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Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 4.17 “Come Back, Little Arnold”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC  from 1975 to 1979.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime.

This week, Horshack’s not going to take it anymore.

Episode 4.17 “Come Back, Little Arnold”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on February 24th, 1979)

Arnold Horshack’s a drunk!

Well, not quite.  He’s not an alcoholic.  He does buy a bottle of cheap whiskey from Carvelli because he has a date coming up with Mary (Irene Arranga) and he’s nervous about it.  To the shock of everyone, Horshack gets mean when he drinks.  He calls the other Sweathogs out for always making fun of him.  He tells his teachers to leave him alone.  He throws all the money from the school store out into the hallway.  He starts wearing a leather jacket.  Horshack is out of control!

It’s a good thing that Vinnie is around to serve as a mentor…. oh wait, Travolta became a movie star and Vinnie Barbarino is no longer on the show.

It’s a good thing that Gabe has a good relationship with Arnold Horshack and …. oh wait, Gabe Kaplan was angry with the show’s producers and only appeared in a handful of episodes this season.  And this is not one of those episodes!

Maybe Julie could …. Marcia Strassman isn’t in this episode either!

Mr. Woodman could …. oh, who are we kidding?  Woodman doesn’t care.

Instead, it falls to Jean Tremaine (Della Reese) to gather all the Sweathogs together and let them know that Horshack needs help.  Jean Who?  Well, apparently, Ms. Tremaine has been around for a while and she’s as much of a mentor to the Sweathogs as Gabe ever was!  Oddly, we’ve never heard about or seen Ms. Tremaine before.  In fact, I thought the whole idea of the Sweathogs was that they weren’t allowed to attend regular classes, like the one taught by Ms. Tremaine.

It’s easy to see what happened here.  With Gabe Kaplan determined to leave and Marcia Strassman also tiring of the show, the show’s producers were trying to figure out how to continue Welcome Back Kotter without any Kotters.  With this episode, we saw one possible way to keep the show going.  Della Reese would be the new teacher and hopefully, she would have eventually gotten some new students.  It was time to let the Sweathogs graduate.  As I watched this episode, I noticed that Ron Palillo, the actor who played Horshack, actually had gray in his hair.

Surprisingly enough, this was actually a pretty good episode.  After spending the past two seasons playing Horshack as just being a weirdo with a strange voice, Ron Palillo finally got another chance to play the angry, misadjusted Horshack who  we first met during the show’s first season.  Palillo really got into the scenes where Horshack told off the Sweathogs, dropping the funny voice and delivering his lines with authentic anger.  Watching the episode, it’s hard not to get the feeling that Palillo was acting out some of his own frustrations in this episode.  It can’t be easy to play Arnold Horshack day-after-day.

And you know what?  As clumsily as she was introduced, Della Reese did a good job as Ms. Temaine.  The idea of her as the new regular teacher was not a crazy one, though it was one that was probably suggested too late to save the show.

This was a good episode.  I’m as surprised as anyone.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 3.3 “Demon Hunter”

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 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, a bunch of new characters show up!  What the Hell!?

Episode 3.3 “Demon Hunter”

(Dir by Armand Mastroianni, originally aired on October 14th, 1989)

I have read that one of the biggest mistake that aspiring screenwriter make when they attempt to create a compelling spec script for their favorite show is that they’ll often introduce new characters.  Instead of focusing on the established stars of the show, they’ll have a new character show up and suddenly become the center of the story.  It’s a mistake because, no matter how good the script may be, it doesn’t work as an episode of the series that the writer is trying to get a job with.  Showrunners don’t want a writer who can write about new characters.  They want a writer who can work within the framework of what the show has already established.

This week’s episode of Friday the 13th feels very much like a failed spec script.

