Today’s music video of the day comes to us from Miley Cyrus. It pretty much looks and sounds like almost every other music video that’s come out over the past few months but the familiarity is the point. We’re not living in an age of risk takers, especially when it comes to music.
Enjoy!
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 Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
Season 4 continues! Will Coach K ever figure out how to step into Coach Fuller’s shoes? Will the team ever come together? Will Julie and Mary Beth ever graduate? Let’s find out!
Episode 4.3 “Let Them Play”
(Dir by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on September 19th, 1998)
Another big game is coming up but the majority of the team doesn’t want to play it! It turns out that one of their rival teammates is HIV+ and, as a result, high schools across Indiana have been refusing to play them. When Coach K puts it to a team vote, only Michael argues that they shouldn’t cancel their upcoming game. Even St. Julie votes to cancel the game.
However, Michael then brings the HIV+ positive player down to The Stadium, the oddly sterile restaurant where everyone hangs out. The team discovers that their rival is just like them and almost all of them change their minds about playing. The only one who doesn’t now want to play is …. JULIE! Julie tells Michael that she doesn’t feel safe playing against a player with HIV, especially since she’ll be the one guarding him in the game. “C’mon, Julie,” Michael says, “we need you in this game!” And Michael’s correct because, if there’s anything we’ve learned from Hang Time, it’s that Julie is the only good basketball player in Indiana. Maybe that’s why she’s been allowed to stay at the high school for an extra year….
Despite the players changing their minds, the school board says that the game still cannot be played. As a way to protest, the teams decide to play an “unofficial” game. When a member of the school board comes by the gym to complain, Julie sees that it’s the same member of the board who always says that a girl shouldn’t be allowed to play basketball! Julie decides that she will play, once again proving that the best way to get Julie to do anything is to make it all about Julie.
This is one of those episodes that probably would have worked much better with the “old” cast. I imagine if this episode had aired during the previous season, Danny would have been the one arguing that the team should play and that would have been totally in character for him. Turning Michael into a social crusader with a conscience goes against everything that we’ve learned about Michael up until this point. As well, we still don’t know any of the new players so it’s a bit hard to know how to react to their feelings about playing against someone who is HIV positive. Are they prejudiced or are they just worried? Are they homophobic or are they just uneducated about how HIV is transmitted? And, finally, it’s hard not to notice that Dick Butkus has a bit less gravitas than Reggie Theus when it comes to discussing whether or not HIV can be transmitted through playing basketball. This episode came across as being well-intentioned but heavy-handed.
The B-plot features Mary Beth encouraging Kristy to write an angry letter to the art teacher who gave her a C on an assignment. As played by Amber Baretto, Kristy put so much joy into writing her letter that it was fun to watch. I laughed
Episode 4.4 “Lend A Helping Hammer”
(Dir by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on September 19th, 1998)
Nick Hammer gets his first storyline as a member of the Tornadoes! When he falls for Taylor, the new waitress at the Stadium, he’s shocked to discover that she and her family live at a homeless shelter. On Saved By The Bell, when Zack liked a girl who was without a home, he arranged for her and her father to live at his house. (And, much like the tenants of H.H. Holmes, they were never seen, heard from, or mentioned again….) Nick, however, convinces the Coach that, instead of using the money raised at the school dance to buy new uniforms, the money should be donated to Taylor and her family. Of course, Nick also accidentally announces that Taylor is homeless to the entire school.
This was another episode that probably would have worked better with the old cast. It’s easy to imagine it as being another Danny storyline. Nick goes out of his way to help someone in need, which is nice, but we don’t really know Nick so we don’t know if his behavior is unusual or if he just does this for everyone that he meets. It was a well-intentioned episode but it did seem to suggest that the best way to deal with homelessness is to have a bunch of wealthy friends. Everyone goes out of their way to help Taylor but everyone else at the shelter just kind of gets ignored.
In the B-plot, Kristy is using a lot of slang. Julie says that it’s because Kristy recently read a book by Queen Latifah. In the C-plot, the Coach makes the team take a ballet lesson to make them more flexible. “Ballet!” I excitedly exclaimed, when the idea was first brought up. Unfortunately, the ballet scene is really short and the entire team has terrible form.
