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Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & 10 3.2 “A Second Chance Once Removed”)

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.

This week, OJ Simpson makes things awkward.

Episode 3.2 “A Second Chance Once Removed”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on August 12th, 1987)

With Coach Denardo no longer around, Diana has kept her promise and promoted Fred Grier to head coach.  However, Diana’s boyfriend and the new co-owner of the Bulls, Teddy, wants to hire T.D.’s old college coach, Red Macklin (John Robinson).  Though T.D. isn’t comfortable with the idea of betraying Fred or doing anything behind Diana’s back, he does agree that Macklin would be a better coach.  After an argument with his wife, T.D. flies out to his old college.

T.D. doesn’t do a very good job of selling the team to Macklin.  Macklin finally says, “You don’t want to be the head coach of the Bulls, do you?”  T.D. says that he does but the position has already been given to Fred and T.D. doesn’t believe in doing things without being upfront with everyone because …. well, I’ll let T.D. explain it….

This episode is a good example of what happens when one of a show’s main characters is played by someone who is now best-known for somehow getting acquitted of stabbing his ex-wife and a waiter to death.  Even the most innocuous of lines seem to take on an entirely different meaning.  I have to admit that I cringed every time T.D.’s wife called and said that he was working too hard and spending too much time with the team.  No, I wanted to yell, don’t make him mad….

As for the rest of the episode, it largely dealt with training camp.  Veteran defensive player John Manzak (John Matuszak) fears that he won’t make the team.  There’s a young rookie who seems to have more energy and strength than him.  However, Manzak has a secret weapon …. steroids!  I cannot imagine that this is going to end well.

Meanwhile, the government wants to deport the Bulgarian kicker, Zagreb (John Kassir).  Zagreb applies for political asylum but it turns out that his father is some sort of official in the Bulgarian government and, as such, Zagreb would not be in any danger if he was sent back home.  (I don’t really follow that logic, to be honest.  Communist dictators, like Zagreb’s father, are notoriously unsentimental when it comes to their children.  Fidel Castro had children all over the world and he didn’t leave Cuba to a single one of them.  Instead, Justin had to settle for Canada.)  Diana has a solution, though.  They have to find Zagreb a wife.  Again, I cannot imagine that this is going to end well.

Meanwhile, Yinessa is still holding out for money, Bubba is still arguing with his wife, and I’m still not sure what Jethro does on the team.

This episode of 1st & Ten …. actually, it wasn’t that bad.  I could actually follow the story for once and it didn’t feel like it had been cut to ribbons for syndication.  John Matuszak actually gave a very touching performance as a player who might be past his prime.  Hopefully, things will work out for him.  We’ll find out next week!

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 7.6 “Friend of the Family/Affair on Demand/Just Another Pretty Face”

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!

This week, the cruise is not especially pleasant.

Episode 7.6 “Friend of the Family/Affair on Demand/Just Another Pretty Face”

(Dir by Ted Lange, originally aired on October 29th, 1983)

This week, Herbert (Gordon Jump) and Anita (Florence Henderson) are setting sail.  Herbert and Anita have been married for 25 years and Herbert has never cheated on Anita.  However, as he tells his old friend Isaac, he’s decided that it’s finally time for him to have his first affair.  He’s even decided to trick Anita into giving her approval.  Herbert is an insurance agent and he shows Anita an article that suggests that men who don’t cheat are more likely to succumb to a heart attack.  Anita is so concerned that she not only gives Herbert permission to cheat but she decides that maybe she should have an affair as well….

Needless to say, Anita knows exactly what Herbert was trying to do with the article and, once she’s played her practical joke, she is surprisingly forgiving.  I probably would not have been.  Then again, Herbert does promise to buy her a sable coat to make up for attempting to cheat on her.

Meanwhile, Jack (Robert Reed) is dating Leslie (Deborah Shelton), the much younger daughter of his best friend, Bill (Clint Walker).  Bill is not happy when he learns about this and orders Jack to stay away from his daughter.  Fortunately, Bill’s wife (Cathryn Damon) is able to show Bill the error of his ways.  Leslie gets to fulfil everyone’s fantasy of dating a tall, thin, neat, single 60 year-old with a mustache.

(Yes, Robert Reed and Florence Henderson do both appear in this episode but they only share one scene.  While getting breakfast out by the pool, they see each other and give each other a questioning look before shaking their heads.  Personally, I think this episode would have been a classic if it had featured Robert Reed as the husband trying to trick Florence Henderson into giving him permission to cheat.)

