Retro Television Review: Crime Story 1.12 “Hide and Go Thief”

Posted on July 27, 2026 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 Crime Story, which ran on NBC from 1986 to 1988. The entire show can be found on Tubi!

This week, Torello finally tracks down Homan.

Episode 1.12 “Hide and Go Thief”

(Dir by Francis Delia, originally aired on December 12th, 1986)

In Chicago, an unnamed gunman (Paul Guilfoyle) has taken a woman (Lorraine Bracco) hostage and has barricaded himself in a hotel room. He wants to get on television and he figures that holding a hostage and firing a machine gun out the window is the best way to do it. The members of the Major Crimes Unit are in the street, ducking behind squad cars whenever the gunman starts firing on them.

It’s definitely a major situation but Torello is more interested in going to Gary, Indiana than exchanging gunfire in Chicago. Frank Homan (Ted Levine), a former member of Luca’s crew, has been discovered working as a cook in a Gary diner. Everyone in Gary knows Frank as “Mike Torello.” The real Torello is determined to arrest Frank and hopefully use him to take down Luca. Torello abandons the hostage situation, drives down to Gary, and captures Homan at work.

Finally, some good news for the real Mike Torello, right? Well, not quite. After Homan is arrested, U.S. Attorney Harry Brietel (Ray Sharkey) takes custody of him. Brietel has political ambitions and taking down gangster Manny Weisbord would be a good way for him to make a name for himself. When Homan is interrogated by Brietel, Homan lies. He says that he’s never heard of Manny Weisbord. But, Homan says, he has information that will take down Luca, Phil Bartoli, and a crooked cop. In exchange for a light sentence and entry into the witness protection program, Homan is willing to testify that Mike Torello is on the take. Brietel is intrigued. Fighting police corruption is guaranteed to generate even better press than taking down an actual mobster.

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Torello rejoins the MCU at the hostage situation. (Apparently, the gunman has been awake and firing out of his hotel window for two and a half days straight. One gets the feeling that perhaps it’s wise not to give too much thought to the logistics of this episode’s timeline.) In a well-shot, slow-motion scene, Torello and his men storm the hotel room and shoot the gunman dead. The hostage survives.

Significantly, neither the gunman nor the hostage are given names in this episode. Indeed, Paul Guilfoyle is credited as playing “Deranged Gunman.” That’s because the gunman and the hostage are really only there to show just how obsessed Torello has become with Luca. When it comes to destroying Luca and his fledgling criminal empire, all else can wait, even saving an innocent woman from an armed lunatic.

I usually don’t enjoy watching anything that involves a hostage situation because it always seems to lead to the same predictable narrative beats. Fortunately, this episode avoided most of the usual cliches by making the gunman a total nutcase who never stopped firing his weapon. The scene where Torello and his men storm the hotel room was stylish enough to verge on being surreal. As for the Homan plotline, both Ted Levine and Ray Sharkey provided strong performances and I’m looking forward to seeing how Luca and Torello react to being betrayed by the same guy.

All in all, this was a good episode.

Shark Week Review: Bikini Shark (dir by EJ Marshall)

Posted on July 27, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you were walking along the beach and you noticed that several bikinis had washed up on shore, what would you do?

Me, I would probably think to myself, “That’s weird. Maybe I should get off this beach because it seems like there’s something strange happening here.” What I would not do, under any circumstances, would be to pick up a bikini and decide to wear one of them.

I mean, that just seems like common sense. You don’t wear bikinis that randomly show up on the beach for much the same reason you don’t dumpster-dive for new underwear. It’s gross. And seriously, if you’re going to the beach, you should have bought and packed a bikini before you left. It may be cheaper to just wear whatever you find buried in the sand, but sometimes it’s worth spending a little money to look good.

Like I said …. IT’S COMMON SENSE!

Unfortunately, none of the characters in 2025’s Bikini Shark have a shred of common sense. When two women come across some bikinis on the beach, they promptly put them on. Later, when another group of women happens to find some bikinis in an isolated house, they also put them on. Soon they’re breaking out into terrible rashes and, even worse, they’re being pursued by sharks that somehow have the power to live and move on land. For all the time everyone spends talking about how sick they’re feeling, it never seems to occur to anyone to just take the cursed bikinis off. Then again, no one seems to think it’s odd that there are sharks somehow making their way into the kitchen.

The villain here is Truman Sullivan (Tyler Winchcombe), a wealthy man who owns a company that makes bikinis. For reasons that are never really that clear, Truman has lost his mind and is convinced that the only way to save the world from destruction is to sacrifice women to sharks. So Truman designed some bikinis specifically to attract sharks. But why did he also design the bikinis to cause the wearer to break into a terrible rash and start throwing up? How does that fit into saving the world? Truman is one of those villains who insists that the sacrifices have to happen quickly but who, at the same time, kidnaps one potential victim and then spends what seems like an eternity monologuing. Hey, Truman, are you trying to save the world or not?

