Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.22 “Rumpelstiltskin”

Posted on September 30, 2025 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network! It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, the second season ends.

Episode 2.22 “Rumpelstiltskin”

(Dir by John B. Moranville, originally aired on April 20th, 1997)

Rumpelstiltskin. That’s the nickname that FBI agent Tim Stone (David Lee Smith) has given to expert counterfeiter Laszlo Parkes (Josh Richman). Laszlo and his three associates — Sheila (Heidi Lenhart, who was Jenny Garrison on California Dreams), Lana (Diana Barrington), and Bree (Jennifer Sky) — are passing the fake money all around Santa Monica. Laszlo is planning on scoring a big drug deal. Meanwhile, Bree and her boyfriend (Tim Griffin) are planning on taking out Laszlo.

Agent Stone requests that Cory and Chris be assigned to work with him. It soon become apparent that Stone has more in mind than just work. Chris likes Stone but Stone like Cory. When Chris find out that Stone and Cory slept together, she throws a fit. I’ve noticed that Chris really only has to modes on Pacific Blue. Either she’s disturbingly robotic and unconcerned with civil liberties or she’s getting mad about something and threatening to go all-Fatal Attraction on somebody. I’ve also noticed that the show’s writers are incapable of imagining Chris or Cory in a situation where they don’t end up falling for whoever they’re working with.

The funniest part of this episode was when word came in of a shoot-out so all the cops jumped on their bicycles and rode over to the scene. Seriously, a guy was taking fire and instead of jumping in a car and speeding over there, everyone decided to ride their bicycles. Somehow, the bike cops were able to take down the mob and also arrest Laszlo. I always wonder how they get people to the jail after they arrest them. Do they chain them to the bicycle or something?

After the shoot out, Tim and Cory enjoyed a romantic sunset and Tim promised that he would return soon.

And so ended the second season!

Wow, the second season sucked. Here we are, about to start season 3, and I’m still struggling to tell everyone apart. Chris and Cory still don’t have a personality. Everyone still looks silly on their bicycles. This show grows more pointless with each episode.

Next week …. we’ll start season 3!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.21 “The Last Ride”

Posted on September 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, wild things are happening in Malibu.

Episode 2.21 “The Last Ride”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on April 13th, 1997)

Mahmoud (Shaun Toub) has promised everyone that he will be going straight as soon as he completes his community service. However, we all know better than to trust Mahmoud! It turns out that he’s gotten involved in an elaborate con job to sell Malibu Pier to some naive investors. Oh, that Mahmoud!

What was that? What did you ask? Oh, who is Mahmoud?

I asked that exact same question when I watched this episode. I had no idea who Mahmoud was or why exactly he was at the center of an episode of a show about bicycle cops. Chris and Cory did show up occasionally to harass him but, still, it really did seem like Mahmoud belonged on a different show. After this episode ended, I did a search of my previous reviews and discovered that Mahmoud actually has appeared on the show before. As a vendor on the beach, he sold Chris a necklace that made her neck turn green. But that was about eight episodes ago and it was a rather minor subplot, all things considered.

As for Mahmoud in this episode, he was annoying. His dialogue was overwritten, his story felt cartoonish, and Shaun Taub’s overacting didn’t help things. Still, it’s interesting to think that the regular characters were so boring that the show’s writers decided they would rather do a show about a minor supporting character than actually try to come up with anything for Chris and Cory to do.

The episode’s other subplot actually does feature the bicycle cops. Victor’s childhood friend has been released from prison and is now the head of a violent car theft ring. Victor is forced to deal with his own guilt over being a juvenile delinquent as he and TC try to take down the car thieves. This was pretty standard stuff but it did feature one scene that was just stupid enough to be entertaining. With the car thieves opening fire on them, Victor and TC ride their bikes straight toward the thieves. Eventually they both stand up on their still-moving bikes and, leaning forward against the handle bars, they start shooting their guns back at the bad guys. Somehow, they’re able to do this and aim well-enough to take out the car thieves while also keeping their bikes rolling forward. (TC does get shot but it turns out the bullet only grazed his forehead. “He’ll just have a headache for a while,” Chris says. Yeah, I would think so.) This is one of those moments that would have been really badass if not for the fact that Victor and TC were still wearing their dorky bike cop uniforms during it. The blue shorts, the white polo shirts, the bicycle helmets — sorry, you just can’t look cool when you’re wearing all that. Nice try, guys!