So far, Hang Time Season 4 has yet to escape the shadow of the past. Hopefully, next week will be better for the Tornadoes and their new coach.
The 1977 film, Heroes, tells the story of Jack Dunne (a young Henry Winkler).
Jack spent four years fighting in Vietnam. Since returning to America, he has struggled to adjust to civilian life. Though he’s mentally blocked out much of what happened in Vietnam, he’s haunted by nightmares, When we first meet him, he’s a patient at a mental health facility in New York City. He has big plans, though. He wants to open up a worm farm in Eureka, California. He’s convinced that he can make a ton of money selling worms to fisherman and he wants all of the old members of his unit to join him in the venture. After Jack escapes from the hospital, he boards a bus heading for California.
He also meets Carol (Sally Field), who is supposed to be getting married in four days but who has decided to board a bus and take an impromptu vacation instead. When Carol is told that the bus is already full and she’ll have to wait for the next one, Jack bribes the ticket agent to get Carol on the bus. Once on the bus, Jack makes himself into a nuisance, continually bothering the driver (Val Avery) and embarrassing Carol. (In the film’s defense, it’s later established that Jack isn’t just being a jerk for fun. The driver’s uniform makes Jack nervous. That said, it’s hard not to feel bad for the driver, who is just doing his stressful job to the best of his ability.) Carol and Jack do eventually strike a tentative friendship. They’re linked by the fact that they’re both trying to escape from something.
At a diner, Jack tells her that he served in Vietnam.
“I protested the war,” Carol says.
“I fought it,” he replies.
Carol eventually joins with Jack in his quest to track down the three people who he expects to go into business with. One of them is missing. One of them never returned home from the war. And the third, Ken (Harrison Ford), is living in a trailer and raising rabbits for a living. Ken is also a stock car racer, though he eventually admits that he rarely wins. In fact, he seems to spend most of his time drinking and shooting off the M16 that he keeps in his car’s trunk. Meeting Ken sends Jack spiraling into depression but, with Carol’s help, Jack is finally starts to come to terms with the reality of what happened to him and his friends in Vietnam.
Heroes was one of the first films to sympathetically portray the plight of Vietnam veterans struggling to adjust to life back in the United States and it certainly deserves a lot of credit for its good intentions. (Indeed, it’s implied that a part of Carol’s concern from Jack comes from her own guilt over how the anti-war movement treated the returning soldiers.) That said, the film itself is an awkward mix of drama and comedy. The first half of the film, in which Henry Winkler comes across like he’s doing a manic Al Pacino impersonation, is especially uneven. Winkler and Field are both naturally likable enough that the film remains watchable but, during the first half of the film, most viewers will never buy their relationship for a second. It’s hard to believe that the driver wouldn’t have kicked Jack off the bus as soon as he started to cause trouble and the other passengers often seem to be unrealistically charmed by Jack’s behavior. If I’m on a crowded bus and some dude insists on walking up and down the aisle and taunting the driver, I’m probably going to get off at the first stop and refuse to get back on. Traveling with a bunch of strangers is already nerve-wracking enough without having to deal with all of that.
Not surprisingly, things improve once Harrison Ford shows up. This was one of Ford’s last character parts before he was cast as Han Solo in Star Wars. (Heroes, however, was released after Star Wars, which explains why Ford is mentioned prominently in the trailer despite having a relatively small role.) Ford gives a strong performance as the amiable but ultimately self-destructive Ken. Ford plays Ken as someone whose quick smile is a cover for the fact that his entire life is a mess. Whereas Jack wears his emotions on his sleeve (and Winkler never stops projecting those emotions), Ken is someone who has repressed his anger and his sadness and Ford gives an internalized and controlled performance. Perhaps not coincidentally, Winkler calms down a bit when he’s acting opposite Ford and, as a result, his own performance starts to improve.
