Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 2/18/24 — 2/24/24

Posted on February 24, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Greetings from Lake Texoma! It’s been a relaxing week and exactly what I needed. Here’s some thoughts on what I watched out on the deck.

Abbott Elementary (Wednesday Night, ABC)

“Janine smokes weed every day!”

Finally! After being slightly disappointed with the previous episodes of Abbott Elementary, this week’s episode was definitely a return to form! Whether it was all of the teachers talking about their drugs of choice or the hilarious FADE assembly, this episode epitomized everything that makes this show special. And while Janine smoking weed every day may seem a bit unexpected, it makes sense when you consider that she dated Tariq for ten years.

American Idol (Sunday Night, ABC)

Whenever American Idol starts a new season, I always find myself saying, “Is that show still on?” Seriously, it’s been a while since American Idol was a huge part of the cultural landscape and it’s been even longer since the show introduced America to genuine talents like Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood.

This season got off to an odd start, with Ryan Seacrest saying that the previous winner had put his home state of Hawaii on the map. No, Ryan — I’m pretty sure people knew about Hawaii before American Idol. As I watched the rest of the first audition episode, it occurred to me that, once again, the judges were too concerned about their own image to really offer up any sort of constructive feedback. That’s one reason why a show like this needs someone who is willing to be brutally honest and who has nothing to lose by being the show’s “villain.” Simon Cowell was a brilliant judge because he could always just hop on a plane and head back to the UK if his criticism ever turned America against him. Katy Perry, Luke Bryan, and Lionel Richie, on the other hand, all have brands that are based on being likable and not destroying people’s dreams.

Everyone who auditioned had a tragic backstory and they all did that thing were they oversold the emotion of whatever they were singing. It was kind of boring, to be honest. It’s been a long time since the show has produced a true American idol.

Bubblegum Crisis (Night Flight Plus)

Jeff and I watched an episode of this anime on Saturday morning. I have no idea what was going on in the episode but a lot of stuff blew up.

Dr. Phil (YouTube)

On Thursday night, Jeff and I watched an episode in which a woman named Lynsey accused her ex of abusing their daughter. That Lynsey was lying was pretty obvious from the start. Eventually, Lynsey got angry and stormed off stage. She came back out a bit later and accused Dr. Phil of turning her story into a “circus.” Usually, I’m totally in favor of people giving Dr. Phil a hard time but, in this case, Lynsey really was the worst.

Lauren Lake’s Paternity Court (YouTube)

He was the father! Yay! I had an episode of this playing in the background on Friday morning while I was in the process of waking up.

Law & Order (Thursday Night, NBC)

After playing the role for almost as long as I’ve been alive, Sam Waterston played Jack McCoy for the last time this week. McCoy resigned as District Attorney in order to protect his subordinates from the political fall-out of prosecuting a friend of the Mayor’s. I would have liked to have seen McCoy retire on his own terms, as opposed to being forced out. Quitting in the face of political pressure felt out of character for Jack McCoy. And the fact that he resigned to protect Price and Maroun, neither one of whom really feels worthy of the sacrifice, only adds insult to injury.

I find it interesting that almost every episode of Law & Order seems to feature a wealthy murderer. Do poor people not commit crimes in New York City?

Maury (YouTube)

“You are the father!” “You are not the father!” “You’re going to be in this baby’s life, right?” “Oh, you know it, Maury!” I watched way too much Maury on Friday and I will never forgive myself.

Night Flight (Night Flight Plus)

On Friday night, Jeff and I watched a profile of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath.

The Vanishing Shadow (Night Flight Plus)

On Friday night, Jeff and I watched another episode of this 1930s serial. Our heroes spent the entire episode fleeing gangsters.