Next week, season 2 ends!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.20 “Bad Company”

Posted on September 16, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Palermo is the peace maker. *snicker*

Episode 2.20 “Bad Company”

(Dir by Corey Michael Eubanks, originally aired on April 6th, 1997)

In Santa Monica, there are two gangs.

One gang is group of white bikers. The other gang is a group of black men who spend all of their time playing basketball. The two groups hate each other but they all respect Lt. Palermo. Palermo previously brokered a peace between the two group. However, the peace is now threatened because someone has been tagging up both gang’s territories. The two gangs are about to go to war, despite Palermo riding his bicycle all over town….

*snicker*

I’m sorry, I can’t help but laugh. Listen, I know that gangs and gang culture are no laughing matter. But this episode features angry gang meetings that are broken up by Palermo riding up on his bicycle and talking tough to everyone. Palermo looks ridiculous with his shorts and his polo shirt and his Schwinn bicycle. “Palermo’s the peace maker!” What’s Palermo going to do if someone breaks the peace? Chase him on his bicycle?

It turns out that a gun dealer (Daniel Quinn) is trying to kickstart his business by starting a gang war. He’s not very good at his job because the gangs soon team up with the — *snicker* — bike patrol to him down.

Meanwhile, when Victor’s friend is killed after an underground fighting match by an associate of the gun dealer’s, Victor goes undercover to catch him. Elvis (David Lander), the bike engineer who used to be a member of the regular cast, witnessed the murder and he finds himself being pursued by the gun dealer. Don’t worry, Elvis! The bike patrol is looking out for you! Mixing the broad humor of David Lander’s performance as Elvis with a storyline about how gangs are destroying communities and getting innocent people killed was a decision that really didn’t pay off. “Increase the peace and now laugh at this guy with an exaggerated accent.”

This episode was a pretty good example of why Pacific Blue’s main weakness was always its premise. This episode featured a lot of scenes of the members of the bike patrol looking serious and barking out orders. It’s hard to be intimidated by someone wearing shorts and riding a bicycle.

The title of this episode is Bad Company. In the end, the truly bad company rode a Schwinn.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.19 “Lost and Found”

Posted on September 9, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the bike cops screw up another case.

Episode 2.19 “Lost and Found”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on March 2nd, 1997)

I’ve often felt that the most interesting thing about Pacific Blue is witnessing just how totally incompetent the bicycle cops really are.

This episode centers around a girl who has run away from home. Chris and Palermo are holding her at the station and they release her to the first guy who shows up claiming to be her father. They don’t bother to ask the man for any sort of proof that he’s her father. They don’t even ask to see his ID. Instead, they just let her go with him.

Guess what? That guy wasn’t her father!

Her actual father shows up a little while later and, needless to say, he’s pretty pissed off. Instead of apologizing or in any way accepting accountability for screwing up, Palermo and Chris snap at the guy to calm down and then say that they’ll track down his daughter. What’s funny is that we’re supposed to be on the side of the bicycle cops because the father is angry and yelling. Well, the father has every right to be angry and yelling. THE IDIOTS LET HIS RUNAWAY DAUGHTER LEAVE WITH THE FIRST GUY WHO SHOWED UP!

Now, the show later reveals that the father was abusive and that his daughter ran way because he was beating her. Yeah, he’s not a good father and he should lost custody of his daughter. That doesn’t make the bicycle cops any less incompetent, though! It just amuses that this show continually tries to convince us that we should take these people seriously as cops but every episode seems to feature them making some sort of terrible mistake. This show really seems to think that, as long as Chris is shooting people the death glare, that means she’s not responsible for any of her screwups.

