that swim around in the snow and which pop out to eat the employees and guests of a ski resort.  You may be asking yourself how a shark can swim in the snow and I’m not totally sure myself.  It probably helps that they’re ghost sharks and not living sharks.  Still, it seems like even a ghost shark would prefer the ocean.  The film suggests that the sharks are the result of an ancient curse.  It also suggests that the sharks are the result of global warming.  I’m going to guess that it’s a combination.  The ancient curse was reactivated by global warming.  Either that or the ghost sharks escaped from a lab and there’s been a massive cover-up to try to keep people from discovering the truth.  But, seriously, when has that ever happened?

The movie features the usual collection of characters whose names you will struggle to remember after the movie ends.  (I struggled to remember them even before the movie ended.)  It’s Spring Break, after all!  Why go to the beach when you can just go to a ski resort and apparently spend several days sitting in a jacuzzi?  The jacuzzi is a major location in this film and it’s also the film’s excuse to feature bikinis.  Myself, I couldn’t help but notice that the characters who got in the jacuzzi apparently never got out, even to sleep.  72 hours in a jacuzzi is something you might do to win a car but it’s not necessarily a good idea when there are ghost sharks around.

“You are the sexiest Marine biologist I know,” one guy says at one point and that’s pretty much sets the standard for the film’s dialogue.  The movie is quickly divided between those who know about the avalanche sharks and those who don’t but, to the film’s credit, knowledge does not equal safety.  Just about anyone can and will get eaten by the sharks.  Some of the gore is a bit icky.  The start of the film features a skier suffering a rather serious injury and I briefly had to hide my eyes.  That said, it also appears that the gore budget was used up early because the later effects aren’t quite as impressive.  What is impressive is the performance of James Ouimet as crazy old Duffy.  Duffy is the one who tells everyone that they’re doomed.  He seeks revenge after losing his dog to the sharks.  “LUNA!” he yells and you totally buy it.

As my friend Jim put it, this is a film the defies a traditional rating.  Yes, it would be easy to dismiss it as being another shark movie but, at the same time, it’s so stupidly entertaining that you can’t help but watch.  Someone somewhere once said, “Give them snow sharks!” and this film delivered.  And for that, I say thank you.

 

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 8.4 “Ace Meets the Champ/Why Justin Can’t Read/Call Me a Doctor”

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!

Come aboard, we’re expecting you!

Episode 8.4 “Ace Meets the Champ/Why Justin Can’t Read/Call Me a Doctor”

(Dir by Robert Scheerer, originally aired on October 6th, 1994)

Malcolm Bosworth (James Noble) boards the ship with his son (Dick Billingsley) and his son’s tutor (Jeannie Wilson).  When both the tutor and Doc Bricker suggest that his son might be struggling academically because he’s dyslexic, Malcolm replies, “My son’s not retarded!”  Booooo, Malcolm, booooo!  In Malcolm’s defense, he comes to see the error of his ways but still, booooo!

Walter Milner (Louis Giambalvo) is a furniture salesman who tells Margo Bush (Tovah Feldshuh) that he’s a doctor.  Margo’s mother (Doris Roberts) really wants her daughter to marry a doctor.  Wow, I bet that will lead to some wacky complications!

Those two stories are both well-handled and feature some likable performances.  James Noble makes Malcolm into a sympathetic figure, even if he is totally incorrect about dyslexia.  But neither one of those stories is the main event.

The main event is Ace and Isaac boxing Ernie Jordan (Dick Butkus).  Ernie is a professional boxer.  Ace and Isaac are not.  Ernie was originally scheduled to take part in an exhibition match for charity but, when his opponent gets sick, it looks like the children’s hospital will just have to close.  Ernie’s publicist, Gaylan (Jennifer Holmes), is a former girlfriend of Ace’s.  She left Ace because she felt he was irresponsible.  Isaac and Gopher decide that the best way for Ace to prove that he isn’t irresponsible would be for him to volunteer to fight a professional boxer.  Ace agrees.  After Isaac writes a poem ridiculing the champ, Ernie declares that he’ll fight both Isaac and Ace at the same time.