Finally, Deanna (Kim Lankford), the spoiled niece of one of the cruise line’s executives, boarded the boat and immediately developed a crush on Gopher.  I don’t blame her.  Gopher can be adorable when he wants to be.  But, as with the other two storylines, something just felt off here.  Gopher being such a passive character didn’t quite feel right for who the character has become by season 7.  This felt like a season 1 Gopher plot.

This episode didn’t do much for me, which is a surprise considering that it was directed by the usually dependable Ted Lange.  It was hard to sympathize with any of the passengers and the crew just seemed to be going through the motions.  Usually, I love The Love Boat but this episode didn’t work for me.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.13 “Avenging Angel”

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, two vigilantes disturb the peace, Cory meets a special guest star, and everyone continues to look stupid on their little bicycles.

Episode 3.13 “Avenging Angel”

(Dir by Terence H. Winkless, originally aired on December 14th, 1997)

This episode was dumb.

Cory is haunted by nightmares involving her mother, who died when Cory was 10.  In her latest nightmare, she runs into her mother at a crime scene and her mom shoots her!  Chris thinks that’s an odd dream and she’s right.  Cory explains that her mom is just trying to get her attention.  Cory believes that her mom is her guardian angel.  Chris doesn’t know how to react to this because Cory is expressing an emotion that doesn’t involve being snarky or self-righteous.

When Cory is injured while chasing two Korean brothers (we’ll get to them in a minute), she has to go to rehab.  Luckily, Olympic track medalist Florence Griffith Joyner is a patient at the same rehab clinic.  Joyner takes Cory under her wing and encourages her to work hard and get her knee back into shape.  When Cory says she’s thinking of leaving the force, Joyner tells her not to.  “Thanks, FloJo,” Cory replies.

(Yes, Florence Griffith Joyner played herself.  As an actress, she was a good athlete.)

As for the two Korean brothers, they are vigilantes who are beating up criminals on the boardwalk and becoming celebrities in their own right.  Palermo views them as being a threat to the peace and he’s determined to catch them.  Meanwhile, the Mob is determined to kill them and a very annoying talent agent is determined to sign them.

Ugh, what a stupid episode.  Usually, I’m a sucker for episodes that deal with people coming to terms with the death of a parent.  That’s something to which I can relate.  I have no doubt that my mom is also looking over me.  But, as much as I wanted to fully embrace Cory’s story, I couldn’t get past the fact that she went to rehab and just happened to meet an Olympic athlete.  Maybe if Joyner has been a better actress, this storyline would have worked but, as it was, it just felt forced.  There was really no reason why Joyner should have been so wrapped up in whether or not Cory decided to remain with the force.

As for the stuff with the brothers, the entire plotline felt like filler.  The brothers couldn’t act.  The actors playing the gangsters who wanted to kill the brothers couldn’t act.  The talent agents who kept popping up and talking about how much they wanted to sign the brother, they also couldn’t act.

This episode was just painful and all the rehab in the world isn’t going to change that.

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 1.3 “A Kicking Weasel”

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.

This week, Scott and Tommy D attempt to exploit Weasel’s happiness for their own monetary gain.  Ah, that’s classic Bayside!

Episode 1.3 “A Kicking Weasel”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on September 25th, 1993)

It’s been ten years since Bayside had a good football team!

That’s what Scott tell us at the start of this episode.  Scott explains that the Bayside student body has no enthusiasm for football.  No one cares because the team always loses and, as such, even Mr. Belding is more concerned with the school’s ping pong team.

To which I say, “What?”

Seriously, every Saved By The Bell fan knows that A.C. Slater led the Bayside Tigers to victory after victory.  With the help of Ox and all the other players, Slater made Bayside into a football powerhouse.

This can only mean one of two things.  Saved By The Bell: The New Class is either taking place ten years after Saved By The Bell (possible but I doubt it due to the fact that Screech is coming back next season) or that the writers just didn’t care about continuity.  I’ll go with the latter.

Things are looking up for the football team, though.  It turns out that Weasel can actually kick the ball!  He goes from being the waterboy to the cornerstone of the team’s offense.  But Weasel can only kick well when he’s angry.  When he’s not angry, he’s too mellow.  When he become a football star, he’s happy.  He mellows out.

That’s bad news for Scott and Tommy D, who are looking to make a fortune by selling Weasel t-shirts!  Tommy D agreed to embezzle the seed money from the print shop fund.  (Hey, that’s a crime!)  In return, Scott fixed the varsity cheerleader tryouts so that Lindsay beat out both Megan and Vicki.  When Linsday finds out that the tryouts were fixed, she refuses to cheer.  That makes Weasel mad and he ends up winning the game with 11 field goals.  Lindsay, meanwhile. gets her revenge by telling Belding that Scott and Tommy D will be donating all of the t-shirt profits to the ping pong team.