Watched and Reviewed Elsewhere:

Baywatch Nights
Check it Out (review will be dropping in 30 minutes)
CHiPs
Fantasy Island
Friday the 13th: The Series
Highway to Heaven
In The Lion’s Den
The Love Boat
Miami Vice
Monsters
T and T
Welcome Back, Kotter

14 Days of Paranoia #9: Chappaquiddick (dir by John Curran)

Posted on February 24, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On July 18th, 1969, while American astronauts were preparing to land on and then take their first steps on the Moon, a 28 year-old woman named Mary Jo Kopechne attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts.

A former aide to Robert Kennedy who was reportedly devastated by his assassination, Mary Jo was one of several former campaign workers who gathered at an isolated cabin that night. According to the others at the party, Mary Jo (who was described as being a devout Catholic who rarely drank) was one of the first people to leave the party. She left with another guest. The next morning, that guest’s car was found overturned in Poucha Pond. Dead in the backseat was Mary Jo Kopechne, who had suffocated as the car slowly filled up with water. It was later determined that she had been alive and trapped in the car for hours before dying. The owner of the car was back at his hotel. He had returned there after crashing his car and, while he had taken a shower and combed his hair and called his father, he had not bothered to call the police.

Normally, a driver in this situation would be in serious legal jeopardy. Along with having left the scene of the accident, he also left Mary Jo to die. It was generally agreed that if he had called the police within an hour of the accident occurring, Mary Jo could have been saved. However, because he was Ted Kennedy and the last remaining of the fabled Kennedy brothers and a man who many expected would someday be president, he was given a slap on the wrist and the death of Mary Jo would be forever described as being a “Kennedy tragedy” as opposed to a Kopechne tragedy.

Not surprisingly, there has been a lot of speculation about what had happened in the moments leading up to the crash. Like his brothers, Ted Kennedy was a notorious and reckless womanizer. Unlike his brothers, Ted also had a reputation for being a heavy drinker. Some went as far as to accuse Ted of deliberately murdering Mary Jo, as if the actions that Ted later admitted to were not, in themselves, already bad enough. While people may disagree on the circumstances that led to the accident, it is generally agreed that, if Ted had been anyone other than a Kennedy, he would have served time in prison. The incident ended Ted’s presidential dreams but it didn’t keep him from being described as being the “lion of the Senate” when he died in 2010. Indeed, when Ted died, many people on twitter expressed their shock as they read or heard about Mary Jo Kopechne for the first time in their lives.

(In 2010, Mary Jo would have been seventy years old.)

Obviously, no one was going to make a movie about Mary Jo Kopechne’s death while Ted was still living. Indeed, even after Ted died, it still took seven more years for the story to be turned into a film and producer Byron Allen struggled to even book the film in theaters. 2017’s Chappaquiddick stars Jason Clarke as Ted and, briefly, Kate Mara as Mary Jo. The film speculates as to what happened that night and it probably gets fairly close to the truth. The accident is an accident, a result of Ted freaking out when a cop stops him for speeding and sees him with a woman who isn’t his wife. Ted, who is portrayed as being an immature manchild, turns to his handlers and then his family for help. His fails to call the authorities because, to Ted, there is no greater authority than his abusive father (Bruce Dern).

For the most part, Ted passively sits by as associates of his late brothers — including Ted Sorenson (Taylor Nichols, giving the film’s strongest performance), Joe Gargan (Ed Helms), and Paul Markham (Jim Gaffigan) — take over his defense and carefully craft his every response. Ted’s attempts to provide input are shot down and it’s made clear that his job is to shut up and concentrate on returning the Kennedys to the White House. The film’s best scenes feature Sorenson growing frustrated at all of Ted’s mistakes. Very little concern is shown for the fact that Mary Jo Kopechne, a Kennedy true believer, is dead due to Ted’s recklessness. When she was alive, Mary Jo was held up as a symbol of the Kennedy youth. When she died, she was just viewed as being an obstacle to keeping the Kennedys from reaching the power to which they felt entitled.