Wow, sounds like Ace and Isaac are in a lot of trouble!  Fortunately, for them, Ernie is a nice guy and he throws the fight and pretends to get knocked out.  The children’s hospital is saved, Ernie’s reputation is probably ruined, and Ace proves …. well, I don’t know what Ace proves.  Ace’s goal is to show that he’s not just a rich kid with an easy job but that’s a little bit difficult because he is a rich kid with an easy job.  Ace is the Jack Schlossberg of The Love Boat, just with better hair.  Still, Ace gets a girlfriend for the final five minutes or so of the episode so that’s a good thing.

This episode was pleasant, though it’s hard not to feel that Gopher would have been a more amusing opponent for Ernie Jordan.  Pat Klous still seems to be struggling to fit in with the rest of the cast as Judy.  Still, Isaac’s brief Mohammad Ali impersonation made me smile and Ted McGinley’s hair was perfect.  With this episode, The Love Boat shows its age a little but luckily, our crew is still capable of delivering an enjoyable if not exactly memorable cruse.

 

Brad reviews FALL (2022)!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

I’ve never been that afraid of heights, but you’ll never catch me climbing up the side of a mountain or jumping out of a plane. I don’t have that daredevil gene that makes me want to do stuff like that. Back in 2023, our family visited Yellowstone, so we took a ride on the Beartooth Highway that runs through the Rocky Mountains in parts of Wyoming and Montana. As I was driving that gorgeous roadway, I will admit that I became quite “weak in the knees” a few times as I drove near some very steep edges. The more I think about it, I don’t really like heights that much, but I’m willing to deal with them as long as the payoff is awesome and the risk isn’t too crazy.

FALL is one of those movies that takes whatever fear of heights may be lurking beneath our surfaces and forces us to deal with them from the comforts of our own living rooms! I kept looking at my wife because it was hard for me to look at the screen, and my wife kept telling me her palms were sweating. This lady spent a decade as a flight medic, but she was still struggling.

The premise is about as simple as it gets. A year after a devastating mountain climbing tragedy, Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) reluctantly agrees to climb an abandoned 2,000-foot television tower with her thrill-seeking, social-media obsessed best friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner). Once they reach the top, the ladder collapses, leaving them stranded 200 stories above the desert with almost no supplies, no way to call for help, and only some vultures for company. This all happens in the first 30 minutes. For the remainder of the film’s 107-minute running time, the ladies will have to do whatever they can to survive.

The film succeeds because it understands exactly what it wants to be. This isn’t some deep character study about a person’s quest for the rediscovery of peace and happiness after unimaginable pain and suffering. No, this is all about creating tension, and sometimes nauseating tension at that. Every rusty rung and loose screw on the way up foreshadows the characters’ fate. Once they’re stuck at the tiny platform at the top, the camera constantly looks over the edge, forcing us to experience the mind-blowing heights and the growing desperation right alongside the characters. These are the scenes where I had to keep looking away to maintain my own sanity!

As you might imagine, this isn’t the most realistic movie in the world. It’s one of those movies that keeps setting you up to think something good is just about to happen only for things to continue to get worse. Then again, as an audience we know when watching these types of movies that things have to keep going wrong or the movie would be over way too soon. FALL definitely works best if you just go along for the tense ride, without thinking too much about some of the finer points. From that standpoint, I was able to really enjoy the film, even when some of the twists and turns along the way threatened to go too far.

I wasn’t really familiar with their prior work, but Grace Caroline Currey and Virginia Gardner do fine jobs in the lead roles. As the grief-stricken Becky, Currey does the heavy lifting as we see her go from being completely broken, to almost giving up hope, before finally finding the courage and resilience to battle for survival. As the free-spirited, certifiably insane Hunter, Gardner has plenty of enthusiasm and charisma. Once they’re stuck at the top, she also shows a lot of bravery as well. The movie spends almost its entire runtime with these two actresses, so their chemistry has to work, and it does. I’ve always liked Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and it was nice seeing him as Becky’s dad, even though it’s a small role.

One of the best things about movies is that they have the ability to take us places we would never go on our own. Not in a million years would I ever climb the rock cliff of a mountain or a 2000-foot TV tower. But FALL took me up that tower and made me feel something. It made me uncomfortable, it made me a little sick, and it made my hands sweat… and I liked it. And all from the comfort of my own living room.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.12 “Cruz Control”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network!  It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, almost everyone’s got a secret.