This episode …. actually, I’m going to surprise myself by saying that it wasn’t that bad.  Yes, the plot was way too busy for its own good and Scott’s constant scheming feels like what it was, a bad imitation of Zack Morris.  But, in the role of Weasel, Isaac Lidsky actually gave a pretty good sympathetic performance.  (Weasel was never as annoying as Screech, largely due to Lidsky.)  Jonathan Angel delivered his dialogue with the right amount of dumb earnestness and it was nice to see the Bayside nerds end up winning for once.  All in all, this one really wasn’t bad.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 5.7 “Bomb Run”

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!

Who will be Jon’s partner this week?  Read on to find out!

Episode 5.7 “Bomb Run”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on November 15th, 1981)

I was really hoping that this would be another episode with Caitlyn Jenner playing Steve but no, Ponch was back.  (Erik Estrada is the better actor of the two but Jenner’s performance is often so bizarre in its utter blandness that it becomes fascinating to watch.)  This episode opened with Baker observing as Ponch piloted a small airplane.  CHiPs was all about the California lifestyle and apparently, a big part of that lifestyle was being able to take off in a small private plane whenever you felt like it.  Ponch thinks that he’s ready for a solo flight but Baker tells him that he still needs to work on his landing skills.  Sorry, Ponch, you’re not a Kennedy.

The highway patrol is preparing for the big air show.  Officer Baricza (Brodie Greer) is surprised when he sees his ex-girlfriend, Terri (Kristin Griffith), hanging out around an airplane and preparing to take part in the show despite the fact that she has always been scared of flying.  What Baricza does not know is that Terri and her father (Ed King) have planned a big robbery to take place during the air show.  While Terri drops bombs from the airplane, the explosions will cover the sound of two safecrackers (played by Brion James and Taylor Lacher) blowing open a safe and stealing a bunch of bearer bonds.  However, things get complicated when the safecrackers illegally park their car (which leads to a helicopter towing it off, carrying it through the sky).  Things get even more complicated when Terri’s father has a heart attack when they’re in the air and Baker and Ponch have to perform a mid-air rescue.

So, how does Baricza react to his ex-girlfriend being a criminal?  We never find out.  Ponch roughly lands Terri’s plane and then show pretty much ends.  As a result, we don’t know what happens to Terri and her father.  We don’t know if the police succeeded in catching the safecrackers.  We don’t even know if Terri’s father merely passed out or if he actually died up there.  Instead, Getraer makes a joke about Ponch’s terrible landing skills and we get the familiar CHiPs freeze frame.

This episode featured a lot of airshow stock footage and it was pretty obvious that the plot was secondary to showing off all of the planes doing fancy maneuvers in the sky.  It felt a bit lazy on the part of the show’s producers but I also imagine that this episode was also fairly cheap to produce.  There’s more stock footage than plot.  As a result, the ending is a bit unsatisfying.  Is Baricza upset about Terri being a criminal?  Who knows?  He certainly does seem to be amused by Ponch’s landing though!

 

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 5.13 “The Cell Within”

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!

This week, Tubbs gets kidnapped and the entire episode is oddly dull.  Presumably because it’s the final season and no one was paying attention, the show took a risk and it did not pay off.

Episode 5.13 “The Cell Within”

(Dir by Michael B. Hoggan, originally aired on March 10th, 1989)

Former criminal Jake Manning (John P. Ryan) has apparently reformed himself.  As getting busted by Tubbs, Manning spent years in a tiny cell where he read Shakespeare and Dostoevsky.  Sponsored by renegade film director Robert Phelps (L.M. Kit Carson), Jake is now a free man and a published author.  Tubbs is convinced that Jake has changed his ways and when Jake invites him to a dinner party, Tubbs accepts.

(Crockett is on vacation, spending time with his son.  During his brief appearance on the episode, Crockett jokes about what a great book he and Tubbs could write if they were ever arrested.  Uhmm …. you were arrested, Crockett.  Remember when you were a drug lord?  The show appears to have forgotten but I haven’t.)

Anyway, it turns out that Jake has built a prison under his house where he keeps undesirables locked up and every few days, he electrocutes them.  He kidnaps Tubbs so that Tubbs can see and hear about Jake’s view of how justice should be meted out.  Jake likes to talk and talk and talk and talk.

Ugh, this episode.