After the meeting with Ken, Jack starts to realize that it’s not going to be as easy to start his business as he thought. Jack starts to come down from his manic high and, even more importantly, Henry Winkler stops overacting and instead, starts to dig into the sadness at the heart of Jack’s life. During its second half, the film finally settles on being a drama and Heroes becomes a much stronger story as a result. Even Jack and Carol’s relationship seems to make more sense during the second half of the film. Things end on a note of cautious optimism, which also acknowledging that life can never go back to what it was before the war.
Today, if anyone watches Heroes, it’s probably going to be for Harrison Ford. (I imagine the presence of Harrison Ford is the reason why it’s currently available on Netflix.) It’s a bit of an uneven film, one that feels as if it should have been stronger than it actually was. Still, it’s a worthwhile time capsule of 1977 and America’s struggle to come to terms with the Vietnam War. Today, we’re still struggling to come to terms with what happened in Iraq and with the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and, again, it seems like the country is too busy trying to move on to take the time to take care of its veterans. It’s sad that so many people only seem to care about the soldiers who fight in popular wars. Heroes was a plea to America not to forget its veterans. It’s a plea that still needs to be heard.
The next time someone tells you that music was generic and predictable in the early aughts …. well, don’t try to refute their case with Atomic Kitten.
This video was shot in front of a greenscreen. There’s no plot but there is a lot of dancing and personally, I think that’s a good thing. Back in 2003, there was really no need to pretend that the song and the video were meant to do anything other than sell the group and score a spot on the soundtrack of the next Lizzie McGuire movie.
Personally, I like Atomic Kitten because of their name.
Enjoy!
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 the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1972’s The Weekend Nun! It can be viewed on YouTube!
By day, Marjorie Walker (Joanna Pettet) is a probation officer who, some might say, cares just a little too much.
By night and on the weekends, she’s Sister Mary Damian, a nun who has taken the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Mother Bonaventure (Ann Sothern) isn’t sure that she’s happy about Sister Damian working as a probation officer. And the tough and cynical Detective Chuck Jardine (Vic Morrow) certainly isn’t happy when he discovers that the reason why Marjorie has never invited him into her home for a drink is because she lives at a convent. But Marjorie is determined to make a difference, especially in the life of a troubled teen runaway named Audree (Kay Lenz).
Now, this may sound like the premise of a socially relevant sitcom and, indeed, The Weekend Nun is one of those titles that might lead some to expect wacky hijinks and an intrusive laugh track. However, The Weekend Nun is not only loosely based on a true story but the film also takes itself very seriously. From the minute that Sister Damian agrees to take part in a program that would allow her to work a real job during the day while returning to the convent at night, she’s exposed to the harsh realities of the world. She goes from being sheltered to dealing with distraught parents, drug addicts, teen prostitutes, and violent criminals. Because Captain Richardson (James Gregory) doesn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable, he hides the fact that she’s a nun. Of course, this leads to be people like Chuck Jardine wondering why Marjorie is so shocked when she witnesses the thing that he has to deal with a day-to-day basis.
And, indeed, the film’s biggest flaw is that Marjorie is often portrayed as being ridiculously naïve. The film acts as if spending time in a convent is somehow the equivalent of spending a decade hiding out in a bomb shelter or something. (Speaking as a Catholic school survivor, nuns are usually some of the least naïve people around.) Marjorie is portrayed as being such a wide-eyed innocent that it’s hard not to wonder why she was hired to work as a probation officer in the first place. Of course, Marjorie quickly gets an education on just how dangerous and unforgiving life on the streets can be and she soon has to make a choice between being a nun or being a probation officer. Will she give her life to God or will she potentially give it to Vic Morrow?
Joanna Pettet overplays Marjorie’s innocence but that’s more the fault of the script than anything else. James Gregory, Vic Morrow, and Ann Sothern are all believable as the authority figures in Marjorie’s life and Kay Lenz has a few good scenes as the teenage runaway who Marjorie tries to save. Beverly Garland has a small but brief role as Lenz’s horrifically unconcerned mother. It’s a well-acted film, regardless of any other flaws.
The Weekend Nun is not perfect but it’s still preferable to The Flying Nun. It’s a sincerely heartfelt film, one that’s earnest in a way that can seem a bit quaint but which is still likable when watched today. For better or worse, there’s not a hint of snark to be found.