This episode also featured a subplot in which Cory tried to protect her no-good brother from some hitmen. She did a better job with her storyline than Chris and Palermo did with the case of the runaway. Maybe Cory should be in charge.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.18 “Full Moon”

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it all about bicycles and sex.

Episode 2.18 “Full Moon”

(Dir by Scott Lautanen, originally aired on February 23rd, 1997)

This week, Pacific Blue gives us the erotically-charged story of two people with no personality falling for each other. Don’t worry, though. Even though Chris and TC both put in for transfers so that they won’t violate Palermo’s “No Doing It On The Job” policy, they eventually realize that they’re not actually in love. After TC kisses Chris and they prepare to move into the bedroom, Chris suddenly says that she can tell that TC feels like he’s “about to have sex with your sister,” and TC nods, as if that’s a feeling that he’s extremely familiar with.

TC and Chris fall for each other while investigating a series of ATM robberies. The two robbers (Robert Kerbeck and Felicity Waterman) were at least convincingly sleazy. Cory kills one of the robbers. How humiliating it must be to be killed by someone who rides a bicycle for a living!

Meanwhile, Palermo was shocked to discover his name was in a madame’s little black book. Palermo, you hypocrite! Put that man in jail! But then it turned out that madame (played by Charlie Spradling) just put random names in the book so that she could use it for blackmail. That was pretty clever of her. Still, I find it hard to believe that anyone, outside of the bike patrol, would have had the slightest idea who Palermo was.

This was another episode that failed because not only are the characters not interesting but they’re all pretty much indistinguishable. Chris and Cory at least have differing hair colors. But, from a distance, Palermo, TC, and Victor all might as well all be the same guy. If you told me that this episode was actually about Palermo falling in love with Chris, I’d have to believe you because Palermo and TC are pretty much impossible to tell apart. Human drama only works when the characters are recognizably human.

Agck! That’s mean! Oh well, it’s late….

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.17 “Runaway”

Posted on August 26, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s time for more bicycle action.

Episode 2.17 “Runaway”

(Dir by Charles Siebert, originally aired on January 19th, 1997)

A teenage girl (Boti Bliss) is missing on the boardwalk. Maggie Garrity (Justina Vail), who runs the local shelter, is looking for her. When she asks the bike patrol for help, TC is dismissive up until he looks up from his paperwork and sees Maggie. I’ve noticed that this is a patten with the bike patrol. It’s rare that they do anything until they see it will involve hanging out with an attractive members of the opposite sex.

TC recruits Chris to help him put up flyers. Chris rolls her eyes because, seriously, why should a member of law enforcement be concerned with a teenage girl who has been abducted by a pimp (Gene Lythgow) and his psycho girlfriend (Ami Dolenz)? Personally, I would dread working for Chris because she never stops complaining. It says a lot about this show that the we’re nearly done with the second season and Chris still doesn’t have a personality beyond being whiny.

TC falls for Maggie but Maggie’s a nun! After they manage to rescue the missing girl, TC asks Maggie if maybe she could stop being a nun for a new nights so that they could go out on a date. Maggie says that it doesn’t work like that. What I find interesting is that TC has no problem casually asking Maggie to give up her vows just because he wants to date her. Hey, TC — this is why you’re single!

Meanwhile, Palermo has new expensive bicycle. What a dork. When the bike gets stolen, Victor has to find it. Palermo sure is mad about his missing bike. What a loser.

This show is not growing on me.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.15 “Black Pearl”

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the bicycle mayhem continues.

Episode 2.15 “Black Pearl”

(Dir by Terence H. Winkless, originally aired on January 5th, 1997)

TC arrests a woman named Alana (Angela Shelton) on drug and assault charges, just to discover that she’s an undercover DEA agent. TC fears that Alana is in over her head and he tells Alana’s superior, Enright (John Michael Bolger) that he needs to pull her out of the operation. Enright is like, “Whatever, bicycle boy.”

