Tag Archives: Ruth Kobart

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.11 “Blizzard”

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 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, it snows in Boston.

Episode 2.11 “Blizzard”

(Dir by Kevin Hooks, originally aired on January 18th, 1984)

It can’t be easy working in a hospital.

I’m thinking about this today because my aunt is currently dying.  After several years of suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, my aunt is currently in a hospital, unresponsive and scheduled to move into hospice care.  Presbyterian Health was the first hospice we reached out to.  They don’t have any available rooms but they were willing to still admit her and send their nurses to the hospital everyday until a room opened up,  One family would lose a loved one and my aunt would get a room.  However, the hospital says that they need the bed that my aunt is occupying so my aunt is being sent to a different hospice.  This hospice is located off the highway and it’s going to be Hell to get to.  I yelled at the hospital social worker for an hour this morning.  He suggested home hospice as a solution but home hospice is what I agreed to for my Dad last year and the pain from watching him die still lingers.

It’s easy to get angry at the doctors and the nurses and the hospice workers but I try not to.  I’m losing my aunt, a woman who stepped up to look after me after my mom died.  They’re losing one of the hundreds of patients that they deal with on a daily basis.  That social worker upset me but ultimately, he was doing his job.

All of this was pressing on my mind as I watched this week’s episode of St. Elsewhere.  Even though this episode was aired 41 years ago, it still felt relevant today.  A patient — a nice old man named Harrison Jeffries (James McEachin) — died because a teenage girl hacked the hospital’s computer, screwed with the files for fun, and accidentally erased the fact that Harrison was allergic to Demerol.  It was sad but it was also something that still happens today.  People, both good and bad, go into hospitals for minor procedures and concerns and they don’t come out.  Last year, my Dad went to the hospital because he was in a car accident and when I first visited him, he seemed like he was doing fine.  Three months later, he died because the accident aggravated his Parkinson’s.  It sucks and it hurts but that’s the way it is.  Tomorrow, I could forget to pack my inhaler when I leave the house and I could die of an asthma attack.  It’s not nice to think about but it could happen.  That’s why you have to truly live life while you can.  You never know when it might be taken away.

As for the rest of this episode, it dealt with a blizzard.  The roof collapsed on Dr. Cavanero and she ended up with a broken arm.  Dr. Craig tried to drive to the hospital and, after his car stalled, nearly died walking through the snow.  (Vijay was able to warm up Craig’s feet by placing them on his stomach.  Craig was not happy.)  Victor struggled with his love for Roberta.  Dr. Armstrong snapped at people.  Jack Morrison was depressed.  Even with this blizzard, it was really just another day at St. Eligius.

St. Elsewhere is frequently downbeat show but that makes sense.  When you think about, no one ever gets a happy ending.

Retro Television Reviews: Acting Sheriff 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 Acting Sheriff, which aired on CBS in 1991.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Who is Brent McCord?

Why, he’s the acting sheriff!

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by Michael Lembeck, originally aired on August 17th, 1991)

At a small country jail in North Carolina, the staff is waiting the arrival of the new sheriff.

Dispatcher Helen Munson (Ruth Kobart) is grumpy and sarcastic, as all older characters were required to be in 1990s sitcoms.

Deputy Judith Mahoney (Diane Delano) is a blonde badass who can’t wait to enforce the law and lock up every criminal that she sees, despite the fact that there aren’t many criminals to be found in this small, rural county.

Deputy Mike Swanson (John Putch) is the smart, responsible deputy who ran for sheriff in the last election but lost, despite his years of hard work and his likability.

Who is the new sheriff?  Why, he’s Brent McCord (Robert Goulet), a former Hollywood star who went from starring in films like Get Al Capone and A Fistful of Courage to appearing in books with titles like Where Are They Now?  Brent once was a huge star but, after several failed television shows and a handful of divorces, he has returned home and …. run for sheriff, for some reason.

When he does show up at the jail, Brent swaggers around like John Wayne and says things like, “Is the slime infecting the streets waiting for me?”  Brent McCord doesn’t know anything about being a county sheriff but he does know how to act like a character in a movie.  He walks into the station, draws his gun, and accidentally fires it.