As you can probably guess, Ted Kennedy does not come off particularly well in this film. At his best, he’s a wimp who is struggling with a legacy of which he knows he’s not worthy. At his worst, he is pathologically self-absorbed and incapable of feeling empathy for the woman he left to drown in the backseat of his car. Both he and Mary Jo and ultimately the voters who are expected to reelect him even after he leaves Mary Jo to die are ultimately portrayed as just being pawns of the shadowy men who lurk behind the scenes of every political operation.

It’s not a happy film and it certainly has its flaws but it provides an important service, reminding viewers that death of Mary Jo Kopchene was more than just as a “Kennedy tragedy.”

14 Days of Paranoia:

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back Kotter 3.11 “Barbarino In Love: Part Two”

Posted on February 24, 2024 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 Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1979. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Barbarino must decide between the Sweathogs and his new girlfriend!

Episode 3.10 “Barbarino In Love: Part Two”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on November 10th, 1977)

This week’s episode of Welcome Back, Kotter picks up where last week’s left off.

Because he is now dating Cassy, Barbarino has left Three Do’s and a Don’t. The Three Do’s are now trying to figure out how to turn their quartet act into a trio triumph and needless to say, they are happy with neither Barbarino nor Cassy. They’re angry at Barbarino for leaving them and they blame Cassy for distracting him from the talent show. For her part, Cassy is not happy to learn that the Sweathogs now hate her and she tells Barbarino that, just because they’re dating, that doesn’t mean that they can’t compete against each other in the talent show.

Gabe takes Barbarino down to the local diner where he attempts to explain why everyone’s mad. He places three empty glasses on the table in front of them and tells Barbarino to imagine that the glasses are the Sweathogs.

“Which one’s Horshack?” Barbarino asks.

“This one,” Gabe replies, pointing at the third glass.

“That don’t look like Horshack,” Barbarino says, “That looks like Epstein….”

And so it goes.

The important thing is that Barbarino eventually decides that it’s his duty to be the Don’t in Three Do’s and a Don’t. The majority of the episode is taken up with the group performing at the talent show and, just as last week, it’s hard not to notice that their act seems a bit old-fashioned. How many juvenile delinquents start a barber shop quartet? That said, with the return of Barbarino’s winning smile, they’re a hit with everyone but Mr. Woodman.

And that’s the end of that. It’s a bit of a silly episode and I’m not really sure why it needed to be split into two parts. The Sweathogs getting angry at Barbarino and Gabe helping Barbarino realize that he’s not the center of the universe is one of those plots that this show used a lot. You would think that, at some point, Barbarino would finally learn his lesson and stop doing stuff like this but you would be wrong. Of course, Barbarino’s whole thing is that he’s cute but dumb.

And he’s lucky that he’s being played by a young John Travolta, who had the hair and the smile and the attitude and the charisma to make Barbarino far more likable than he really had any right to be. Some people just have that star quality and one need only look at the scenes where Travolta acts opposite Gabe Kaplan, Marcia Strassman, and Ron Pallilo to understand why John Travolta was the one who ultimately walked away from this show as a star.

Next week, Gabe is tempted to sell out and become vice principal!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.19 “The Quilt of Hathor”

Posted on February 23, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, Micki screws up and Ryan finds love!

Episode 1.19 “The Quilt of Hathor”

(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on May 2nd, 1988)

Looking to retrieve a cursed quilt that allows its owner to enter other people’s dreams and kill them, Micki and Ryan go undercover as members of the Pentite Sect.

Who are the Pentites? Basically, they’re Mennonites except for the fact that they’re called Pentites. They are a hard-worked and religious community, one that eschews modern technology. The members of the sect dress modestly, they don’t sing or dance, and they do everything that their leader, Reverend Grange (Scott Paulin), tells them to do.

Effie Stokes (Kate Trotter) is in love with the Reverend and wants to become his wife. She also happens to own the Quilt of Hathor and soon, she is entering the dreams of her romantic rivals and killing them. While Effie is trying to win the love of Reverend Grange, Ryan is falling in love with Grange’s daughter, Laura (Carolyn Dunn). Quicker than you can say Witness, Ryan is temping Laura to dance and being forced to fight Laura’s suitor, Matthew (Diego Matamoras), while balancing above an open flame pit. I don’t think Mennonites do that, which is probably why the Pentites broke off from them in the first place.