Bikini Shark is a British shark film. It takes place in Essex and features one of the most depressing beaches that I’ve ever seen. The acting is subpar. In the role of Truman’s mother, Kathi deCuoto often appears as if she’s struggling to deliver her dialogue without laughing. If there is some charm to be found in this film, it’s due to the CGI sharks. They’re cute in their way, and it’s hard not to smile at the sight of them “swimming” over dry land. Otherwise, the best that can be said about this film is that it lives up to its name. There are bikinis and there are sharks.

Seriously, though, don’t wear clothes that you just happen to find on the ground. If there’s any lesson that I hope you take from this review, it’s that.

Song of the Day: Changes by David Bowie

Posted on July 27, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s David Bowie with Changes!

Still don’t know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild, a million dead-end streets and
Every time I thought I’d got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet

So I turned myself to face me
But I’ve never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I’m much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
(Don’t want to be a richer man)

Ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
(Just gonna have to be a different man)

Time may change me
But I can’t trace time

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same

And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through

Ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
(Don’t tell them to grow up and out of it)

Ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
(Where’s your shame, you’ve left us up to our necks in it)

Time may change me
But you can’t trace time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Ah changes are taking the pace I’m going through

Ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
(Oh, look out you rock ‘n rollers)

Ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
(Pretty soon now you’re gonna get older)

Time may change me
But I can’t trace time

I said that time may change me
But I can’t trace time

Songwriters: David Bowie

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 5.18 “Double Blind”

Posted on July 26, 2026 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.

This week, Bayliss and Pembleton are partners again and again, they find themselves on two different sides of the same case.

Episode 5.18 “Double Blind”

(Dir by Uli Edel, originally aired on April 11th, 1997)

Where do I put my hate? Tim Bayliss asks his Uncle George (Robert Bornarth) at the end of this week’s episode.

Uncle George is the man who abused Bayliss when he was younger. The final few minutes of this episode features Bayliss tracking down George to the decrepit house that George calls home. Stepping aside, Bayliss sees that George is now an old man with a persistent cough. The messy house is full of empty liquor bottles. George is a pathetic, frightened old man and it’s obvious that he doesn’t have much longer to live.

Bayliss has just finished investigating the case of a chef who was found shot to death in his home. It quickly became obvious that the chef was abusive and that he was shot and killed by his teenage daughter (Monica Keena). Pembleton sees it as justifiable homicide but Bayliss says that it doesn’t matter that the victim was a terrible person. The fact that he was shot three times (twice after he was already on the ground) proves that it was a deliberate execution. For once, Bayliss is the one saying that the law is the law while Pembleton is the one worried about the human cost of their investigation. It’s such a reversal in their usual pattern that Pembleton has to laugh. And yet, it works. Having found his previously lost faith, Pembleton now believes that there is more to existence than the letter of the law. Pembleton also realizes that Bayliss wants to call it a murder because, deep down, he wishes he had done the same thing to his uncle. The victim’s daughter did what Bayliss could never bring himself to do.

It’s an interesting storyline, featuring great work from Andre Braugher and especially Kyle Secor. Unfortunately, this episode had a few other plotlines that weren’t quite as interesting. Kellerman and Cox continued their tentative, emotionally-damaged romance, with Kellerman finally confessing that he was suicidal when Cox last visited him on his boat. Meanwhile, Lewis supported former patrolman Chris Thormann (Lee Tergesen) when the man who blinded him came up for parole. The Lewis storyline was a sequel to a first season episode and I appreciated that the show made an effort to maintain continuity. That said, it just wasn’t that interesting of a story.

Still, that final scene with Bayliss and his uncle was undeniably powerful. Seriously, what is Bayliss going to do with all of his hate? There are no easy answers.

Song of the Day: Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand by Primitive Radio Gods

Posted on July 26, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Some songs just perfectly capture the mood.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell 2.11 “1-800-Crushed”

Posted on July 25, 2026 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 Saved By The Bell, which ran on NBC from 1989 to 1993. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Zack becomes Nitro!

Episode 2.11 “1-800 Crushed”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 17th, 1990)

“Hello, mate. It’s me, Nitro!”

Uhmm …. hi, Nitro. Why do you sound like Zack Morris?

Because Zack is Nitro!

In this episode, Zack decides that the best way to become a millionaire would be to wait for his parents to die so he can inherit their money…. no, actually, he decides to start a teen advice line and charge everyone $2.00 per call. He recruits Lisa to provide advice and Screech to …. hang out. I don’t know what Screech is doing there, to be honest.