Episode 4.12 “Cruz Control”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on December 13th, 1988)

I guess someone in the Pacific Blue writers’ room finally remembered that Amy Hunter joined the cast at the start of season 4 because her character, Jamie Stickland, actually gets to do something in this episode.  In fact, we ever see the odd loft that she is apparently still sharing with Russ Granger.

This episode opens with Jamie gunning down a Korean smuggler.  Even though it’s a “good” shooting, it’s still Jamie’s second killing in just a handful of months.  Lt. Susan Jessup (Holly Gagnier, who previously played Parker Stevenson’s little-seen wife on the first season of Baywatch) uses the shooting as leverage to try to force Jamie to become a mole for Internal Affairs.  When Jamie refuses, Susan threatens to reveal that Jamie lied on her police application when she said she had never been convicted of a felony.  It turns out that, when Jamie was 15, she was convicted of manslaughter after she shot her abusive foster father.  When Jamie continues to resist the pressure to spy on her fellow cops, Susan suddenly talks about “Internal Affairs is very erotic.”  By the end of the episode, it appears that Jamie is ready to become an IA informant so I guess the erotic line worked.

Meanwhile, Bobby Cruz goes AWOL for two days so that he can track down Lee Kwan (Karen Kim), a model who, years earlier, accidentally ran over Bobby’s parents while driving too fast.  Lee was acquitted in court and Bobby has been dreaming of revenge ever since.  When it becomes apparent that Lee has become involved with a smuggling operation, Bobby goes rogue to try to get her sent to prison.

Meanwhile, Monica goes undercover as a model because, on this show, all bicycle cops can go undercover at a moment’s notice.  The undercover storyline doesn’t really go anywhere but it does give Monica an excuse to show TC her portfolio.  Cory sighs dramatically and rolls her eyes, which is pretty much her standard response to Monica doing anything that would indicate that she’s still alive.

This was a busy episode.  All of the regular characters, with the exception of Darlene Vogel’s Chris Kelly, made an appearance.  That said, busy does not necessarily equal good or even interesting.  Bobby’s decision to go AWOL never made much sense but then again, Pacific Blue itself has never made much sense.  A bunch of people barking out orders while wearing bicycle shorts will never make sense.  At the very least, though, we did get to see Mario Lopez doing the “big” acting.  There was never an episode of Saved By The Bell in which Slater got hooked on rage-inducing drugs but Pacific Blue gives us an idea of what that would have been like.

By the end of the episode, Lee Kwan is dead, Bobby is back on his bike, and Jamie’s a rat.  Hopefully, this will somehow lead to TC getting sent to prison for embezzlement or something.  That’s my hope!

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 2.11 “Tommy The Tenor”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Saved By The Bell: The New Class, which ran on NBC from 1993 to 2o00.  The show is currently on Prime.

Oh no!  The Glee Club is in trouble!

Episode 2.11 “Tommy the Tenor”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on October 15th, 1994)

During the second season, Saved By The Bell: The New Class aired twice on Saturday morning.  The first episode would feature the Gang at Bayside, dealing with high school stuff.  The second episode would feature the Gang outside of school, working a summer job or visiting relatives in another state.  This often wrecked havoc with the show’s already fragile continuity.  Episodes in which Rachel and Brian were dating while working at the Palisades Country Club would air beside episodes set at Bayside, in which Brian was still pining for Rachel and Rachel, for her part, barely seemed to notice that Brian was even around.

In this Bayside-set episode, Brian joins the Glee Club because he wants to be near Rachel. (Rachel, meanwhile, joins the Glee Club because the teacher is hot.  That’s also why Lindsay and Megan join as well.)  The only problem is that Brian can’t carry a tune.  So, he arranges for Tommy stand outside the classroom and sing through an open window while Brian lip-synchs.  Tommy has a wonderful voice but he’s afraid that his cool, leather jacket-wearing image will be ruined if he joins the Glee Club.  And the teacher apparently is too stupid to notice that Brian can only sing when he’s standing near an open window.

