Are we going to sink or swim?
I would be more concerned with all of the random explosions! That can’t be good.
Remember at the height of the COVID lockdowns, when they tried to fill all of the skate parks with sand to keep skaters from spreading COVID, despite the fact that the people most at risk of dying from COVID were also the people least likely to be hanging out at a skate park? Seriously, people have mentally blocked out so much of the weirdness that went on from 2020 to 2022.
Enjoy!
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 Freevee!
After two months, I’m ready to get back on the California highways with Jon and Ponch!
Episode 2.10 “Return of the Turks”
(Dir by Barry Crane, aired on November 25th, 1978)
It’s always bad news whenever Ponch runs into any of his old friends.
In this episode, when he pulls over a van, he’s shocked to discover that it’s being driven by his old friend, Sid (Kaz Garas). After discovering that former wild man Ponch has now become a cop, Sid spirals into a midlife crisis that leads to him and his friend Rudy (Mark Thomas) playing bumper cars on the highway. Sid is freaked out by the entire experience but Rudy discovers that he loves intentionally bumping into other cars and forcing them off the road.
This episode featured a lot of car crashes and, as usual with CHiPs, they were well-filmed. But I have to admit that I found it almost too disturbing to watch. Usually, I enjoy a good car chase or a spectacularly-filmed car crash. I like fast cars and I’ve always been aware that, when a car crashes onscreen, it’s being driven by a stunt driver. But, back in May, was Dad was in a very serious car crash. He not only broke his shoulder but the crash aggravated his Parkinson’s and the subsequent stay in the hospital and in rehab left him so weak that he died two weeks ago. As a result, I’m not really in the mood for car crashes right now. That’s not the fault of this show, of course. And, under normal circumstances, I would probably be raving about how exciting Rudy’s highway mayhem was.
Ponch is not the only one who meets someone from his past. Baker runs into Pete (James Houghton), the brother of his former partner. Pete’s brother died when he crashed his motorcycle on duty. Pete now puts on his brother’s uniform and pretends to be a member of the Highway Patrol, writing tickets and directing traffic, Because he stole and copied a page from Ponch’s ticket book, Ponch gets the credit for all the tickets but — uh oh! — it turns out that a lot of the tickets are being contested in court. Pete is a bit overzealous. Can Baker and Ponch get Pete off the street before he pulls over the wrong person? And why is a story about the brother of Baker’s former partner mostly about Ponch?
This was a rather melancholy episode. It’s easy to laugh at any episode that features people talking about how Ponch used to be a delinquent because Erik Estrada’s goofy performance doesn’t exactly lend itself to that interpretation. But, in the end, Sid, Pete, and even Rudy were all suffering from a general sort of malaise. They all regretted the way that their lives had turned out and they were all using the California highways as a way to live out their dreams. Unfortunately, by doing so, they put other people’s lives at risk. Fortunately, Baker and Ponch were there to keep the highways safe …. though only after two spectacularly-filmed pile-ups.
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!
After taking a two-month hiatus, I think it’s time to finally get back to the reviews. Thank you for your patience, everyone. Now, let’s head to down to Miami for some Vice!
Episode 2.20 “Payback”
(Dir by Aaron Lipstadt, originally aired on March 14th, 1986)
A low-level drug dealer named Jesus Moroto (Roberto Duran) wants a meeting with the detective who arrested him and sent him to jail. When Sonny Crockett arrives to see what Moroto wants, Sonny is shocked when Moroto commits suicide in the visitation room.
Sudden and violent deaths are a recurring thing in Miami but the death of Moroto haunts Sonny. As Sonny explains to Tubbs, it doesn’t make any sense for Moroto, who was only looking at a few years in jail, to have killed himself. Sonny wonders why Moroto died in front of him. Tubbs suggests that Sonny instead focus on their current assignment, trying to get close to the elusive drug lord, Mario Fuente (played by famed art rocker, Frank Zappa). As a lot of drug lords do on this show, Fuente lives on a yacht and it’s next to impossible to see him. Using their undercover identities as Burnett and Cooper, Crockett and Tubbs have so far only been able to meet with Fuente’s second-in-command, Reuben Reydolfo (Dan Hedaya).
Crockett and Tubbs find themselves assigned to work with two DEA agents, one whom — Kevin Cates (Graham Beckel) — claims that he can get Crockett and Tubbs onto Fuente’s boat. Crockett and Tubbs are reluctant to work with anyone but it soon turns out that Cates is apparently better at his job than Crockett and Tubbs gave him credit for.
Except, of course, everyone’s got a secret. Before he went to jail, Moroto stole several million dollars from Fuente. It turns out that Internal Affairs is convinced that Crockett helped Moroto steal the money and Fuente, who knows that Burnett and Cooper are actually Crockett and Tubbs, believes the same thing. The only person who can truly prove that Crockett is innocent is Kevin Cates and that’s because he’s the one who stole the money!