Today’s music video of the day is both wholesome and rebellious. It’s wholesome because it’s a Jessica Simpson video. It’s rebellious because it’s Jessica finally calling the shots over her own life.
Take that, Nick Lachey!
Seriously, this feels like a nice revenge video. It came out two years after Jessica and Nick divorced and it finds Jessica back on the ranch and waiting for a better lover and, even more importantly, doing it all on her own terms. This is the type of video that Jessica’s management never would have allowed to happen in the days before she married Nick. As such, this is not just a video about inviting over your lover. This is a video growing up, maturing, and embracing what makes you happy.
Enjoy!
The 2013 film, This Is Our Time, opens with a college graduation and a voice-over from Ethan (Shawn Culin-Young), who explains that everyone goes through four stages when they go to college. The first stage is being excited about getting away from home and being on you own. The second and third stages are about settling down, choosing your major, and maybe meeting the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life. The fourth stage is all about looking forward to graduation and finally getting to enter the real world.
This Is Our Time follows the story of five friends as they discover what comes after the fourth stage. For two of them, it’s making a living as corporate workers and being pressured to behave unethically. For two others, it’s marriage and a new life working as missionaries in India, ministering to the needs of leprosy sufferers and their children. For Ethan, it means giving up his dream of being a writer and working as a waiter at his father’s bar. But, as Ethan warns us in his narration, one of the five is not going to be alive in a year. The movie follows the friends as they deal with death and try to learn how to live.
Some of the acting is a bit stiff and the attempt to capture the feel of corporate America feels rather comical. (Erik Estrada glowers his way through the role of a dishonest executive.) But, at the same time, the film does end with a message from the founder of Embrace a Village, which actually does provide support for people dealing with Leprosy and the guy is so sincere that it kind of makes you feel guilty for all the snarky thoughts that you had while watching the movie. Whatever else you might want to say about the film, the intentions are good and there’s something to be said for that.
Add to that, Eric Roberts is in the film. Roberts plays Ethan’s father and he brings a lot of genuine emotion to the role. The scene where he breaks down behind the bar in response to having gotten some bad news is well-done. Roberts is kind of famous for accepting almost any role that’s offered to him and he’s said that he hasn’t actually watched the majority of the films in which he’s appeared. Who knows if Roberts actually watched this film but, regardless, his performance was definitely the highlight.
Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:
Abbott Elementary (Wednesday Night, ABC)
Eh. This has been a strong season, with the exception of all the nonsense about the charter schools. Unfortunately, this week’s episode was all about trying to keep Abbott from turning into a charter school and it was a rare heavy-handed misfire for what it is usually one of the smartest shows on television. Ava still made me laugh, though.
Accused (Tuesday Night, FOX)
This week’s episode of Accused was a misfire. It tried to deal with both gun control and misinformation and, in both cases, it just came across as being histrionic. It was like the Reefer Madness of 21st Century anthology shows.
The Bachelor (Monday and Tuesday, ABC)
The thing with this season is that it’s impossible to get excited about Zach and it’s difficult to take anyone seriously when they say that they were falling in love with Zach. Monday featured the hometown visits and a “shocking” departure. (Don’t worry, Charity avoided marrying Zach and she gets to be the new bachelorette). Tuesday featured the Women Tell All, which started out as interesting with lots of petty drama but then all the action stopped so Greer could go through a televised struggle session about her old social media posts. Jesse Palmer announced that the Bachelor franchise will no longer shy away from addressing the actions of its contestants and I rolled my eyes so dramatically that I’m surprised I’m still able to see straight. It’s one thing to address actions. It’s another thing to spend half an hour patting yourself on the back for doing it, especially when it was obvious that both Jesse and Greer were just reciting what they had been told to say.
The Brady Bunch Hour (YouTube)
I finished the series this week. Yay! Seriously, it was kind of fun to experience something as strange as The Brady Bunch Hour but I think if it had lasted longer than nine episodes, I wouldn’t have made it. That final hour nearly broke me.