Lisa takes most of the calls but, whenever she gets wrapped up (“Not now, Zack, I’m talking to a girl who hates shopping!”), Zack mans the lines. Because he doesn’t want anyone to know that he came up with the stupid idea of starting the Teenline, he calls himself Nitro and speaks with what I guess is meant to be an Australian accent.

Unfortunately, Lisa solves everyone’s problems and the phones strop ringing. Zack fires her and then he and Screech proceed to give everyone bad advice. Soon, the entire school is on edge. Even worse, Zack tells Kelly’s never-before seen little sister Nikki (Laura Mooney-Hubbert) that she should do whatever it takes to win the man of her dreams.

“Mrs. Zack Morris,” Nikki dreamingly responds.

Later, when both Kelly and Nikki call the Teenline at the same time, Zack gets confused as to who is on which line and he tells Kelly to dump her boyfriend and he tells Nikki that she’s the only girl for him.

Bayside is in chaos and only Mr. Belding can fix things. After an art class descends into chaos, Belding tells Zack, “My school will be a happy school or else.” Bye bye, Teenline!

But what about Nikki? Zack dresses up like a nerd and meets her at the Max. He says that he likes insects. Nikki likes them too! Finally, Zack confesses that he likes Kelly. Nikki tells Zack that he’s a loser for not being honest to begin with and she has a point. Kelly, wearing a blonde wig, overhears the whole conversation and takes Zack back. Nothing’s more romantic than dating a pathological liar, I guess.

This episode …. actually, I like this episode. It’s a good example of what Saved By The Bell occasionally got right. It’s a silly story that focuses on the chemistry between Zack & Kelly and Slater & Jessie and it does so without getting too preachy. This episode is lightweight and cheerfully shallow and exactly what you want from Saved By The Bell.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 7/19/26 — 7/25/26

Posted on July 25, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Big Brother (24/7, CBS, Paramount+, Pluto TV)

I’ve been sharing my thoughts on Big Brother here.

Homicide: Life On The Street (Peacock TV)

My review will drop tomorrow.

The Larry Sanders Show (HBOMax)

Rip Torn could make any line funny.

Saved By The Bell (Tubi)

My review will drop in an hour.

Survivor (CBS, Wednesday Night)

CBS is reshowing Survivor 50 this season. I missed it when it originally aired but I’m having trouble getting into the reruns. The 90-minute runtime is a problem for me. Survivor is the perfect 60-minute show. At 90 minutes, there’s way too much filler.

TMZ Investigates: The Reiner Murders (Tubi)

TMZ takes a shallow look at the murders Rob and Michele Reiner. This special offered up no new insights but it did serve as a reminder of what a loser Nick Reiner was (and is).

Watched and Reviews:

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.12 “Reunion”

Posted on July 25, 2026 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 Baywatch, which ran on NBC and then in syndication from 1989 to 2001. The entire show can be viewed on Tubi.

This week, Mitch goes to his high school reunion!

Episode 2.12 “Reunion”

(Dir by Gus Trikonis, originally aired on January 27th, 1992)

Mitch gets laid.

That’s pretty much the plot of this incredibly simple episode.

It’s time for Mitch’s 20-year high school reunion but he doesn’t want to go because he’s worried about seeing his ex-wife, Gayle (Wendie Malick). However, at the last moment, Mitch suddenly does decide to go. He meets up with Gayle, who is wearing a blue dress that is simply to die for. With Gayle’s help, Mitch also rescues the class bully (Tim Rossovich) after two former high school outcasts (Tom Villard and Glenn Morshower) bury him in the sand just as the tide starts to come in. And then Mitch and Gayle go back to the Buchanan house and do it like it’s prom night.

Fortunately, Hobie is gone for the weekend. (It’s kind of funny how Hobie is always off with relatives or friends whenever Mitch needs the house to himself.) I will say that, as a child of divorce, there’s nothing more painful than thinking your parents are going to get back together just because one of them was still in the house when you woke up in the morning. Hobie is spared the trauma of Mitch and Gaye’s post-reunion hook-up.

Mitch, however, is disappointed to learn that Gayle has a boyfriend and that she’s going to be marrying him. The only reason Gayle went to the reunion was to work out her feelings about Mitch. Hasselhoff handles the revelation with his trademark emotional earnestness. Left unmentioned is the fact that having sex with Mitch apparently convinced Gayle that she should marry the other guy.

Finally, someone left a baby in Eddie’s lifeguard station. Eddie and Shauni looked after it for the weekend. This led to a lot of, “Wow, sometimes babies smell bad,” humor. In the end, the baby’s father shows up to get the baby but it turns out that he doesn’t actually have custody and that his ex-wife left the baby at the lifeguard station specifically to keep her safe from him. Obviously, this couple has issues that will not be resolved by a high school reunion hook-up.

