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Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 1.7 “Legionnaires: Part Two”

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!

This week, the hospital’s in chaos!

Episode 1.7 “Legionnaires: Part Two”

(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on December 14th, 1982)

With one of the wards shut down due to a Legionnaires outbreak, the hospital is in crisis.  All of the patients from the infected ward and their doctors have been moved to a new floor and now, everyone is stressed and overworked.  Dr. