Tag Archives: review

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 1/28/24 — 2/3/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This previous week …. bleh.  Let’s just take a look at what I watched.

The Bachelor (Monday Night, ABC)

Eh.  I’m pretty lukewarm on the new bachelor.  He seems like a nice guy but he’s kind of boring.

Baywatch Nights (YouTube)

I reviewed Baywatch Nights here!

Check it Out (Tubi)

I’m running behind but I’ll have a review of this week’s episode up sometime on Sunday.

CHiPs (Freevee)

I reviewed CHiPs here!

Degrassi Junior High (YouTube)

I reviewed Degrassi here!

Fantasy Island (YouTube)

I reviewed Fantasy Island here!

Football (Sunday)

Did I watched two football games on Sunday?  According to my notes, Jeff and I watched two playoff games but I’ll be darned if I can tell you a dang thing about either one of them.

Friday the 13th (YouTube)

I’m running behind but I’ll have a review of this week’s episode up sometime on Sunday.

Happy Hour (YouTube)

I watched an episode of this old 90s game show on Saturday morning.  Dweezil and Ahmet Zappa asked bizarre questions to celebrities.  Dweezil was cool but Ahmet was like the hyperactive cousin that no one wants to deal with at the family reunion.  Amongst the celebrities were Chuck Woolery, Alexandra Paul, Patton Oswalt, and that “Let’s Get Ready To Rumble” ring announcer dude.

Highway to Heaven (Freevee)

I wrote about this week’s episode here!

Judge Dad (YouTube)

On Sunday, I watched an episode in which Judge Dad dealt with a woman who claimed her Canadian husband only married her for a visa.  Judge Dad interrupted the show so he could do a commercial for some sort of special food delivery system.  I followed this episode with an episode in which Judge Dad admonished a man for slashing his ex’s tires.  Both episodes featured the same disclosure.  Judge Dad is not a lawyer and the cases are fiction.

Law & Order (Thursday Night, NBC)

I got caught up with the first three episodes of the new season this week.  I am really impressed by Reid Scott, who is this season’s newest cast member.  He and Mehcad Brooks are working well together and Brooks, for his part, is no longer quite as stiff as he was the previous season.  Sam Waterston, bless him, is obviously not in the best of health and I really hope he retires after this season and enjoys life.  So far, Nolan Price appears to have mellowed out, especially when compared to previous two seasons.  But what has happened to Maroun?  She was finally showing some sparks of having a personality at the end of the previous season but now, she’s back to being a humorless scold who wears too much lipstick.

The first three episodes of the new season were all fairly good.  I cringe whenever the blue collar cops on Law & Order start talking like MSNC pundits (and I still laugh whenever I remember last season’s “Did you all see Morning Joe?”).  Law & Order will probably never be the beacon of quality that it once was but this season is off to a good start.

The Love Boat (Paramount Plus)

I reviewed the third season finale here!

Miami Vice (Tubi)

I reviewed Miami Vice here!

Monsters (Tubi)

I wrote about Monsters here!

Sally Jessy Raphael (YouTube)

Sally talked to women who felt their marriage were in trouble.  All of the husband were total deadbeats.  One guy came out on stage wearing his uniform from McDonald’s.  I’m sure the bosses were really happy about that.

So Here’s What Happened (YouTube)

I wrote about this obscure pilot here!

Square Pegs (YouTube)

This was a sitcom from the early 80s, about two girls trying to be popular in high school.  I watched the pilot on Friday night and I smiled a few times.  Trying to fit in is a timeless subject.  One of the girls was played by Sarah Jessica Parker, who I love because, like me, she’s a part of the Big Nose Crew.  BNC FOREVER!

T and T (Tubi)

I wrote about T and T here!

Welcome Back, Kotter (Tubi)

I wrote about it here!

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.15 “Jump Start”

Posted on 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!

Wait a minute!  This isn’t Friday afternoon!  This is Saturday morning!  Why am I posting my review of this show now?

I’m only human.  After a long week, I was so exhausted on Friday that I couldn’t even find the strength to former coherent thoughts about a show as simple as T and T.  So, I put off the review until this morning.  Of course, I’m still tired.  All of this thinking is exhausting.  Roll the opening credits so I can take a 90 second nap.

Episode 2.15 “Jump Start”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on February 20th, 1989)

In a rare nod to maintaining some sort of continuity from episode to episode, this week’s episode of T and T opens with a flashback to a previous story.  We once again witness how two hapless crooks — Fritz (Dominic Cuzzocrea) and Finn (Ron Gabriel) — tried to pull a gun on T.S. and Decker, just for the clip to fall out of the weapon.  At the time, my feeling was that the two crooks were both too incompetent to be viewed as a legitimate threat and this follow-up episode proved me right.

Fritz and Finn are back on the streets, having had their criminal charges dismissed on a technicality.  They want revenge on Turner for sending them to jail so they decide to steal his car.  However, because they’re both incredibly incompetent, they have to ask Max (Kathleen Laskey, who also played Marlene on Check It Out!) to steal it for them.  Just as with so many episodes of Check It Out!, Laskey was this episode’s saving grace.  She brought so much badass attitude to the character that you couldn’t help but cheer Max on as she stole Turner’s car.

Unfortunately, Laskey really isn’t in much of this episode.  For that matter, Alex, Decker, and even Turner have reduced roles.  The majority of the episode is devoted to Fritz and Finn and their total and complete incompetence.  I get that it was meant to be comedic but these two characters were so stupid and so foolish and so obviously doomed to failure that there was absolutely no tension as to whether or not Turner would be able to get his car back.  As far as I could tell, Turner didn’t even bother to report that his car had been stolen.  He just tracked the two guys down and took it back.  That’s the power of T and T!

Anyway, this was a throw away episode.  I’m not sure why, out of all the villains that have been on this show, T and T decided to bring back the least impressive of them.  Episodes like this leave little doubt that all of the serious criminals left Toronto as soon as Mr. T showed up.

Music Video of the Day: Half A Boy and Half A Man by Nick Lowe (1984, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Jeff and I saw this video at tonight’s Night Flight Friday watch party, along with our friends Brad and Patrick.  As soon as the video started, I knew that I had found our next music video of the day.  And not a minute too soon because I’m typing this up like 15 minutes before the time hits midnight on the West Coast!

What do I like about this video?  The beach!  The fun!  The party!  The dancing!  Plus, the song’s tune really get stuck in your head.  (To be honest, I’m the worst when it comes to actually hearing lyrics.  I just hear the music and I’m often shocked by how poorly I do whenever I try to recite the lyrics later.  I assume that “Half a boy and half a man” was a lyric in this song but he could have been singing one of the Bond theme songs for all I know.)  This past week was also that week so getting to see a fun video and hear a catchy song was a nice way to celebrate making it to the end.

Anyway, I’m totally off my previously perfect schedule now but I’ll get caught up with everything (including my retro television reviews) over the weekend.  For now …. ENJOY!

Music Video of the Day: New Kind Of Kick by Muse (2016, dir by Tom Kirk)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The second day of February.  It’s Groundhog Day.  I am finally feeling a bit more awake and ready to get back with everything.  It’s time for a new kind of kick and here to give it to us is Muse.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Highway to Heaven 1.19 “A Match Made In Heaven”

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

This week, Jonathan and Mark visit their friend, Scotty.

Episode 1.19 “A Match Made In Heaven”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on February 20th, 1985)

Jonathan and Mark pay a visit to both Mark’s cousin, Diane (Margie Impert), and their friend, Scotty (James Troesch), a quadriplegic attorney.  (Scotty previously appeared in the One Fresh Batch of Lemonade double-parter.)   Mark is shocked and a little concerned when he discovers that Scotty is also their latest assignment.

However, it turns out that the assignment also involves Diane.  Diane, an outspoken architect who quits her job when her chauvinist boss refuses to give her credit for her work, meets and falls in love with Scotty.  When Scotty asks her to marry him, she says yes.  Mark is concerned that Scotty, as a quadriplegic, won’t be able to take care of his cousin.  It’s a concern that Scotty comes to share after they have a car accident and Scotty can only wait helplessly for someone to discover him and Diane.

Fortunately, Jonathan is a bit more open-minded than Mark and he has more confidence in Scotty than Scotty has in himself.  Jonathan introduces Scotty to another quadriplegic, one who is married and has a wonderful family as a result.  Scotty realizes that it would be foolish for him to give up on his dreams and Mark realizes that Scotty is stronger than he realized.

This was an extremely earnest and well-intentioned episode of Highway to Heaven.  You can’t doubt the sincerity of the message, even if the message is often delivered in the most heavy-handed fashion possible.  James Troesch was a writer on the show and he and his wife co-wrote this episode’s script with Michael Landon.  Troesch was a bit of a stiff actor but you still can’t help but be happy for Scotty at the end of the episode.

Retro Television Review: So Here’s What Happened 1.1 “Pilot”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing So Here’s What Happened, which aired on CBS in 2006.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

The first and only episode of this show has one message for all the mooks out there.  And that message is …. NEW YORK, BABY!

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by Michael Lembeck, aired on May 1st, 2006)

What to say about Vince Brophy (Bobby Cannavale)?  Hey, he’s a New Yorker, you know what I mean?  Hey, he starts every sentence by saying, “Hey,” y’know?  He knows the name of every single athlete who ever played for a New York sports team, y’know?  He meets a woman named Rochelle Jeter (Rashida Jones) and immediately asks her if she’s related to Derek Jeter, you know what I’m saying?  She says, “Yeah,” and she’s being sarcastic but Vince thinks that she’s being serious because who in their right mind would come into the old neighborhood and make a sarcastic joke, y’know?

Vince is such a New Yorker that he narrates the entire episode while sitting in his favorite barber chair.  His barber (Hector Elizondo) hangs on his every word, which is good since he presumably can’t see the flashbacks that the audience is forced to sit through.  Vince works at his family’s car lot and he wears solid suits and pinky rings and the pilot finds several excuses for him to say the word “Escalade.”  He’s not smart but he’s a stand-up guy, that Vince.  His co-worker asks him to be the godfather to his newborn and Vince agrees but then he nearly drowns the kid at the christening because he gets distracted when someone tells him that Derek Jeter don’t have no sister named Rochelle.  What a New Yorker!, y’know what I’m saying?

There’s a lot of talented people in this show.  Rashida Jones was months away from appearing on The Office.  Hector Elizondo is a comedy veteran.  Steve Park, a favorite of the Coen Brothers, appeared as Vince’s boss.  Mercedes Ruehl plays Vince’s mother.  And then you’ve got Bobby Cannavale in the lead role.  Cannavale is one of my favorite actors, a guy who is as good at playing sensitive as he is at playing tough.  Cannavale can play drama and he can play comedy and he’s easy on the eyes.  Unfortunately, all of these talented people were let down by a script that was written by none other than Paul Reiser.

The main problem with the show is that none of the characters have much of a personality beyond being from New York.  Obviously, New Yorkers are a unique group of people but every New Yorker I’ve met has also had their own individual personality to go along with their identity of being a citizen of America’s largest city.  The characters in this episode, on the other hand, have no identity beyond being a New Yorker in the most cliched ways possible.  Even worse, none of the jokes are particularly funny.  Vince crosses the line from being amiably dumb to being a buffoon far too quickly.

Perhaps not surprisingly, this was the only episode of this show.  The pilot did not lead to a series.  Fortunately, everyone involved went on to better things, y’know?

Music Video of the Day: Can’t Get Enough by Jennifer Lopez (2024, dir by Tanu Muino)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s start February with Jennifer Lopez’s second video for Can’t Get Enough!  We featured the first version earlier this year.  I know that actually feels like 20 years ago but I believe it was only a few weeks ago.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Monsters 1.18 “The Match Game”

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 Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire show is streaming on Tubi.

Agck!  The monsters are going to get me for being so late in posting this review!