Make no mistake.  Jack and Micki are in it.  They spend the entire episode at Curious Goods, where they are originally seen putting a cursed dagger in the vault.  With Ryan having been transformed into a child in the previous episode, Micki makes Jack a partner in the shop.  Johnny Ventura (played by new series regular Steve Monarque) is also in this episode, though he’s called to the store a bit later than Micki and Jack.  I guess Johnny is now a part of the group, even if he doesn’t have a job at the shop.  For all the time the show spent establishing Johnny as being an edgy delinquent during the second season, this episode finds Johnny as a rather conventional leading man.  He listens to a baseball game and, at one point, he’s seen making a model ship.

That said, the majority of the episode is dominated by a bunch of new characters.  The Cassidys are a family of militia types who, having rescued Bonnie Cassidy (Allison Mang) from a bunch of cultists, are now on the run from a demon that is determined to kill them.  The Cassidys have some sort of demon tracker device that leads both them and the demon to Curious Goods, where Micki, Jack, and Johnny join in the effort to destroy the demon.  The Cassidys are so prominently featured in this episode and take up so much screentime that the episode almost feels like a backdoor pilot about them.  The Cassidys are even featured in black-and-white flashbacks that show us how they rescued Bonnie.

The problem, of course, is that we don’t know the Cassidys so its a bit jarring to see them take over the episode.  After what happened in the previous episode, I think most viewers would have a lot of questions about what happened after Jack, Micki, and Johnny returned from France.  For instance, what did they do with Ryan?  Did they drop Ryan off with his mother?  Did they leave him in France?  We don’t find out in this episode and it’s actually kind of insulting to anyone who has spent the previous two seasons getting wrapped up in Ryan and Micki’s adventures.  Instead of answering the questions that they had to know that viewers would be asking, the show’s writers expect us to care about the Cassidys.

Even without John D. LeMay, Robey and Chris Wiggins had a likable chemistry.  Micki and Jack were the strongest thing this series had gone for it as the start of season 3.  Why push them to the side for a family that we’ve never seen before and will probably never see again?  As far as guessing what the rest of Season 3 will be like is concerned, it’s not a good sign.

Hopefully, I’ll be proven wrong in the weeks to come.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 1.12 “Release”

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, things get dark.

Episode 1.12 “Release”

(Dir by Victor Lobl, originally aired on February 1st, 1983)

The gunshot victim (Tom Hulce) who was saved by Samuels last week has woken up but he has no idea who he is.  He is labeled John Doe #12, meaning there’s at least eleven other people at St. Eligius who are suffering from amnesia!  That’s a scary thought.  There’s a lot of things that I don’t want to suffer from and amnesia is high on the list.  I can’t imagine how frightening that would be, not having any idea who you are or where you belong.

Dr. Chandler tries to help John Doe #12 get his memory back but, in this episode at least, neither has any luck.  Even an attempt at hypnosis reveals that John can’t remember anything before being rolled into the ER.  At one point, an older couple step into the room to discover if John is their son, who has been missing for two years.  He’s not, which leaves the couple in tears.

As serious and as heart-breaking as this all is (and both Washington and Hulce give outstanding performances in this episode), there is one moment where Dr. Westphall makes a reference to a “Lt. Gerard,” who is searching for John’s parents.  It seems like a throw-away reference, unless you’re familiar with either the 1950s television show The Fugitive or the subsequent 1993 film adaptation.  Lt. Gerard was the name of the detective who was hunting for that show’s main character, Dr. Richard Kimble.  Ed Flanders delivers the line solemnly and it occurs at a serious moment.  There’s no winking at the audience.  Instead, it’s simply a reward for the pop culture-literate who might be watching the episode.

For the most part, this was a grim episode.  After losing a patient to cancer, Dr. Peter White was ordered to talk his family into signing a release for an autopsy.  The autopsy was largely to protect the hospital from getting sued.  The family didn’t want an autopsy.  Peter didn’t feel the autopsy was necessary.  But, having been bullied by his superiors, Peter proceeded to bully and manipulate the dead man’s son into signing the release.  In the end, it turned out that Peter was correct.  The man did die of cancer.  The autopsy was not necessary.  Upset over the whole process, Peter said that he felt like he had “raped” a mourning family.  The doctor who ordered Peter to get the release merely smiled and said he would see Peter at rounds the next day.