Micki does figure out that Effie is the one with the quilt and she even manages to grab it away from her. However, when she tells Ryan that it’s time to return to the antique shop, Ryan replies that he can’t go with her. Ryan has fallen in love with Laura and is planning on living the rest of his life as a Pentite.

Micki returns to the shop and, heartbroken, she tells Jack that she lost Ryan. Jack then reveals that she also managed to grab the wrong quilt. So, basically, Micki really screwed up.

This is a two-part episode so I imagine that Micki will return to the Pentite community next week and hopefully, she’ll pay attention and grab the right quilt this time. Will Ryan return to the civilization with her? Considering that John D. LeMay didn’t leave the show until the end of the second season, I imagine he probably will.

This was a pretty good episode. The scenes where Effie entered the dreams were well-directed and definitely achieved a nightmarish intensity. Some of the Pentite stuff was a little bit silly but John D. LeMay really sold his decision to stay with the sect. With everything that we’ve seen of Ryan on this show, his decision actually makes sense. Ryan has always been the one searching for deeper meaning while Micki is the more down-to-Earth member of the team.

Next week: Part two of the Quilt of Hathor!

14 Days of Paranoia #8: Reality (dir by Tina Satter)

Posted on February 23, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

One day in 2017, Reality Winner (Sidney Sweeney), a yoga instructor who also works as a government translator, returns home from grocery shopping to discover that the FBI is outside of her house. Agents Garrick (Josh Hamilton) and Taylor (Marchant Davis) have a search warrant and they explain that they also have some questions to ask her.

At first, both Garrick and Taylor are very friendly. In fact, they’re almost too friendly. Whenever Reality asks for more details about what is going on, they ask her about her pets or about whether or not she enjoys her job. They ask her about her background and about the last trip she went on. The conversation is cheerful but it’s hard not to notice that, while Garrick is smiling, burly FBI agents are ransacking Reality’s house. As Reality comes to realize, she actually is in a lot of trouble. Because she sent classified material to the Intercept, she is about to be arrested and prosecuted under the espionage act. It’s going to be a while before she sees her house again.

Reality was released last year and aired on HBO. It’s a film about which I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, it showed how the government goes about prosecuting its citizens. From the minute that Reality started talking to the FBI agents, I started yelling at her to shut up and get a lawyer. No matter how many times they ask about your dog or how interested they seem to be in your recent trip to South America, agents of the FBI are not your friends! Since the film’s script was largely a transcript of the actual interrogation, Reality presented a lesson in just how exactly law enforcement agencies like the FBI lure people into a false sense of security before dropping the trap on them.

On the other hand, this film also left me wondering just how much of a dumbass one has to be to throw away their career and their freedom for a trash organization like The Intercept. Reality says that she was 1) upset over the election of Donald Trump (understandable) and 2) she resented being forced to watch Fox News at work when she would have rather watched Al Jazeera. One needn’t be a fan of Fox to realize how ludicrous it is to suggest that Al Jazeera would somehow be less propagandistic.

There’s a moment, at the start of the film, where Reality — while standing outside of her house — stares at a toy truck on the other side of the street. The toy has a big Confederate flag decal on it and the symbolism is so heavy-handed that it almost made me laugh out loud. It leaves the viewer with no doubt that the film is very much on Reality Winner’s side and the film does her a great favor by casting the instantly likable Sydney Sweeney in the title role. (Oddly, we occasionally see pictures of the actual Reality Winner over the course of the film, all of which invertedly serve to remind us that the real person is not as appealing as the actress playing her.) Josh Hamilton and Marchant Davis are both appropriately menacing as the passive aggressive FBI agent and the scene where Hamilton goes from being friendly to being serious is truly jolting.