It doesn’t matter that the twisty plot of this particular episode is not always easy to follow. It also doesn’t matter that this episode leaves you wondering just how exactly Crockett and Tubbs have managed to maintain their Burnett/Cooper personas for so long without everyone in Miami’s underworld figuring out the truth. (Personally, I wonder that after every episode.) This episode works due to the atmospheric direction of Aaron Lipstadt and the performances of Don Johnson, Edward James Olmos, Frank Zappa, and especially Graham Beckel. Beckel gives a performance that will keep you guessing at just who exactly Kevin Cates is working for and whether or not he can be trusted. That he makes Kevin into a somewhat likable character makes it all the more disturbing when he turns out to not be quite the honest law enforcer that he made himself out to be. If the main theme of Miami Vice often seemed to be that Crockett and Tubbs were fighting a war that there was no way to win, this episode shows why their work often felt so futile. In this episode, Crockett not only has to battle a drug lord but he also has to battle Internal Affairs. No one trusts anyone.
The episode ends on an ambiguous note, with Crockett technically cleared but still unable to truly prove his innocence. (Kevin Cates, the only man who can truly prove Crockett’s innocence, is naturally gunned down during the show’s final few minutes.) Crockett is warned that Fuente is still going to be coming after him. (Unfortunately, Zappa was in poor health when he filmed this episode and Fuente would never return.) This episode is Miami Vice at its most cynical and its most effective.
I have no idea what this day is supposed to celebrate but I hope everyone has a good one.
There doesn’t seem to be any agreed upon way to celebrate Labor Day. A few people have the day off and they’re the reason why I decided to hold off on going up to Lake Texoma until this upcoming, holiday-free weekend. Personally, I think the best way to celebrate any holiday is with a film festival so here are my suggestions for your Labor Day viewing:
After three really difficult months, I’m ready to get back to the Shattered Lens. And what better way to start things anew than with this latest music video from Annie Hardy. The video stars some of her friends as well. I love the possum, especially.
(We’ve got quite a few possums that live around here and Erin and I are always happy to see one of them making its way through our backyard at night. The possums will always be safe around here.)
Annie Hardy previously starred in Dashcam, which I still consider to be the best film made about what life was like during the COVID lockdowns. Check it out if you haven’t already.
Enjoy!
In the future, when historians want to know what it was like to be alive in 2024, let us hope they just listen to the music of Annie Hardy.
Enjoy!
There are more hippies in Texas than you might realize.
Enjoy!
This song was written for the soundtrack of the 1995 film, Kids, and not surprisingly, the video if full of scenes from the Larry Clark-directed film (along with another story about astronauts and wind-up toys). Oddly enough, the song itself doesn’t actually appear in the film. The film instead uses a much lesser song called Daddy Didn’t Understand or something like that.
Anyway, this is a good song. I like it and the video definitely works.
Enjoy!
I didn’t watch much this week but here’s a few thoughts on what I did watch!
American Murder: Laci Peterson (Netflix)
This three-part docuseries is the perfect antidote for that horribly biased The Murder of Laci Peterson show that still occasionally shows up on A&E. Watching this series (as I did on Thursdasy), you are really left with no doubt that Scott Peterson murdered his wife and child. As opposed to the one-sided approach taken by The Murder of Laci Peterson (which was essentially bankrolled by the Peterson family), American Murder gave both sides equal time. As a result, the viewer sees how strong the case against Scott actually was and they also see just how much in denial the Peterson family is actually in as far as Scott’s crimes are concerned.
Diff’Rent Strokes (YouTube)
Gary Coleman and the kid who played Reggie in Friday the 13th Part V found themselves being groomed by the creepy owner of a bicycle shop. This was the episode that I watched, for some reason (boredom, perhaps), on Wednesday. The owner of the bicycle shop was played by a familiar actor named Gordon Jump. He seemed like a really nice guy but then he started giving the boys wine and inviting them to watch pornographic cartoons. The episode ended with a detective explaining how the perverted mind works to a stunned Todd Bridges.
This episode is apparently an infamous one. I thought it was fairly well-done, though the laugh track definitely felt out of place. The episode opened with the star of the show, the very erudite Conrad Bain, encouraging families to watch and discuss the episode together. He sounded very sincere.
Night Flight (Night Flight Plus)
The episode that I watched on Friday featured clips from and videos inspired by Woodstock. The music was great!
The Office (Comedy Central)
I watched the classic “Did I Stutter” episode on Sunday. That episode was The Office at its best, especially when Stanley and Michael talked about their differences. Michael was so desperate for Stanley to like him and Stanley, to be honest, seemed like he wished he could bring himself to like Michael as well. But, as Stanley put it, “I’ve known you for a very long time.” Great episode.
Sally Jessy Raphael (Nosey)
On Sunday, I watched an episode from the early 90s. Sally interviewed Corey Feldman about his career and his struggle to get off drugs. Feldman said that he couldn’t wait to get his film career back on track. Character actor Brion James also talked about his own struggle to get and stay clean. It was kind of a depressing episode, to be honest. James came across like a kind and plain-spoken man but Feldman seemed like he was desperately trying to convince everyone (including himself) that he was okay.
The Steve Wilkos Show (Nosey)
“Get off my stage!” Steve yelled, throwing a chair at a bigamist. That’s what happened during the episode that I watched on Friday. I wonder how much money this show spends on chairs. It can’t be good for them, the way Steve is constantly throwing them at people.
This is a good song. Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga actually compliment each other much more than one might expect. I’m almost looking forward to that second Joker movie now …. almost.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 