Meanwhile, Dr. Craig was shocked and angered when he discovered that his old friend (played by Andy Romano) had checked into the hospital for gender-affirming surgery.  This led to the episode final scene, in which Craig talked about not liking the way the world had changed since he was a young man.  The scene was well-acted by William Daniels, who was one of the best when it comes to giving a monologue of frustration.

And finally, Dr. Samuels and Dr. Paxson disagreed on how to treat a patient and this storyline would have been interesting if either Samuels or Paxson had been an interesting character.  But they’re not.  I don’t care about them.  I don’t care about their boring relationship.  And, knowing that neither is going to be around once this season ends, I really didn’t care that much about their storyline.  With all of the interesting stuff that happened in this episode, I groaned whenever I realized I was going to waste a few minutes watching Samuels and Paxson argue.

This episode left me feeling pretty depressed.  Between Peter bullying that family and John Doe searching for his identity, there wasn’t much hope to be found.  Still, I have faith that John Doe will find his identity and maybe Peter will even become a better doctor.  (He certainly can’t get much worse.)  If Lt. Gerard could find Richard Kimble, then anything’s possible!

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.13 “Basinger’s New York”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

New York, New York, it’s a heckuva town….

Episode 3.13 “Basinger’s New York”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on December 17th, 1986)

It’s Christmas in New York and veteran news columnist Jed Basinger (Richard Mulligan) has no idea what to write about.  Basinger has been recording the lives of the people of New York City for decades and he’s finally reached the point where he fears that there may not be anything good left to write about.  In short, Jed Basinger is a cynic and we know what this show thinks of cynicism!

While Basinger walks down a cold city sidewalk, he suddenly discovers Jonathan and Mark walking beside him.  Basinger worries that they’re fans, looking to harass him or tell him a long story that they think he should write about.  Instead, Jonathan introduces himself as an angel and explains that he’s here to show Basinger all the good things happening in the city.

I have to admit that I always groan a little whenever an episode of this show starts with Jonathan admitting that he’s angel.  The episodes where Jonathan makes no effort to hide his identity are usually the weakest, if just because they tend to be a bit more preachy than the typical episode of Highway to Heaven.  (Despite its reputation, Highway to Heaven was usually more earnest than preachy.)  Once Jonathan says those three words — “I’m an angel,” — the viewer is immediately aware that this episode has a message and it’s not going to be a subtle one either.

Jonathan, Mark, and Basinger make their way through New York.  They meet a cab driver who just wants to be reunited with his son.  They meet the saintly homeless people who live on the streets and take care of each other in their own quirky way.  They meet a nice cop.  They meet not one but two women who are in labor and who end up at the same hospital.  One woman is poor and turned away because she doesn’t have insurance (which, technically, I think is illegal under federal law but whatever).  The other woman is the wife of a U.S. Senator who announces that she refuses to give birth in a hospital that turns away the poor.  Luckily, Basinger is there and threatens to write about it.  The scene in the hospital is typical of this episode.  It’s well-meaning but so heavy-handed that it’s nowhere near as effective as it should have been.  If I was in labor, would I take the time to demand that the hospital treat all of its patients fairly?  I’d like to think so but, realistically, my mind would probably be on other things.  Luckily, Basinger gets to write his column, despite showing up late at the newspaper.  It turns out that the presses went down while Basinger learned a lesson about New York and kindness.

I can’t really be too critical of this episode because its heart was in the right place.  That was this show’s biggest strength.  Michael Landon really did seem to believe he could make the world a better place, one episode at a time.  That said, this episode was a bit too heavy-handed for my tastes.  But again, how can I be too critical of a show about Christmas miracles?

 

 

Retro Television Review: Malibu CA 2.2 “Jason’s Song”

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

I know that’s the first season cast but I don’t care.

This week …. ugh.