Since the film’s script is based on the actual transcripts of the interrogation, director Tina Satter inserts a film glitch whenever the characters mention anything that has been redacted. The film’s best moment comes when a particularly big redaction causes the FBI agents to vanish all together and, for a few moments, Reality can actually catch her breath and is free from their questions. The film did not make me any more sympathetic to Reality Winner (and, for all of its claims to historic veracity, it leaves out the moment she told her father that she wouldn’t be prosecuted because she was pretty and blonde) but it did make me feel empathy for anyone who has ever been targeted by the government. When the film’s epilogue suggests that Reality Winner was prosecuted and imprisoned for a relatively minor offense solely to scare off other whistleblowers, it’s hard not to disagree.

14 Days of Paranoia:

Retro Television Review: T and T 2.18 “Thicker Than Water”

Posted on February 23, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!

If you’ve ever watched T and T and thought, “I wish there was a lot less T in this show,” this week’s episode is for you!

Episode 2.18 “Thicker than Water”

(Dir by Harvey Frost, originally aired on May 8th, 1989)

This is a weird episode.

Ronnie (David Hewlett) and Steve (Gordon Michael Woolvett) are two brothers who have opened up a punk music venue in whatever part of Canada that T and T was filmed in. From the start, everyone is trying to shut them down. The other neighborhood business people claim that the club is bringing in a bad element. The police are unsympathetic whenever a fight breaks out. The fire department is always showing up with a list of regulations. The sinister person who loaned them the money to start the club wants the brothers to burn it down for the insurance money. Seriously, it’s not easy run a venue devoted to angry music that is best appreciated by people who like to fight. But, in the end, the brothers stick together and refuse to let Canada beat them down.

Yay! Take that, Trudeau!

(Yes, I know that Justin Trudeau was not in charge of Canada when this show was filmed but I’m too lazy to look up who was. Actually, T and T always pretended that it was set in the U.S. so I guess I should blame the first Bush. But seriously, everything about T and T screams Canada.)

So, why is this an episode of T and T? Well, Amy is their lawyer. (Sometimes, Amy practices criminal law and sometimes, she practices business law and sometimes, she just acts like a lobbyist. There’s nothing Amy can’t do!) Amy shows up at the club a few times. T.S. Turner also shows up once or twice and says, “Little brother, when you believe in something …. YOU FIGHT FOR IT!”

I’m going to guess that this was a backdoor pilot for a series that would have followed the brothers and their club. I have no idea if the pilot led to a series. It’s really hard for me to imagine what a potential series would have been like but I would say that I thought the club looked cool. I liked the rebellious attitude of the bands that performed there.

Like most backdoor pilots, this is a bit of a wasted episode. This is also the third episode in a row that hasn’t really featured Turner and Amy doing anything new. The previous two episodes were both clip shows and this episode isn’t even about them. These episodes are easy to review (yay!) but you do have to wonder what was going on behind the scenes during the latter half of the second season.

Music Video of the Day: With Love K…. by Kedr Livanskiy (2013, dir by Kedr Livanskiy)

Posted on February 23, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s music video of the day is a recent one from Kedr Livanskiy. I always assume that all of Kedr Livanskiy’s videos either deal with vampires or takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. This one seems to definitely take place in a world where, much as in Argento’s Tenebrae and Rollin’s Night of the Hunted, there are now far fewer people.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Highway to Heaven 1.22 “An Investment In Caring”

Posted on February 22, 2024 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, Jonathan encourages everyone to violate federal law.

Episode 1.22 “An Investment In Caring”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on March 13th, 1985)

Helen Spencer (Eileen Heckart) is an annoying old busy body who lives in one of those charming city neighborhoods that are only found on shows like Highway to Heaven. Even since her husband died, she has kept herself active by working as a cleaning lady at the Halstead Corporation, which is the same company that wants to not only tear down her neighborhood but also turn the local cemetery into a condo subdivision.