I’m honestly surprised that I got through this episode because it was just so mind-numbingly dull.  The show attempted to do something different with its format and that’s fine.  But Jake was so long-winded and his cartoonish prisoners were such thinly drawn stereotypes that it didn’t take me long to lose interest.  I’ve never liked episodes of cop shows that center around hostage situations or kidnappings.  It’s hard to build much narrative momentum when no one can really move around.  It gets boring to watch and that was certainly the case here.  That John P. Ryan spent most of the episode wearing a flowing robe did not help matters.  It made him look like a Saruman cosplayer at a Lord of the Rings convention.  I probably would have laughed if it all hadn’t been so dull.

As always, it’s interesting to see Tubbs at the center of a story but even the normally smooth Philip Michael Thomas didn’t seem to know what to make of all these nonsense.  As I watched Tubbs rather easily fall victim to Jake’s trap, I wondered why Tubbs has suddenly become such a stupid character.  I mean, seriously, anyone should have been able to see through Manning’s invitation.  For Tubbs, this episode was the equivalent of that time Trudy got kidnapped by the alien who looked like James Brown.

All in all, this was not a good episode.  It’s the final season so it makes sense that you’re going to get a few clunkers.  Hopefully, next week will be better.

Brad reviews YOU’VE GOT MAIL (1998), starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) owns a children’s bookstore in New York City named “The Shop Around the Corner.” It’s a small, cozy store that she inherited from her dear mother, and it’s part of the lifeblood of who she is as a person, as well as the community itself. Joe Fox (Tom Hanks), on the other hand, is the heir to a major bookstore chain, Fox Books (think Barnes & Noble), that threatens to wipe places like Kathleen’s off the map. As fate would have it, the two meet anonymously online where they trade their hopes, dreams and insecurities through daily e-mails, with both excitedly opening their computers each night hoping to hear those three little words, “You’ve Got Mail.” Things begin to get interesting when Joe plans to open up a Fox Books Superstore just around the corner from Kathleen’s place with neither knowing that they’re real-life business adversaries. When will they find out that they’re enemies in the business world? Can true love find a way in the most difficult of circumstances? And isn’t that why we watch these kinds of movies in the first place?!

I’ll start off by saying that Meg Ryan is operating at the top of her “America’s sweetheart” phase here… she’s cute, sincere, nostalgic, slightly neurotic, and ultimately quite believable as a person who romanticizes her world and truly believes there will always be a place for her small store and the gigantic superstores! I grew up and still live in the state where Wal-Mart started so I definitely know how hard it is for the “mom and pop” stores to compete. Tom Hanks walks a bit more of a tightrope as Joe Fox. He’s likable enough that you want him to be able to win her heart, but he’s also just arrogant enough that you understand why Kathleen resents everything he stands for. Ultimately, Hanks is able to pull it off with enough charm that you still root for him even when he can be a little bit of a jerk at times.

What’s really strange about revisiting YOU’VE GOT MAIL at this point in my life is the fact that it takes me back to the late 90’s when the internet was something new to me and it seemed like something magical. In this movie, the internet connects two souls, and when we hear “you’ve got mail” as they fire up their computers, the movie expects you to feel genuine excitement, without a hint of irony. Compare that with where the world is today with almost any kind of online activity, especially social media. While there are still a lot of positives to be found, it’s sad that going online now is often exhausting, hateful, and stressful! In 1998, though, it was still possible to believe that logging on could lead to something incredible!

Nora Ephron, who directed the film and co-wrote the screenplay, does a good job of presenting a sad reality of the real world underneath this romantic comedy’s love story. “Progress” can be cruel, and it seems like it just can’t be stopped no matter what! I spend a lot of time talking about the wonderful hours I spent in the video stores of my youth. Those stores are all gone now and have been for decades. The stores that replaced them are mostly gone now, and almost all of my movie viewing is now done through online streaming. In YOU’VE GOT MAIL, Fox Books certainly isn’t better than Kathleen’s Shop Around the Corner. As a matter of fact, it’s not nearly as educational or personal. What it is, however, is bigger, cheaper, and more efficient, and that’s what seems to win in the end, just like it did with the local video stores and Wal-Mart. This is where Ephron does her strongest balancing act. Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly still fall in love despite the fact that the realities of the world around them take their realistic and natural course. A true human connection is made in the most difficult and painful of circumstances, and that ultimately means more than anything else in the film.

Revisiting YOU’VE GOT MAIL now doesn’t feel that much different than revisiting the film that inspired it, 1940’s THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. Both films are time capsules of a world that no longer really exists. However, both films ultimately realize the time-tested truth that it’s our relationships with other people that provides the most meaning to our lives. That’s a truth that won’t change whether we’re writing letters, sending e-mails, exchanging texts or whatever “progress” the human race achieves in communication in the future! I find some comfort in that.