Deputy District Attorney Donna Singer (Hilary B. Smith) is not happy about the new sheriff.  She tells him that, “Someone should put a tent over you and charge admission!”  She’s even less happy when a banker robber (Lee Tergesen) escapes from the jail, largely due to the sheriff’s incompetence.  Fortunately, Deputy Mike remembers a scene from Get Al Capone where McCord’s character recaptured a bank robber by leaving more money around for him to steal.  Following the same strategy, Mike recaptures the bank robber but he allows Sheriff McCord to have all the credit.  Mike’s a good guy who doesn’t hold a grudge over a silly thing like losing an election to a B-actor.

This pilot, which was produced by Disney for CBS, aired once and that was it.  It didn’t lead to anymore episodes and, watching the pilot, it’s easy to see why.  The pilot struggles to combine the relatively realistic portrayal of a county jail with the over-the-top performance of Robert Goulet.  Occasionally, Goulet will get a laugh by delivering his pompous lines in the most self-serious manner possible.  But, far too often, the character is so cartoonish that the other actors don’t seem to know how to keep up with Goulet’s hammy performance.  (At times, Goulet seems to be copying William Shatner’s technique without any of Shatner’s charm.)  Probably the biggest problem is that pilot fails to answer the most obvious question that one would have while watching the show.  Why did Brent McCord run for sheriff?  Does he want to do a good job or was he just bored?  Does he care about the county or did he just want to see his name in the newspapers?  Is he well-intentioned or just buffoonish?  The pilot doesn’t seem to know and, as a result, audiences would never find out.

 

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: CHiPs 1.11 “Name Your Price”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee!

This week, Ponch again fails to get rich.

Episode 1.11 “Name Your Price”

(Dir by Ric Rondell, originally aired on December 8th, 1977)

This week’s episode opens on an unusually somber note for CHiPs.  It begins in a cemetery.  A woman (Jaime Lynn Bauer) is dressed in chic funeral black and appears to be attending a service.  But it soon turns out that she’s actually just making sure that everyone is so distracted by mourning that they won’t notice her stealing a Rolls Royce!

It turns out that a Rolls is not quite as easy to steal as she thought and soon, she finds herself being pursued by Ponch and Baker.  It’s a chase that leads from the highway and into the city and, to Ponch and Baker’s shock, they lose sight of the stolen car.

“How does a Rolls Royce vanish!?” Ponch asks, in shock.

Ponch is a bit distracted himself this episode.  He has been accepted as a contestant on a game show called Name Your Price!  Name Your Price is obviously meant to be The Price Is Right and Ponch spends the majority of the episode memorizing the price tags on appliances.  Unfortunately, Ponch does not memorize the price tag of a motorcycle and therefore, he turns out to be a bit of a bust when he appears on the show.  As Baker and his date sneak out of the studio, Ponch is humiliated as the show’s host wonders how a motorcycle cop could not know how much a motorcycle costs.

Oh, Ponch — will you ever win!?

It’s not all bad for Ponch.  He and Baker pull over a car and Ponch is excited to discover that it’s occupied by the two stars of his favorite soap opera.  (Does Ponch do anything other than watch television?)  And Ponch also gets to help out when a chicken truck is involved in a minor accident and dozens of chickens end up running around the highway.  As usual, the main emphasis of this episode is on the idea of the members of the highway patrol working together and keeping the streets safe for chickens and humans.  Yes, this episode says, the CHiPs do chase car thieves and arrest criminals.  But usually, they’re just taking care of mundane tasks and getting little thanks and little pay.

This episode was entertaining.  I enjoyed looking at the cars that were stolen.  If you’re going to commit a crime, you might as well commit it for a Rolls Royce.  And the ending with the game show was a lot more effective than the typical CHiPs ending.  Ponch has spent the first 11 episodes of this show destroying motorcycles so it’s a nice bit of humor that a motorcycle would destroy his chance to get rich.  That’s karma!

Next week, Baker and Ponch continue to keep L.A. safe!