Episode 2.2 “Jason’s Song”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on October 16th, 1999)

Lisa is just the worst!

No, silly, not me!  I’m the best.  I’m talking about Lisa, the newest character on this show.  Lisa is the medical student who was hired to work as a waitress at the restaurant.  This week’s episode finds her desperately looking for an apartment and moving in with …. Traycee!  The problem is that Lisa can’t stand Traycee because Traycee loves the color pink and is a careless driver.  What’s wrong with that?  I love the color pink and …. well, I am a good driver.  But still, Lisa throws such a fit over moving in with Traycee and Marquita Terry (who plays Lisa) gives such a cartoonishly over-the-top performance in the role that you can kind of end up feeling that Lisa is …. well, she’s the worst.

Things are resolved when Lisa throws one of Traycee’s possessions of the balcony in frustration.  I hate to say it but, even though it’s only been a few hours since I watched the episode, I cannot remember what exactly Lisa threw.  Was it a CD?  Let’s say it was a CD because I refuse to rewatch this episode because, as I will discuss in the next paragraph, this episode deeply offended me.  The important thing is that, when the cop shows up at the apartment looking for who threw the whatever at him, Traycee takes the blame and …. GOES TO JAIL!  (Editor’s Note: I checked and it was a CD. — Erin)

See, that’s why I’m not going to rewatch this episode.  Getting arrested and going to jail is a big deal.  Lisa allowed Traycee to potentially get a criminal record.  If the show wants me to sympathize with Lisa then Lisa should have gone to the police and told the truth and dealt with the consequences.  Lisa was the one dumb enough to throw whatever it was that she threw.  This is on Lisa and I don’t care how frustrated she was, she’s the one was an idiot.  Instead, Lisa stays at the apartment and paints one door pink and puts up some fake hearts.  When Traycee returns …. FROM JAIL! …. she is overjoyed.  Lisa and Traycee are friends.  Yay?  No, no yay.  TRAYCEE WENT TO JAIL FOR YOU!  Traycee probably got charged with a misdemeanor and had to pay a fine.  Someone probably had to bail her out.  Throwing something off of a balcony and hitting a cop is not a little thing.  Someone with that little self-control should not be a doctor.  Lisa spends almost this entire episode shaking with rage.  Was no one directing this episode?  Was no one asking for a second take?  What the Hell was going on?

While this was going on, Jason pursued his musical career and fell under the influence of Jesse Mercer (Rex Smith), who was once in a band with Jason and Scott’s father.  (The Disco Dudes, I think they were called.)  Jesse proves to be a bad influence.  Recently promoted to night manager and having been given a laptop by his father, Jason sells the laptop for a new guitar.  What a prick.  Jesse agrees to play a fundraiser for the lifeguards but bails at the last minute.  Don’t worry.  Jason has a guitar and he’s learned an important lesson.

This storyline actually featured a pretty good performance from Rex Smith but it was hard not to notice that it was basically just the Fabolous Belding Boys with Edward Blatchford (now cast not as the cool Belding brother but instead as Jason and Scott’s dorky father) playing the role that Dennis Haskins originally played.  If that sentence doesn’t make sense to you, you’ve never watched Saved By The Bell and you’re lucky.

Ugh, this show.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Monsters 3.9 “The Young and the Headless”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, Monsters loses its head of another series.

Episode 3.9 “The Young and the Headless”

(Dir by Tom Abrams, originally aired on November 25th, 1990)

As you can tell from the title, this episode of Monsters is meant to be a parody of soap operas.  Two scientists, Victoria (Karen Valentine) and Edward (George Reinhardt), have been have been married ever since Victoria’s lunkhead ex-boyfriend, Hunk (John Schiappa), disappeared while on a soldier of fortune mission.  However, when Hunk suddenly returns, Victoria and George are left with a dilemma, especially after Edward tricks Hunk into killing himself and then removes his head.