Farmer Wants A Wife (Wednesday Night, FOX)
After suffering through The Bachelor, this show provided a nice and simple relief. Life on the farm isn’t easy but at least all the farmers are interesting and everyone gets to wear cute country outfits!
Jail (Tuesday Afternoon, Reelz)
This was a Cops-style show that aired in early 2010s. As the title suggests, a camera crew filmed the events in a county jail. Sometimes, they were in Fort Worth. Sometimes, they were in Las Vegas. Whenever they went to Las Vegas, there was one annoying intake officer who always ended up getting attacked by an inmate. Were the inmates attacking because they were violent criminals or because they were on camera? My personal theory is that the intake officer, with his sandy hair and his glasses and his air of unearned authority, was kind of a jerk who just brought out the worst in people.
Anyway, I watched two episodes on Tuesday. A lot of drunks were brought in for the night. Most of the guards were not particularly bright, which made it a bit awkward whenever they tried to get philosophical about why people commit crimes. “I guess until they get tired of us arresting them, we’re going to keep getting called out there.” Okay, whatever you say, dude.
Night Court (Tuesday Night, NBC)
You know, I still like Melissa Rauch but I have to say that, as of this latest episode, I think Abbi is now officially the most annoying character on television. Her fiancé, Rand, came to New York to help her train for a marathon. Rand himself was a pretty annoying character but Abi was a hundred times worse for putting up with him and forcing him on her co-workers.
Night Flight (Night Flight Plus)
On Friday, I watched an episode about the 1984 Oscars. A lot of good songs were nominated that year.
The Oscars (Sunday Night, ABC)
I wrote about the 2022 Oscars here!
The Scott & Gary Show (Night Flight Plus)
This was a public access show from the 80s. Night Flight Plus has episodes of it and several other old public access shows. I watched one episode on Saturday morning. Gibby Haynes stopped by the set and talked about how he used to be an accountant.
Survivor (Wednesday Night, CBS)
I wrote about Survivor at the Reality TV Chat Blog.
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 California Dreams, which ran on NBC from 1992 to 1996. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
This week, California Dreams is Saved By The Bell!
Episode 4.9 “Operation Tony”
(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 18th, 1995)
Tony needs to have shoulder surgery and he’s so worried about dying that he not only practices laying very still but he also requires Sam to practice mourning. The night before the operation, he has a dream where he sees his own funeral and, upon waking up, he tries to sneak out of the hospital and …. wait a minute. This seems familiar. The exact same thing happened to Zack Morris on Saved By The Bell!
Yes, this episode is pretty much a remake of Operation Zach. The California Dreams version works a bit better than the SBTB version because Tony is a more sympathetic figure than Zach Morris and, unlike Zach, Tony didn’t have the power to stop time whenever he felt like it so Tony has no way to magically put off the operation. Plus, this episode has a B-plot where Lorena volunteers as a candy striper in an attempt to catch the attention of a handsome doctor. Unfortunately, the doctor explains that he doesn’t date people with whom he works. (I would hope that he also doesn’t date teenagers.) It was a predictable storyline but I still always like episodes that focus, even if just partially, on Lorena because Lorena is who I was always relate to whenever I watch this show.
Anyway, this was a good episode, even it was a familiar one. Let’s move on.
Episode 4.10 “Community Service”
(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 25th, 1995)
In this episode, the members of the California Dreams do community service!
Now, I know that I always complain whenever this happens on City Guys but that’s because City Guys usually features Ms. Noble ordering her students to do stuff during their free time. On California Dreams, everyone actually volunteered of their own free will. It is true that Tiffani guilted them into volunteering but still, there’s a big difference between Tiffani looking sad and Ms. Noble telling all of her students what they’re going to give up their weekend just because she says so.
Sam volunteers for the blood drive. Jake volunteers for Meals on Wheels and eats all the food himself. (In 1995, this was played for laughs. You can only imagine how it would be portrayed today.) Mark helps to clean the beach and ends up smelling like a toxic waste dump. Lorena gives some things to the Goodwill. And Tiffani and Sly end up working at the Teen Help Line. Tiffani tries to sincerely help people while Sly orders pizza and hits on all the female counselors.
