Sam Malkin | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Late Night 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 Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The entire series can be found on YouTube!

This week, it’s just Jack and Micki!

Episode 3.12 “Epitaph For A Lonely Heart”

(Dir by Allan Kroeker, originally aired on January 22nd, 1990)

Eli Leonard (Neil Munro) is a mortician who uses a cursed embalming needle to bring the dead back to life. Of course, he has to kill someone for the needle to work. Eli has fallen in love with the corpse of a young woman and …. EEK!

The dead woman’s fiancé is Steve Wells (Barclay Hope), a friend of Micki’s who let’s her know that he thinks something strange is happening at the funeral home before he himself is killed by Eli. Micki and Jack investigate! It all ends with a big and convenient fire, which not only kills Eli but also the two women who he has recently brought back to life.

Johnny Ventura was not in this episode and, as much as I’ve complained about the character, he actually is missed. Having Micki just working solely with Jack threw off the show’s balance a little. Jack is so much older than Micki that, in this episode, it felt as if Micki was Jack’s apprentice as opposed to being an equal partner in the search for the cursed items. As a character, Micki works best when she has an impulsive guy like Ryan or Johnny to play off of. Both she and Jack tend be cautious so this episode just felt a bit off.

(That said, there was an enjoyable scene of Jack and Micki having to host a gathering of all the other local antique dealers, none of whom knew that Jack and Micki spend all of their time fighting the Devil.)

The mortician was one of the least sympathetic villains that this show has ever featured. He was lonely but he also an obsessive creeper with no people skills. Friday the 13th has often featured villains who were tragically misguided or seduced by the cursed antique. The mortician was just a creep. Neil Munro did a good job playing him, making him into a villain who you couldn’t wait to see meet his fate.

In the end, though, this episode just felt off. I guess this show really does need Johnny screwing up and accidentally giving away the cursed antiques. Who would have guessed?

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!

So, after two months, I guess it’s time to finish up reviewing T and T.

I have to admit that I had to remind myself just what exactly this show was about before I watched the 13th episode of the third season. It’s not a show that really sticks in your mind when you’re not watching it. In case you need a refresher, the third season of T and T finds T.S. Turner (Mr. T) working for lawyer Terri Taler (Kristina Nicoll), who is apparently the sister of Amy Taler, the crusading lawyer that Turner worked with for the previous two seasons.

Episode 3.13 “The Curse”

(Dir by Patrick Loubert, originally aired on March 31st, 1990)

When T.S. demands that Alfredo (Sam Malkin) pay an outstanding bill for Terri’s legal services, Alfredo reacts by putting a gypsy curse on T.S. T.S. does what anyone would do. He fakes his death and has his friends hold a fake funeral in order to guilt Alfredo into paying the bill.

What?

Again, it’s been nearly two months since I last watched this show. When I was taking care of my Dad, the last thing that I was thinking about was an obscure Canadian comedy/action show from the late 80s. So, I guess I had forgotten just how silly T and T actually was. And really, I can’t fault the show for being silly. I mean, it’s a show that stars Mr. T. Of course it’s going to be silly! That said, you know that a show is running out of ideas when they trot out a gypsy curse. The idea of T.S. Turner faking his own death had potential but the episode itself just kind of fell flat. By the third season of T and T, it was obvious that Mr. T was so bored with the show that there really wasn’t much difference between Turner pretending to be dead and Turner being alive.

The majority of the episode is taken up with Turner’s “funeral,” which is held at Decker’s gym. It’s a bit of a missed opportunity, especially when you consider that T and T was in its final season. Joe Casper returns and so do three of the show’s recurring crooks. But not present are Turner’s Aunt or his niece, both of whom were key characters during the show’s first season. And, needless to say, Amy Taler does not attend the funeral of the man she got out of prison and worked with for two full seasons. It really does leave the viewer wondering, once again, just what happened to Amy’s character and why the show’s third season insists on acting as if Terri has always been Turner’s partner.

Anyway, the scheme works. Alfredo pays his bill. Turner reveals that he’s not dead. The funeral turns into a party. That’s kind of nice.

I’m nearly done with this show. That’s nice, too.