Even by the standards of Baywatch, this was a remarkably empty episode. Between Mitch quickly getting over the fact that Gayle is getting remarried and Eddie and Shauni taking care of a random baby, it was hard to escape the feeling that nothing really matters on this show. There are no real consequences to anyone’s actions. No one has any sort of emotional conflict that can’t be solved with a musical montage. Eddie and Shauni end the episode thinking about what it would like to be parents. They’ll be over it in a week.

Baywatch was a show where nothing really mattered and that’s probably why it was so popular.

Brad reviews SHAOLIN SOCCER (2001), starring Stephen Chow!

Posted on July 25, 2026 by Bradley Crain

My favorite living actor is the Hong Kong legend Chow Yun-Fat. His heroic bloodshed gangster films with John Woo turned me into a Hong Kong superfan. I’m also a big fan of Jackie Chan. His kung fu action-comedies eventually led to him being one of the biggest movie stars in the world. But did you know that when they were at the peaks of their careers in Hong Kong in the early 90’s, neither was the biggest star in their homeland? Nope! The true box office champion in Hong Kong was the comedian Stephen Chow. From 1990-1995, Stephen Chow led the box office every year except 1994, when Chow Yun-Fat barely edged him out. In the 2000’s, Stephen didn’t make a lot of movies, but when he did, they were record breaking box office smashes. The first of those was SHAOLIN SOCCER.

The film has a pretty simple concept… a former soccer great, known as Golden Leg Fung (Ng Man-Tat), has been down on his luck for 20 years after his leg was broken in a soccer match. Drunk and at his lowest, he runs into the Mighty Steel Leg Sing (Stephen Chow), a poor Shaolin disciple who spends his time trying to figure out a way to make the teachings of Shaolin popular again. When Fung sees the power with which Sing can kick a soccer ball, he comes up with the idea of recruiting and coaching a soccer team of Shaolin kung fu masters. He wants to challenge Team Evil, the reigning Chinese soccer champions, and their arrogant Coach Hung (Patrick Tse), the man responsible for his crippled leg. Can they win the Chinese Cup, restore the legend of Golden Leg Fung, and bring Shaolin Kung Fu into the modern world?

No matter what you think of my summary above, I can assure you that it doesn’t even come close to doing the film justice. What may sound like just a kung fu comedy is actually a kung fu comedy, a sports movie, and an effects driven, fantastical live-action cartoon all rolled up into one. As funny as I thought he was in the James Bond parody FROM BEIJING WITH LOVE (1995), writer-director Stephen Chow proves himself to be a comedic genius with SHAOLIN SOCCER. Apparently the citizens of Hong Kong agreed as the film broke all of their previous box office records when it was released in the summer of 2001. Chow would break his own records a few years later when he wrote, directed and starred in the international hit KUNG FU HUSTLE (2004).

As the film kicks into gear, we’re treated to a succession of “Magnificent Seven” like scenes where Fung and Sing try to build their soccer team from Sing’s former Shaolin “brothers.” These aren’t obvious badasses like Charles Bronson and James Coburn, though. These guys may be Shaolin masters, but in the world they live in now, they’re a bunch of beaten down losers. They all initially turn the guys down due to their complete lack of confidence in themselves, but something has undeniably stirred in them again. With Fung and Sing sitting alone and thinking all hope is lost, Chow brilliantly parodies John Woo, and the brothers join them in stylish, wind blown slow-mo!

Once the Shaolin masters get together on the team, director Stephen Chow cranks up the CGI and special effects to 10 to illustrate their true powers. This is all done for entertainment purposes, so don’t expect anything that resembles real soccer. Their first practice begins with Mighty Steel Leg Sing kicking a ball straight up in the air, so the team just has to hang out and take naps while they wait for the ball to finally come back down. As the guys discover their true CGI-enhanced Shaolin soccer superpowers, they seem unbeatable… that is, until they run back into the superdrug-enhanced Team Evil and their unethical coach Hung. Part of the fun of these types of movies is in seeing how they deal with adversity and overcome the bigger, badder team. I want to shout out Patrick Tse, who played Coach Hung. He’s deliriously over-the-top here, and we definitely want to see him get his comeuppance. One of the reasons I decided to rewatch SHAOLIN SOCCER is to celebrate Tse, who passed away on July 16th, 2026, at the age of 89, after a 7-decade film career in Hong Kong. Rest in peace, sir.

I think that the best thing I can say for this film is that underneath the entertaining craziness of the comedy and special effects is a sweet underdog story of unappreciated greatness being unleashed. The various characters may seem like jokes in their day to day lives, but they’re not, and it’s a joy to behold as the world sees how special they really are. This theme runs through several of Stephen Chow’s films. In his best movies, he doesn’t just prove that he’s a brilliant comedian, but he also shows us that he’s got a good heart.