Uh-oh! The school is cutting its budget and the Teen Line is going to be closed down! Sly comes up with an idea! Maybe the Dreams can play a benefit concert. I mean, it worked on Saved By The Bell …. TWICE! Sly organizes the concert and basks in everyone’s attention, even though Tiffani is upset that Sly is doing the right thing for the wrong reason. (Calm down, Tiffani.) Fortunately, during the concert, a teen calls in and says he wants to run away from home. Because Sly is the only person in the office, he’s forced to help the caller and he discovers that joy of doing the right thing for the right reasons! Yay! Of course, I imagine this lesson will be forgotten by the next episode. We’ll find out next week!
As a general rule, the best episodes of California Dreams are the ones in which Sly is let loose to be his sleazy but ultimately good-hearted self. Though the story was familiar, Michael Cade did a good job playing the two sides of Sly. Plus, the Dreams performed that “To the End” song, which has a really rocking guitar solo.
Next week, Tiffani tries to heal the bay! Hopefully, she’ll have better luck at it than Mark did during this episode.
Once upon a time, Casey Rhodes (Beau Mirchoff) was a football star. He was a quarterback. Everyone expected great things from him. He was going to be the next Tom Brady. But then a knee injury took him out of the game and a subsequent drug addiction took him out of mainstream society. Now, Casey makes his living pulling off robberies. He may be a criminal but he’s not a bad-hearted one. He may carry a gun but he tries not to shoot anyone who doesn’t shoot at him first. Working with him are a former baseball player named Mike (Trevor Getzky) and Nikki (Keeya King), who is the smartest member of the crew.
Despite Casey’s attempts to do his job with as little violence as possible, a gunfight does break out during one robbery in Los Angeles. When Detectives James Knight (Bruce Willis) and his partner, Eric Fitzgerald (Lochlyn Munro), interrupt the robbery, Fitzgerald ends up getting shot multiple times as Casey and his crew make their escape. With Fitzgerald in the hospital, Knight decides to follow the crew to New York and take out both them and their boss, a former Internal Affairs officer named Winna (Michael Eklund). It turns out that there’s a history between Knight and Winna. Knight wants his revenge on Winna but, at the same time, Winna knows some dark secrets from Knight’s past.
Though it works as a stand-alone film, 2022’s Detective Knight: Rogue is actually the first part of a trilogy that follows the adventures of Detective Knight. (Detective Knight: Redemption was released at the end of 2022 while Detective Knight: Independence came out last month.) The Detective Knight films were among the last of the movies in which Bruce Willis appeared before announcing his retirement. It can be strange to watch Willis’s final films, knowing what we know about what he was going through at the time that he made them. Though he’s definitely the star of the film, Willis is used sparingly in Detective Knight: Rogue and there’s little of the cocky attitude that we tend to associate with Willis’s best roles. Instead, he’s a grim avenger, determined to get justice for both his partner and himself. Willis is convincing in the role, even if the film is edited in such a way that the viewer gets the feeling that a stand-in may have been used for some of the long-shots involving Detective Knight. That said, Willis still looks convincing carrying a badge and a gun and it’s nice to see a Willis film where he’s again playing a hero instead of a villain.
As the football player-turned-thief, Beau Mirchoff gets more screentime than Willis but, fortunately, Casey is an interesting character and Mirchoff gives a strong performance as a criminal who would rather be a family man and who is desperately looking for a way to make up for the mistakes of his past. Towards the end of the film, he does a flawless job delivering a surprisingly well-written monologue about how he went from being a football star to being a common thief. Mirchoff’s strong performance adds a good deal of ambiguity to the film. The criminals aren’t necessarily that bad at heart and, as we learn, the good guys haven’t always been angels in the past. Detective Knight: Rogue becomes more than just another low-budget thriller. It becomes a meditation of regret and redemption.
Detective Knight: Rogue took me by surprise. As directed by Edward Drake (who was also responsible for another effective late Bruce Willis starrer, Gasoline Alley), it’s an intelligent thriller and it’s one that pays tribute to Bruce Willis as an action icon. It’s proof that a good story can sometimes be found where you least expect it.
Through the Shattered Lens 