Fortunately, Helen’s new boarders just happen to be Jonathan Smith and Mark Gordon. Jonathan encourages Helen to rally the neighbors to take a stand against Halstead. He also encourages Paul Tarsten (Dane Clark), who was recently laid off from Halstead for being too old, to help Helen out. With Jonathan’s guidance, Helen goes through the trash at Halstead, finds some stock reports that really should have been put through a shredder, and then use that insider information to buy and sell a bunch of stock until soon, she and her friends are the majority stockholders.

“Only in America,” Ms. Zabenko (Elsa Raven) exclaims not once but five times, just in case you were wondering how heavy-handed this episode was.

Helen is able to save her neighborhood, save the cemetery where her husband is buried, and also take over the company. She also finds hints of romance with Paul, who is himself a widower. Their mission accomplished, Jonathan and Mark leave town….

…. which is good because I don’t see anyway that Paul, Helen, and Ms. Zabenko aren’t eventually going to end up in federal prison. Just about every piece of advice that Jonathan gave Helen led to her doing something illegal, from insider trading to corporate espionage to stealing from the office. Only in America, Ms. Zabenko? In America, we have laws against stock market manipulation.

This episode just irked me. Whenever people talk about Highway to Heaven being an unrealistic and cheesy show, this is the type of episode that they’re thinking of. It takes a lot to make a heartless corporation sympathetic but the overacted and rather smug neighborhood activists in this episode managed to do just that. In previous episodes, Jonathan and Mark have appealed to businessmen to get them to change their ways. In this episode, the head of Halstead isn’t given that opportunity. Instead, Jonathan — acting on authority from GOD — encourages a bunch of people with no business experience and no way of knowing any better to commit a bunch of federal crimes. Helen takes over the company but what does Helen know about running a company? When Halstead goes bankrupt, a lot of people who had nothing to do with the former CEO’s plans will end up losing their jobs. Way to go, God.

Finally, I should note that this episode begins with Helen’s former boarder telling her that he’s moving out because a voice in his head told him to move to Alaska. It’s only because he leaves that Helen has the room to rent to Jonathan and Mark. So, basically, promoting insider trading wasn’t enough for Jonathan. He also had to ruin some poor schmuck’s life by telling him to move to a state that he knows nothing about. Not since the Book of Enoch has an angel behaved so unethically.

14 Days of Paranoia #7: No Way Out (dir by Roger Donaldson)

Posted on February 22, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Trust no one in Washington would seem to be the message of this 1987 thriller.

Kevin Costner plays Lt. Commander Tom Farrell, a Naval Intelligence officer who is hailed as a hero after saving a shipmate who falls overboard. In Washington, Tom is recruited by a friend from college, Scott Pritchard (Will Patton), to work for Secretary of Defense Brice (Gene Hackman). Brice doesn’t trust the head of the CIA (played by future senator, Fred Dalton Thompson) and he wants Tom to serve as his mole within the service. What Brice doesn’t know is that Tom is sleeping with Brice’s mistress, Susan Atwell (Sean Young).

Still, Brice does suspect that the woman with whom he is cheating is also cheating on him. When he confronts her about it, their argument leads to him accidentally pushing Susan over an upstairs railing. Pritchard, who is implied to be in love with Brice, takes charge of the cover-up and decides to push the story that Susan was killed by a possibly mythical Russian agent who is known only by the name “Yuri.”

Tom assists with the investigation of her death, both because he wants to know who killed Susan and also because he knows that there’s evidence in Susan’s apartment that could be manipulated to make him look guilty of the crime. For instance, Susan took a picture of Tom shortly before her death. The picture failed to develop but, through the use of what was undoubtedly cutting edge technology in 1987, Naval Intelligence is slowly unscrambling the picture. For Tom, it’s a race against time to find the actual killer before the picture develops and he’s accused of both killing Susan and being Yuri.