Victoria and George decide to reanimate the headless Hunk, bringing him back to life with microchips.  (Sure, why not?)  They treat the headless Hunk as a servant but it turns out that Hunk doesn’t need a brain to get his revenge.

The plot was nonsense but the episode did have good performances and a memorable monster in headless Hunk.  I think the main problem is that the episode tried very hard to parody the soap opera genre but, since most soap operas are already self-parodies that cheerfully embrace the melodrama and make no attempt to pretend to be realistic, a lot of the humor fell flat.  It’s hard to make fun of a genre that is, for the most part, defined by its self-awareness.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 5.17 “The Return of the Captain’s Lady/Love Ain’t Illegal/The Irresistible Man”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

It’s time for another trip on The Love Boat!  We’re a little late setting sail today but it happens.  Let’s see what’s happening on this cruise….

Episode 5.17 “The Return of the Captain’s Lady/Love Ain’t Illegal/The Irresistible Man”

(Dir by Howard Morris, originally aired on February 6th, 1982)

This week’s cruise is all about people being stupid.

For instance, George Boggs (Dick Martin) wants to embezzle some money from his company but he can’t run the risk of his business partner, Irwin (Robert Mandan), finding out.  So, George tells his secretary, Marge (Phyllis Davis), to keep Irwin distracted while George steals the money.  However, Marge really does fall for Irwin.  This was a very predictable storyline and it suffered from Dick Martin continually mugging for the camera and acting so obviously guilty that there was no way that the entire world wouldn’t have noticed what he was doing.  Still, if you’re a fan of sitcoms from the 70s and 80s, it’s always interesting to see Robert Mandan playing a sympathetic character for a change.

Things get even dumber when Doug Bridges (Linwood Boomer) decides that the best way to get Pam (Lydia Cornell) to notice him would be to fake being pulled into a broom closet and kissed by an amorous woman who then, in Doug’s telling of the story, runs off and disappears.  Soon, the entire ship is looking for Doug’s mystery woman.  Why this would get Pam to like Doug, I’m not sure.  Pam’s best friend (Pat Klous) does like Doug so she pretends to be the mystery woman.  Of course, Doug can’t reveal that she’s lying because that would mean revealing that he was lying and …. as I said, this story was dumb.  Dumb, dumb, dumb!

Finally, Captain Stubing’s ex-fiancé, Linda (Pat Crowley) boards the ship and the Captain is super excited!  He starts to rekindle their relationship and soon, he’s even thinking of proposing.  Yay!  Vicki’s finally going to have a stepmom …. oh wait.  Hold on.  It turns out that Linda’s married and she just boarded the boat and allowed herself to be romanced by the Captain without telling him any of this because …. reasons, I guess?  I mean, don’t get me wrong.  Linda is not happy with her marriage and is in the process of getting a divorce but she doesn’t tell any of that to the Captain.  Merrill thinks that Linda is single and ready to get married.  Nope, Linda was just looking for a fling and is not ready to get married again.  Poor Merrill!  At least he has the crew looking out for him….

Ugh.  This episode.  Listen, I am more than willing to suspend my disbelief when it comes to this show.  Usually, I absolutely love The Love Boat.  But usually there’s at least one sort of funny or sweet story to go along with the ones that are less memorable.  None of the stories worked on this cruise and that’s a shame.  That said, I’ll be back next week.  The Love Boat promises something for everyone, afterall.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 1.6 “Takedown”

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 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.

Who cares?  Roll the opening credits.

Episode 1.6 “Takedown”

(Dir by Terrence O’Hara, originally aired on April 6th, 1996)

Three dangerous criminals are holding up stores in …. oh Hell.  Where does this show take place?  I know it’s in California but what’s the name of the town?  Malibu?  Is that it?  Hold on, let me check with Wikipedia….

SANTA MONICA!  That’s where this show takes place.

