Rino Romano | Through the Shattered Lens

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 Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999. Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Yes, this is from the first season. I don’t care. I refuse to waste my time looking for a second season advertisement.

Jason humiliates himself again.

Episode 2.12 “Jason’s Deal”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on January 22nd, 1990)

I guess Jason’s supposed to be a rock star now. His CD has been released and he’s given a $20,000 advance by a guy (Christian Zimmerman) from the record company. He proceeds to rent out an apartment of his own and spends a ton of money decorating it. Will success spoil Jason Collins!?

Actually, failure spoils Jason Collins. His CD only sells 70 copies and he’s dropped by the label. He has to move back home. Scott, Murray, and Alex are all angry because of the way he treated them when he thought he was a star. He even lied so that he throw an industry party rather than hang out with his brother and their dorky friends. Of course, the party was attended by Jason’s record company boss so maybe some understanding is in order here. Scott, Murray, and Alex forgive him but only after reading, in the paper, that Jason has been dropped by the record company. Would an obscure, generic singer getting dropped by a record company really be front page news?

(Speaking of which, maybe Jason’s CD would have sold if he and the record company had actually done something to …. oh, I don’t know, PROMOTE IT!? Jason doesn’t go on the radio. He doesn’t go on tour. He doesn’t go on TRL. Seriously, Jason, what did you think was going to happen?)

Meanwhile, Lisa (the character, not me) acts like a total bitch because her friends is dating Traycee. Believe me, I don’t like tossing that word around (especially as an insult) but there’s really no other way to describe Lisa’s behavior. Lisa’s friend, Curtis (James Castle Stevens), really likes Traycee and Lisa’s reaction is to act like a stuck-up snob. Curtis is an environmentalist and Traycee is keeping him from saving the rain forest! Or maybe Curtis is just realizing that there’s nothing one person can do to save the rain forest and, since he’s kind of a wimpy nerdy guy, he should enjoy life while he’s still young. Either way, it’s really none of Lisa’s business.

Oh, this storyline annoyed me! It’s a little bit difficult to fairly judge anyone’s performance on Malibu CA. That said, Brandon Brooks, Priscilla Inga Taylor, and Edward Blatchford all manage to give decent performance despite the bad dialogue and dumb plotting. Trevor Merszei (who played Scott) is giving a considerably better performance during the second season than he did during the first. Meanwhile, Marquita Terry (who plays Lisa) is consistently terrible in a way that’s noticeable even by the standards of a Peter Engel-produced sitcom.

Eventually, Tracyee encourages her friend to go to the rain forest and Jason moves back home. So, Jason will not be a rock star and Scott will not be going to the Olympics. Instead, they’re destined to forever be busboys in their father’s restaurant. It couldn’t happen to a group of more deserving people.

Poor Amy Fisher!

In the 1993 made-for-TV movie, Amy Fisher: My Story, Amy Fisher (played by Noelle Parker) is an insecure teenager growing up on Long Island. She goes to high school. She has a boyfriend. She has lots of girl friends. She has a part-time job. She has a car. Everything should be perfect but it’s not. For one thing, her creepy father (played by veteran Canadian character actor Lawrence Dane) likes to come into her room while she’s trying to sleep and sit on the edge of her bed. Her mother (Kate Lynch) refuses to believe that there’s anything strange about the way her husband treats their daughter.

When Amy and her father take her car to the local auto body shop, she meets the handsome and slick Joey Buttafuoco (Ed Marinaro). Amy is polite to Joey but Joey takes one look at Amy and he smiles in a way that immediately lets us know that he’s not to be trusted. Soon, he’s going out of his way to spend time with Amy and eventually, he seduces her in the house that he shares with his wife, Mary Jo (played by Check It Out‘s Kathleen Laskey). Soon, Joey and Amy are checking into cheap motels together. Amy think that she’s in love with Joey and Joey says that he loves her (though only when he wants her to do something).

Joey eventually coerces Amy into becoming an escort, enjoying the stories of her spending time with other older men. And yet, when Amy follows his orders and gets a gym membership, Joey freaks out when she attracts the attention of a man who is close to her own age. For her part, Amy starts to wonder whether she and Joey will ever truly be together. Joey insinuates that his wife would have to die before he could even think of marrying Amy Fisher. Amy happens to have a friend who has a gun….

Amy Fisher: My Story largely plays out in flashbacks and is narrated by Amy as she sits in her jail cell. It’s based on the same true story that inspired Casualties of Love, with the main difference being that this is Amy’s version of the story. And it must be said that Amy’s version, with Amy as an insecure and abused teenager being groomed by a manipulative sociopath, feels considerably more plausible than Casualties of Love‘s portrayal of Joey Buttafuoco as being the misunderstood Saint of Long Island. Working to Amy Fisher: My Story‘s advantage is that it doesn’t let Amy off the hook. Ultimately, she’s the one who decides to knock on Mary Jo’s front door and then shoot her when she answers. Amy is not portrayed as being a saint but she’s not a one-dimensional psycho either. Instead, she’s a naive and emotionally damaged girl who is so desperate to feel loved that she allows Joey to push her over the edge.

Amy Fisher: My Story is a well-done look at a sordid story. Ed Marinaro is appropriately sleazy and macho as Joey. Noelle Parker gives a quiet but strong performance as Amy Fisher, playing her as someone who knows that she’s being manipulated but who still finds herself clinging to the smallest shred of hope that she’s not. While the film never quite transcends its tabloid origins, it still provides a worthy reminder that there’s always a human behind the headlines.