And, to be honest, I think Enright kind of has a point. Why are the bicycle cops always trying to tell other law enforcement agencies what to do? Every episode, either TC or Palermo and Chris gets a really angry look in their eyes and starts barking out orders at people they barely know. It’s bad enough that they ride bicycles. Do they have to act like a bunch of self-righteous pricks as well?

Speaking of bicycles, Victor has to get recertified to be a bike cop. Uh-oh, sounds like Victor could lose his job! Even worse, Victor’s partner in this episode is Chris so not only is Victor in danger of getting fired but he has to spend an entire week listening to Chris put him down. Seriously, there are few characters in the history of television that I dislike as much as I dislike Chris Kelly. Chris is the type who dismisses everyone’s problems before then launching into her hundredth monologue about how much it sucks going from being an Air Force pilot to a bike cop.

Victor trains with Hans Rhey. In this episode, everyone is like, “Oh my God, Hans Rey!” I had no idea who Hans Rey was. I looked him up after this episode and apparently, he was a superstar on the bicycle circuit. Hans does a lot of clunky bike tricks As was so often the case withe professional athletes who played themselves on shows like this, he wasn’t much of an actor. If anything, this episode reminded me of how stupid most people look riding their bicycles in the middle of the street.

Victor gets recertified. Alana ends up dead. Presumably, TC’s upset but since the actor playing him was only capable of one fascial expression, it can be hard to tell. In the end, the real tragedy remains how dorky everyone looks on the bicycles.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.14 “One Kiss Goodnight”

Posted on August 5, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Cory helps a man who can’t remember how lame this show is.

Episode 2.14 “One Kiss Goodnight”

(Dir by Sara Rose, originally aired on December 15th, 1996)

Alec Cooper (Markus Flanagan) gets amnesia after he falls off the balcony of his hotel room while trying to escape some mysterious men with guns. Cory tries to help Alec figure out who he actually is and she starts to fall in love with him in the process. Alec admits that there seems to be something familiar about Cory.

Well, that means there are only two possibilities.

Cory and Alec are either meant to be together

Alec is married to someone who looks just like Cory!

It turns out the latter is true. Alec eventually get his memory back and Cory meets his wife, who indeed looks a lot like her. Cory goes back to being single. Interestingly, Chris spends this entire episode telling Cory that she needs to date more but she doesn’t approve of Cory dating someone who has amnesia. Then again, Chris doesn’t really approve of anyone doing anything.

Meanwhile, TC’s girlfriend makes the decision to leave Santa Monica so that she can attend a graduate program and become a counselor for rape victims. This is the sort of storyline that would have been touching if TC has any personality or if he and his girlfriend had any sort of chemistry. But they don’t.

It probably sound like I hated this episode. Actually, I think it’s one of the better episodes of season 2, if just because the bike riding was kept to a minimum. The bikes would have made this awful. Without all of the bike nonsense, it was merely forgettable. That’s progress!

The Unnominated #19: The Terminator (dir by James Cameron)

Posted on July 30, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences claim that the Oscars honor the best of the year, we all know that there are always worthy films and performances that end up getting overlooked. Sometimes, it’s because the competition too fierce. Sometimes, it’s because the film itself was too controversial. Often, it’s just a case of a film’s quality not being fully recognized until years after its initial released. This series of reviews takes a look at the films and performances that should have been nominated but were, for whatever reason, overlooked. These are the Unnominated.

First released in 1984, The Terminator was the one of the top box office hits of the year. It’s the film that established James Cameron as a filmmaker. It’s the film that made a bona-fide star out of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s a film that was imitated a thousand times before it even got its first official sequel. It’s a film that’s still celebrated today. 41 years later, people are still saying, “I’ll be back.” Would Arnold Schwarzenegger ever have become governor of California if he hadn’t first played a killing machine? There’s a reason why his political nickname was the Governator.