See, that’s the type of show that Pacific Blue is.  I am now six episodes into this show and I’m still can’t tell you where it specifically takes place.  It’s not that they haven’t mentioned that the show is set in Santa Monica.  And considering that I even attended Saint Monica School for a semester, you would think that I would be able to remember it.  But Pacific Blue is such a generic show that it’s difficult to really remember a thing about it.  It fades from your memory within seconds of being watched.  About the only thing that really sticks with the viewer about this show is how stupid everyone looks on their bicycles with their tight white shirts and their blue shorts.  The fact that Rick Rossovich plays their leader with a perpetual air of grim determination only serves to make them seem even more ridiculous.  Cops are supposed to look intimidating.  That’s one reason why a lot of people don’t like them.  These cops just look like the type of douchebags you dread getting stuck behind in traffic.

As for this episode, three dangerous criminals are holding up stores in Santa Monica.  Somehow, they always manage to escape right before the cops show up.  Maybe that’s because the cops are all on bicycles and they have to steer across crowded sidewalks without even having the benefit of a siren to tell people to get out of the way.  What’s odd is that no one ever seems to notice the criminals until they pull out their guns.  These are three extremely scruffy criminals, all of whom are clad in clothes that don’t appear to have been washed in days.  Are you seriously telling me no one would notice that on the beach in San Diego or wherever this freaking show takes place?

If I was a store owner who got robbed at gunsight and who then called the police, nothing would piss me off more than having the bicycle cops respond.  Seriously, you need a car to chase criminals!  All the criminals have to do is wait for the bike cops to pull a muscle or ride over a stick in the middle of the road and then they’ll be home free.  If I get robbed, give me the real cops!

TC gets upset when one of the criminals points a gun at him.  Lt. Palermo encourages him to stop being stoic and get in touch with his feelings and …. oh, who cares?  Freaking bicycle cops.  While that’s going on, Chris takes a creative writing class and dates her professor (Zach Galligan).  From what we hear of Chris’s literary efforts, she has no talent whatsoever.  She was such a bad writer that I literally got angry while she reading her story.  I wanted the professor to throw something at her.  Also, Victor del Toro falls in love with a model (Krista Allen) and even gets a date with her, despite his dumbass bicycle.

Where does this show take place again?  Malibu?

Anyway, this was just another episode about the most useless cops ever.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 6.5 “Everybody Goes to Gilley’s/Face of Fire”

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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984.  Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites.  Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

This week, Fantasy Island goes country.

Episode 6.5 “Everybody Goes to Gilley’s/Face of Fire”

(Dir by Jerome Courtland, originally aired on November 20th, 1982)

Mickey Gilley is a country-western singer who comes to Fantasy Island because he wants to finally become a star after years of struggling.  Tattoo, who is a huge country music fan, puts on a cowboy hat and decides that he’ll be Gilley’s “exclusive manager.”  Not so fast, Mr. Roarke says.  Apparently, there’s a country-western bar on the other side of the Island and the owner, Mr. Sherwood (Dennis Cole), has a fantasy of finally having a successful bar.  Roarke arranges for Gilley and Sherwood to become partners.  Gilley is a star whenever he performs in Sherwood’s bar.  In the end, Sherwood and Gilley leave the Island together with Sherwood as Gilley’s new manager.

I’m not a huge country music fan so I have to admit that, until I watched this episode, I had no idea who Mickey Gilley was. (In fact, in my first draft of this review, I repeatedly called him “Dennis Gilley,” so that tells you how much I know about county-western singers.)  Gilley actually was a country music star, one who did spend several years toiling away in small clubs before he finally found success.  This role was autobiographical for him.  It’s a bit odd that he plays himself but maybe he was a big deal in 1982.  As I said, country music is not my area of expertise and 1982 is a bit before my time.  What I can say is that, on the show, Gilley was portrayed in a way that kind of made him seem like a jerk.  I mean, the nonstop complaining and all the demands!  “I’m not here for romance,” he tells Roarke at one point.  Don’t tell Mr. Roarke how to do his job, Gilley!

