Robert Rothwell | 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 Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!

This week, Peter White goes on trial.

Episode 2.20 “Cramming”

(Dir by Tim Matheson, originally aired on May 2nd, 1984)

Dr. Peter White finally goes on trial, charged with raping Kathy Martin and assaulting Wendy Armstrong. For his attorney, he hires the same lawyer (Conrad Janis) who previously made the case against him at his disciplinary hearing. The lawyer asks Kathy Martin about her own reputation at St. Eligius. (“How many times have you had sex in the morgue?”) Peter himself manages to pass a lie detector test. (Sociopaths don’t have the same physical reactions to telling a lie as normal people.) In the end, Peter is acquitted.

Shirley Daniels blames Kathy for the acquittal, saying that she should have come forward earlier. As for Wendy, she deals with the trauma by binging and then purging. When one of her patients miscarries after being admitted to the hospital, it’s determined that Wendy carelessly missed a heart murmur. When Wendy argues that she’s been under pressure due to the trial, Dr. Craig points out that Wendy missed the heart murmur before the trial even started. Wendy breaks down into tears.

I have to admit that Wendy Armstrong has never been one of my favorite characters on this show. She’s the type of doctor who most people would dread having to deal with. She knows all of the technical stuff but she has absolutely no idea how to relate to patients and she gets defensive whenever anyone disagrees with her. Even if she hadn’t been attacked by Peter White, it seems like it was inevitable that she would eventually end up overlooking something with one of her patients. That said, my heart still broke for her in this episode. One gets the feeling that she’s one bad day away from breaking.

This episode ends with all of the residents taking their National Board exams. The residents know that five of them will be cut from the program. Having been acquitted, Dr. White approaches Westphall and Auschlander and announces that he doesn’t have any hard feelings towards them and he hopes that they’ll give him a fair shot. “I’m innocent,” he lies.

Dr. Ehrlich is also nervous about his exams, cramming everything he can into his last minute study sessions. His Aunt Cherise (Louise Lasser) comes to visit and help him deal with the end of his marraige to Roberta but Ehrlich is able to dump her off on Dr. Westphall. After having an awkward dinner with the eccentric Cherise, Westphall realizes that he’s not ready to start dating again.

This episode left me reeling, to be honest. The acquittal of Peter White was a gut punch. I know he’s guilty. Everyone in the hospital knows that he’s guilty. But he’s acquitted. Kathy Martin’s name is drugged through the mud. Wendy Armstrong has gone from being determined to self-destructive. But Peter White has not only gotten away with his crimes but he’s now apparently convinced that he can go back to being a doctor at St. Eligius. And who knows? He probably can. It’s a messed up world. It was messed up in 1984 and it’s messed up today.

Next week, we’ll find out which residents made the cut!

Dexter Riley (Kurt Russell) is back and just in time because Medfield College is on the verge of getting closed down again.

In The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, buying a computer was supposed to be the solution to all of Medfield’s financial problems. I guess it didn’t work because Medfield is broke again and corrupt businessman A.J. Arnoe (Cesar Romero) is planning on canceling the school’s mortgage so that he can turn it into a casino.

There is some hope. Dexter has accidentally created an invisibility spray. Not only does it tun anything that it touches invisible but it also washes away with water so there’s no risk of disappearing forever. Dexter and his friend Schuyler (Michael McGreevey) know that they can win the science fair with their invention but the science fair doesn’t want to allow small schools like Medfield to compete unless they really have something big to offer. Dexter tells the Dean (Joe Flynn) that he has a sure winner but Dexter also refuses to reveal what it is because he doesn’t want word to leak before for the science fair. The Dean decides to raise the money to pay off the mortgage by becoming a golfer, as one does. Schulyer works as the Dean’s caddy while Dexter uses the invisibility spray to help the Dean cheat. That’s a good message for a young audience, Disney! But when Arno finds out about the spray, he wants to steal it so he can rob a bank.

This was even dumber than The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes but it was also hard to dislike it. The comedy was too gentle, Kurt Russell and the rest of the cast were too likable, and the special effects were too amusingly cheap in that retro Disney way for it to matter that the movie didn’t make any sense. When a bunch of college kids learn the secret of invisibility and use it to cheat at golf, you know you’re watching a Disney film.