Everyone has an agenda in No Way Out, from the ambitious Brice to the fanatical Scott Pritchard to the head of the CIA, who wants Brice to approve funding for a costly submarine. Even the film’s nominal hero has an agenda, which has less to do with finding justice for Susan and everything to do with protecting himself and his future. In fact, as is revealed in the film’s enjoyable if slightly implausible twist ending, some people in Washington have multiple agendas. The film portrays Washington as being a place where, behind the stately facade, everyone is a liar and everyone is ultimately a pawn in someone else’s game. If you have the right connections, you can even get away with murder. Loyalty is rewarded until you’re no longer needed.

It’s an enjoyably twisty thriller, one that makes good use of the contrast between Kevin Costner’s All-American good looks and his somewhat shady screen presence. The film introduces Costner as being a character who, at first glance, seems almost too good to be true and then spend the majority of its running time suggesting that is indeed the case. Gene Hackman is well-cast as the weaselly cabinet secretary, as is Sean Young as the woman who links them all together. In the end, though, the film is stolen by Will Patton, who plays Scott Pritchard as being someone who has unknowingly given his loyalty to a man who is incapable of returning it. As played by Patton, Scott is an outsider who desperately wants to be an insider and who is willing to do just about anything to accomplish that goal. He’s a version of Iago who never turned against Othello but instead devoted all of his devious tricks to trying to cover up the murder of Desdemona.

Even with an over-the-top final twist, No Way Out holds up well as a portrait of how the lust for power both drives and corrupts our political system.

14 Days of Paranoia:

Retro Television Review: In The Lion’s Den 1.1 “The Pilot”

Posted on February 22, 2024 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing In The Lion’s Den, which aired on CBS in 1987. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by James Burrows, originally aired on September 4th, 1987)

When she lived in New York City, Dana (Wendy Crewson) had an apartment, a boyfriend, and a job working as a producer on a very successful game show. But then she got fired and everything changed. Now, she has moved to San Antonio so she can work as the new associate producer of Lion’s Den, a PBS program featuring a lion puppet named Maynard.

The man behind the puppet is Keith (Dennis Boutsikaris), an infamously temperamental actor who, every day, announces that he’s quitting show business and storms off the set. Previously, it was up to Jerry (Jack Blessing) to coax Keith into returning to the set and shooting the show. But now that Jerry has a job with Steven Spielberg, it’s up to Dana to keep Keith happy.

Despite having hired her, Keith does not know who Dana is when she shows up on the set. He proceeds to re-interview her for the job, which means leering at her legs and trying to convince her to hug the puppet. Keith, I think, was meant to come across as being a charming rogue but, every time he talked to Dana, I had flashbacks to interviewing for jobs after college and all of the guys who stared at my chest and legs while I explained my passion for art history. Keith is a creep and the fact that he’s only nice when he’s talking through Maynard does nothing to change that.

It’s an eventful first day for Dana. One of the show’s sponsors (played by Fred Applegate) offers to allow Dana to rent his house but it soon turns out that he’s a bit of a sleaze. A neurotic writer (Brian Backer) fears that he’s going to lose his job because he wrote a script about football. (“I hate football!” Keith yells. Good luck living in Texas.) Proving the everyone had to start somewhere, Marcia Gay Harden plays the receptionist who helps Dana get out of having to talk to her ex-boyfriend. (“She’s meetin’ Willie Nelson.”) Harden plays the role with a Texas accent and, while it’s definitely exaggerated, she does a good job with it overall. (A quick check with Wikipedia revealed that, though born in California, Harden spent time in Texas when she was growing up and graduated from the University of Texas.) Eventually, Keith throws his daily tantrum and Dana has to find her own way to keep him from quitting show business.

The main problem with the pilot is that Keith is too much of a jerk. It’s hard to really care about someone who throws a tantrum every day, is abusive to his coworkers, and how uses an adorable puppet to sexually harass a woman who hasn’t even figured out where she’s going to be living in her new city. Personally, I think Dana should have quit as soon as Maynard demanded a hug.

And audiences agreed. This pilot aired once and that was it for In The Lion’s Den.