The other storyline was a take on Jane Eyre.  Jean Harrigan (Lynn Redgrave) is from Nevada, despite being totally English.  She needs a million dollars.  A mysterious rich guy (David Hedison) offers it to her if she can survive a weekend at his home.  His crazy wife is locked away in a bedroom.  She ends up catching on fire towards the end of the episode, freeing things up for Jean and the rich guy.  What’s interesting is that the rich guy says that he originally met Jean when his car broke down in the Nevada desert and Jean gave him a ride.  What’s interesting about this is that, when the legendary Howard Hughes died, a man named Melvin Dummar claimed that he had once given Hughes a ride after coming across him stranded in the Nevada desert and, in return, Hughes left him a good deal of his fortune.  Dummar even produced a will in support of his claim.  The courts ruled the will to have been a forgery and Dummar never received his money, though there still are people out there who defend “the Dummar will” and claims that he was telling the truth about meeting Hughes.  Fortunately, Jean does get her money and a chance to spend some time with the totally charming and handsome David Hedison.

(Hedison was also the best Felix Leiter, appearing in Live and Let Die and License to Kill.)

Perhaps not surprisingly, I preferred the gothic story to the country music story.  I appreciated that Tattoo got to do something this episode.  The scene where he declares himself to be Gilley’s manager felt like a throwback to the show’s earlier seasons.  This journey to the Island was a mixed bag for me, though overall it was a pleasant trip.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.8 “Hot Wheels”

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 Prime!

Last night’s review of CHiPs was pre-empted by a sudden storm.  Here it is now, in its entirety,

Episode 3.8 “Hot Wheels”

(Dir by John Florea, originally aired on November 3rd, 1979)

Ponch is still in the hospital, recovering from last week’s accident.  Still, because he’s Ponch, he’s the one who figures out that a bunch of disgruntled fireman are using city trucks to commit their jewelry thefts.  Hey, wait a minute.  Last week’s episode was also about jewelry thefts.  Admittedly, CHiPs was a show that tended to recycle plots but, even by CHiPs standards, this is one of those coincidences that leaves you wondering what exactly was going on in the writer’s room.

Actually, it’s easy to guess.  Erik Estrada really was injured while filming an episode.  The cast that he wears throughout this episode was real and, as easy as it can be to make fun of his overexpressive acting and his tendency to lose his shirt every other scene, you do have to respect that Estrada showed to film this episode at all.  With Estrada injured, one gets the feeling that this episode, just like last week’s, was quickly rewritten to cover the situation.

Baker gets a temporary partner in this episode.  It’s the return of his former motorcycle mate, John Clayton!  Clayton was apparently Baker’s partner before Ponch.  Clayton has a reputation for being a practical joker,  It’s all anyone can talk about.  Clayton is a legendary prankster!  They really want us to know that Clayton’s a fun guy before he shows up and we discover that he’s played by Andrew Robinson, the actor who is best-known for playing the Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry.  Robinson wears a mustache as Clayton, probably in an attempt to keep 1979 audiences from looking at the screen and going, “Hey, I remember that guy hijacking a school bus!”

(I should mention that Andrew Robinson himself was a committed pacifist when he filmed Dirty Harry, to the extent that he actually flinched whenever he had to shoot the killer’s gun and he actually traumatized himself while filming the school bus hijack.  He actually sounds like a pretty nice guy who just happened to play one of the most loathsome screen villains of all time.)

Baker works with Clayton and it must be said that Larry Wilcox does seem to be noticeably happier when he’s acting opposite Robinson than he ever did when he was acting opposite Estrada.  The episode features Clayton performing a heroic and dangerous rescue at one point and it’s easy to see that that scene was originally conceived with Estrada in mind.  It’s also easy to imagine Estrada flashing his big grin at the end of the scene while Robinson, on the other hand, plays up the fact that anyone, even a dedicated cop, would be absolutely exhausted after all that.

Robinson does a good job as Clayton and it’s always fun to see Martin Kove play a villain on show like this.  This was a good episode.  Estrada, I assume, will be back on his bike next week.