Episode 1.18 “The Match Game”

(Dir by Michael Brandon, originally aired on April 15th, 1989)

So, if you’ve ever wanted to see Tori Spelling’s head literally get squeezed into nothingness, this is the episode for you.

Spelling plays Beverly, a teenage girl who enjoys breaking into old houses and playing the match game.  That’s the game where you and your friends sit in a circle and a match is passed from person to person.  The person holding the match tells a story until their flame dies.  Then the next person continues the story until their match dies.  The whole idea is to see just how grotesque things can get by the time the story finally ends.  I played a variation of the game when I was in high school.  Admittedly, my friends and I did it in our creative writing teacher’s classroom and we used an hourglass instead of a match and our stories usually turned pretty perverse by the time the third person got their chance to contribute.

Tori Spelling is not the only familiar face to be found here.  Her boyfriend is played by Sasha Jenson, who will forever be known as Dazed and Confused‘s Don Dawson.  Spelling’s best friend is played by Ashley Laurence, who was the lead in the first Hellraiser.  Spelling is not the only well-known actor here but she is the only one to give an amazingly bad performance.  That’s not a surprise, of course.  Spelling has never been a particularly good actress and she did this episode around the same time that she was playing Screech’s girlfriend on Saved By The Bell.  Credit where credit is due, she is better here than she was on Saved By The Bell.

When Paul (Byron Thames), the newcomer to the group, gets his chance to hold the match, it doesn’t go out until he’s gone into great detail about Hubert Waverly, the horribly deformed man who once lived in the house where the group is playing their game.  This brings Hubert to life.  Jenson and Spelling are taken out quickly.  Finally, it occurs to the two survivors that Paul can vanquish Hubert by finishing the story.  That’s good and all but the episode never really explains why Paul’s match didn’t go out the first time.  How did he know about Hubert?  Did Hubert spring from Paul’s mind?  These are important questions that the show just kind of pushes to the side.

Oh well!  This is still an atmospheric episode and probably as close as this show has gotten to being scary since that episode about the makeup box.  Even Tori Spelling’s bad performance felt oddly appropriate for what was essentially a 30-minute 80s slasher film.  I enjoyed this episode so much that I might even go find that old box of matches that we keep out in the garage….

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.28 “No Girls for Doc/Marriage of Convenience/The Caller/The Witness”

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 third season of The Love Boat comes to a conclusion with an extra-long episode!

Episode 3.28 “No Girls for Doc/Marriage of Convenience/The Caller/The Witness”

(Dir by Gordon Farr and Richard Kinon, originally aired on May 3rd, 1980)

The finale of The Love Boat‘s third season features stage legend and two-time Oscar winner, Helen Hayes.  Hayes was considered to be such a big “get” for the show that she receives the zoom lens treatment when she steps onto the ship and all of the action seems to stop for a few minutes, presumably so the audience at home can give her a standing ovation.

Personally, I think Helen Hayes was pretty cool.  Along with being a hell of an actress (one whose career extended for over six decades), she was also the wife of Charles MacArthur, an acquaintance of the Algonquin round table, an outspoken Republican, a strong supporter of many charities, and a major benefactor of the Helen Hayes Hospital, a rehabilitation clinic in New York that has made major strides in treating physical disabilities.  To say that there are people in the world who can walk because of Helen Hayes is not hyperbole.

That said, Helen Hayes’s story is the dullest one on this cruise.  It’s not Hayes’s fault.  She is her usual outspoken and likable self.  It’s just the storyline itself doesn’t offer up much in the way of drama or comedy.  Hayes plays Agatha Winslow, a widow who was married to a friend of Stubing’s.  Stubing asks Julie to set Agatha up with someone but then they see Agatha hugging a younger man and Julie says that it won’t be necessary.

AGCK!  I HOPE NOT!  The younger man is played Helen Hayes’s son, James MacArthur!