And yet, The Terminator was not nominated for a single Oscar. For all of the explosions and the gunfire and the screaming, it wasn’t even nominated for Best Sound. Some of the special effects may now seem a bit hokey in this age of rampant CGI but it’s still a surprise that The Terminator was not nominated for Best Visual Effects. The breath-taking action scenes did not result in a nomination for Best Editing. Linda Hamilton was not nominated for her fantastic performance as Sarah Connor, a young woman who finds herself being pursued by a killer cyborg from the future. Arnold Schwarzenegger was not nominated for playing one of the most memorable villains of the past 40 years. Those who claim that Schwarzenegger was just playing himself are being overly glib. Anyone could have said, “I’ll be back.” It took Schwarzenegger’s delivery to make it a great line.

The lack of nominations aren’t really not a surprise, of course. The Academy has only recently started to show an openness to nominating genre films for major awards and, even now, a genre film has to be considered a “cultural event” to even get a nomination. Black Panther, Get Out, and even Mad Max: Fury Road and Dune were all nominated because it was felt that they had transcended their genre origins. The Terminator is a sci-fi action movie and it’s proud to be a sci-fi action movie. (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, it could be argued, transcended its genre origins but it was released in 1991 and Silence of the Lambs was destined to be the genre nominee that year.) It’s also so relentlessly paced and intelligently written and directed that it’s a film that, even after all these years, it can still leave you breathless. Nominated or not, The Terminator is a film that grabs your attention and holds it for a full 107 minutes. There’s not many films that can make that claim.

The Terminator is a film that has held up surprisingly well. (It’s certainly held up better than some of its more recent sequels.) The performances of Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger still work. It’s still terrifying to watch as The Terminator relentlessly kills everyone that he comes into contact with. (One thing that always gets me about the Terminator is that, even though he’s huge and superstrong and could probably physically rip anyone he wanted to apart, he still carries and uses a gun. This makes him seem like even more of a bully.) The Terminator is a machine and what makes him especially intimidating is that he doesn’t care if people see him coming or if they witness his crimes. He has one function and that’s all he worries about. When Michael Biehn first shows up, you can’t help but wonder why this guy, with his slight build and his somewhat nervous mannerisms, would be sent to try to stop the Terminator. Of course, by the end of the movie, you understand.

(And what an ending! The sight of those clouds, Linda Hamilton’s delivery of her final line, and the feeling that the future has already been determined, it all definitely makes an impression that has managed to survive every sequel after Judgment Day. There’s a reason why Skynet — much like “I’ll be back” — has taken on a cultural life of its own.)

There were a lot of very good films that were nominated for Oscars in 1984. The Terminator, much like Once Upon A Time In America, was not one of them but it will still never be forgotten.

Previous Entries In The Unnominated:

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.13 “Outlaw Blues”

Posted on July 29, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, there’s way too much happening on the Boardwalk.

Episode 2.13 “Outlaw Express”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on December 8th, 1996)

Mahmoud (Shaun Toub) is selling cheap jewelry on the boardwalk. He gives Chris a “silver” necklace that makes her neck turn green. Uh-oh, someone’s allergic to tin!

Palermo’s daughter is hanging out with some extreme athletes who are pressuring her to take part in increasingly dangerous pranks on the boardwalk so that they can film them for their web site!

Two criminals are hijacking trucks and then forcing merchants to sell stolen goods! When they see that one truck driver is wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt, they shoot him in the back and then tell him, “Say hi to Jerry for me.” (I’m guessing they were referring to Jerry Garcia and not Jerry Springer but who knows with this show.)

Finally, Victor’s mother is staying at his apartment which means Victor can’t get laid!

Wow, there’s a lot to deal with this week. When a show tries to juggle this many plots, it really does remind you of the importance of having clearly defined and compelling characters. Pacific Blue doesn’t have any of that so this episode kind of sucked. We are 24 episodes into this stupid show and I still can’t tell the difference between Victor, TC, and Palermo whenever they’re riding their bikes. That’s a problem. 24 episodes in and Chris still doesn’t have a personality beyond being annoyed by everyone she talks to. That’s another problem.

(“I didn’t catch your first name Officer Kelly,” Mahmoud says. “Officer,” Chris replies, deploying the power glare.)

Seriously, just think about how much it would suck to be a victim of the crime, call 911, and then have these douchebags show up.