(Speaking of continuity, Lindsay doesn’t realize that Tommy is the one singing for Brian, even though she’s been dating Tommy forever and should presumably know what his voice sounds like.  In this episode, Lindsay and Tommy barely speak.  It’s as if everyone involved forgot that Tommy and Lindsay were supposed to be the school’s power couple.  How lazy were the writers this season?)

Uh-oh, the school board is thinking cutting funding for the Glee Club!  Mr. Belding invites the school board’s Mr. McKenzie (Eddie Allen) to hear the Glee Club perform but, unfortunately, Rachel, Megan, and Lindsay are too busy fighting over the teacher to sing (and that all get hiccups due to — God help me — hiccup spray that Rachel buys to sabotage the other girls) and Tommy isn’t available to provide a voice for Brian.  The Glee Club is doomed!

Oh well.  Who needs a Glee Club?

Apparently, Bayside does.  Belding arrange for yet another performance and, this time, Tommy walks out on stage and does his best Tony Bennett impersonation.  Tommy D is willing to risk his cool to save the Glee Club.  What a loser.

The best thing about this episode is that Screech was not present.  Bobby mentions that Screech is in Alaska, visiting his grandmother.  For some reason, this is presented as a laugh line.  I mean, surely, there are grandmothers who live in Alaska, right?  And people do visit them.  It’s not like Screech went to Manitoba to visit her.  Now, that would have been funny!

Otherwise, this was a dumb episode.  The lip-synching was dumb.  The assembly was dumb.  Why was the school board funding the Glee Club?  Why couldn’t the Glee Club just do a fundraiser on their own?  When I was in high school, I stood outside of Richardson Square Mall in short shorts and a crop top and yelled, “Car Wash!” and raised enough money to fund the Drama Club through 2035.  It’s not that difficult!

Seriously, this episode barely even tried.  No wonder Screech went to Alaska.

Shark Week Review: Shark Warning! (dir by Jimmy Gadd)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

2024’s Shark Warning opens with two boys playing on the beach. They’re brothers, and their uncle Ron (David Chokachi) is supposed to be watching them. However, Ron is more interested in having another beer than in watching his nephews. He walks away while they’re playing in the water. As soon as Ron leaves, a shark pops up and eats one of the kids. Well, these things happen up north….

Twenty years later, Alan Rogers (Andrew J. Katers), the brother who was not eaten, returns to his hometown. It’s been a rough few years for Alan. He’s haunted by the death of his younger brother and the sight of that shark. Alan says he’ll never forget that the shark had a scar above its eye. Still, Alan feels like it’s time for him to come back home and start doing something with his life. Of course, the first thing he does is punch out his Uncle Ron.

Ron says that he deserved to be punched, and he tries to reconnect with his nephew. Alan doesn’t want to have anything to do with Ron, but when a shark with a scar above its eye starts to eat the locals, Alan and Ron have no choice but to team up to get revenge!

Now, you may be asking why, after being absent for 20 years, the same shark would return to one particular fishing village. Well, blame the Mayor (Rebecca Ritz). The annual fishing festival is approaching. If the festival isn’t a hit, the town will go bankrupt. Unfortunately, the fish are being kept away from the village by a dam that was apparently built to keep the shark out. The Mayor pays someone to blow up a small portion of the dam so the fish can get through, but, unfortunately, the shark gets through as well. You just can’t trust small-town mayors!

You really have to feel bad for sharks. It’s true that sharks look fearsome and they’ve got those teeth that can pretty much bite through anything, but for the most part, sharks just swim around and eat whatever they run into. They don’t stalk people for years, despite what the movies tell us. Sharks are predators, but they’re not particularly mean-spirited about it. If you leave a shark alone, it will probably leave you alone as well. Even the Soul Surfer girl forgave that shark that bit off her arm because she knew it was nothing personal.

Unfortunately, due to the movies, people have a totally warped view of sharks and their personalities. That’s certainly the case with Shark Warning, which gives us a rather mean-spirited shark. That said, it’s an entertaining-enough film as long as you’re willing to accept the fact that it’s essentially just a low-budget remake of Jaws. It’s an Asylum film, and that pretty much tells you all there is to say about it. If you know, you know.