No worries.  MacArthur is playing Scott Burgess, who is Agatha’s nephew.  Scott is a member of the protestant clergy who has never married because he feels that he has to take care of Agatha.  Scott and Beatrice Dale (Mildred Natwick) hope that Agatha will fall in love with and marry Beatrice’s brother, a businessman named Hollister (Maurice Evans).  Hollister owns a carpet company and he spends most of the episode look down at and commenting on the quality of the ship’s floor.  Agatha does not marry Hollister but she does realize that it’s time for her to move on and live her own life.  It’s all very pleasant but not very extremely interesting.

Far more interesting is the story of Gail Padgett (Christopher Norris), a woman who is boarding the ship because she needs to get away from her landline phone.  As she explains to Julie, someone has been calling and harassing her for months.  At no point does Julie suggest what I would suggest, which is that Gail should call the cops.  Indeed, when Gail starts to get calls on the boat, Julie never suggests calling the police or going to the captain or anything else.  Instead, Gail tells her stalker that she’ll meet him at the Pirate’s Cove Bar.  She tells Julie that she has a plan to humiliate him.  And again, you would think Julie might say, “How about we just arrest him when he comes in the bar?”  But instead, Julie smiles.  It’s the Love Boat!  No one is murdered on The Love Boat!  (Not yet, anyway.)

Gail’s stalker is a nerdy fellow named Melvin, who is played by a young Martin Short.  Before Melvin can arrive, Gail is approached by Jack Stander (Larry Breeding).  “Hi, I’m Robert Redford,” Jack says before admitting that he’s not Robert Redford and that he spent hours coming up with that opening line.  Thinking that Jack is her stalker, Gail takes Jack to her cabin where she get him to undress and then tosses all of his clothes out the porthole.  So now, Gail has not only flirted with and then stood up her stalker but she’s also committed theft.  WAY TO GO, GAIL!

Anyway, Gail eventually realizes that Jack is not her stalker and they fall in love.  Melvin is eventually revealed to be the caller but everyone laughs it off because he’s so nerdy.  (Because we all know how harmless nerdy stalkers are….)  This was a really weird story but, despite the stupidity of their characters, Christopher Norris and Larry Breeding made for a cute, likably vapid couple.

Maybe Gail should have gone to Wayne Dobson (Larry Wilcox) for help.  Wayne is an uptight assistant D.A. who has spent the last two months in a hotel room with Pat Bigelow (Catherine Bach), a witness to a crime who is in protective custody.  Even when Pat boards the cruise, Wayne has to come with her and stay in an adjoining cabin.  Pat is annoyed but she understand that Wayne is just doing his job. 

However, Wayne has fallen in love with Pat and he is upset to receive a telegram saying that the crooks have decided to plead guilty and that Pat can be released from protective custody.  Isaac, who was perhaps a bit too excited when he earlier thought Wayne was a male gigolo who was being paid to escort Pat, suggests that Wayne just lie and not let Pat know that her life is no longer in danger.  Wayne agrees and Isaac takes Wayne off to give him a makeover that will be so impressive that Pat will fall in love with him and reject notorious Love Boat lothario Mark Bridges (John McCook).

(Of course, any relationship that Wayne and Pat could ever have would be built on lies but whatever….)

Pat does fall for Wayne, though less because of the makeover and more because Wayne finally stops being so uptight.  She’s a bit miffed when she finds out that Wayne has been lying to her but she forgives him easily because this is The Love Boat.

Finally, after a night of skinny dipping leads to him losing his clothes and money, Doc announces that he’s through with women.  (And again, it doesn’t seem to occur to anyone that maybe Doc should call the police.)  That should be a relief to the crew because Doc really is a lawsuit waiting to happen.  Instead, they takes bets on how long it will take Doc to go back on his word.  It doesn’t take long.  Any story that centered around Doc being a Casanova just felt silly.  Bernie Kopell was likable as Doc but he was also a bit too naturally mild-mannered to be believable as a legendary lothario.

And so ends the third season of The Love Boat.  Vicki is now firmly a member of the crew.  Julie has given up on finding love.  Isaac and Gopher are as silly as ever.  And Doc is going to get the cruise line sued.  The 90-minute finale was a bit overextended and had some weak story elements but, overall, the third season was a lot of fun.  

Next week …. SEASON 4!