I did appreciate that one of the characters was named Lisa. Played by Angela Cole, Lisa owned the village’s most popular bar and sighed with frustration when her sister (Lauren Pike) decided to ditch work so she could go hang out at the beach. Both Cole and Pike were convincing in their roles. Even more importantly, from my perspective, is that I got to hear my name while watching the movie. That’s always nice. As for the rest of the cast, David Chokachi — who my sister and I nicknamed “The Bulge” when we last binged Baywatch (if you know, you know) — wasn’t particularly convincing as someone who had ever felt the slightest bit of angst, but he was still likable as Uncle Ron. I will give a shout-out to the actors who played the townspeople, especially the guy who failed to consider that the shark might bump his boat and break his bottle of strychnine. A real shark would never do that, but this is an Asylum shark!

In the end, the shark was definitely the hero of the film, and that’s the way things should be.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 6.1 “Meet The New Guy”

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!

This week, we start the sixth and final season of CHiPs.

Episode 6.1 “Meet the New Guy”

(Dir by John Astin, originally aired on October 10th, 1982)

The sixth season of CHiPs opens up with some changes.  Bonnie, Bear, and Turner are all gone.  They’ve been replaced by Kathy (Tina Gayle) and Officer Webster (Clarence Gilyard, Jr.)  Grossman (Paul Linke) is still providing comedic relief.  Harlan (Lou Wagner) is still running the garage.  Getraer (Robert Pine) is still the sarge.  And Ponch (Erik Estrada) is still riding his motorcycle and flashing his grin.

However, this episode finds Ponch riding solo.  Officer Baker is no longer his partner.  This was because Larry Wilcox declined to return for another season, specifically because he felt that the producers only cared about keeping Estrada happy.  On the show, it’s mentioned that Baker has relocated to Wyoming and he is now working on his father’s ranch.  Ponch, however, is not without a partner for long.  At the start of the episode, he meets Baker’s replacement.  Bobby Nelson (Tom Reilly) is blonde and kind of spacey and he’s nicknamed “hot dog” because he likes to take risks.  Ponch has been assigned to work as Nelson’s partner throughout Nelson’s probationary period.  Getraer explains that Nelson reminds him of Ponch.

And really, that’s the problem.  Ponch is a flamboyant motorcycle cop who smiles a lot and likes to take risks.  Bobby is another flamboyant motorcycle cop who smiles a lot and likes to take risks.  There’s not much difference between them.  Even though Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada didn’t get along behind the scenes, Baker and Ponch worked as a team because Baker was the opposite of Ponch.  Baker was serious and by-the-book and he didn’t take unnecessary risks.  Bobby, on the other hand, is pretty much just a blonde version of Ponch.

There is another problem as far as Bobby Nelson is concerned.  Judging from this episode, Tom Reilly doesn’t appear to have been much of an actor.  Larry Wilcox may not have had the most expansive emotional range but he was totally believable as a cop.  Reilly, meanwhile, spends the entire episode looking somewhat spaced out.  He delivers his lines in a flat monotone.  From the start, there’s very little chemistry between him and Estrada.  When Ponch complains about getting a new partner, one gets the feeling that he was expressing Estrada’s own feelings.

That said, this episode isn’t all bad.  It opens with one of the most spectacular crashes in the show’s history.  The tragic Dominique Dunne gives a strong performance as a teenage mother who sells her baby to a couple but then decides that she wants him back.  This episode even manages to work quicksand into its finale.  How can you not appreciate a show that makes use of quicksand?

Finally, this episode has one extended sequence that is so ludicrous that you just can’t help but smile while watching it.  Two thieves have been robbing health clubs.  They just happen to rob the one where Ponch is a member.  (Fitness guru Richard Simmons plays Ponch’s teacher.)  Ponch, clad only in a pair of black shorts and a motorcycle helmet, jumps on his motorcycle and chases after the robbers.  The site of a half-naked Erik Estrada riding his motorcycle down the streets of Los Angeles is the perfect combination of silly and stupid.

This episode had its moments but I’m not really sold on Tom Reilly as a replacement for Larry Wilcox.  We’ll see what happens!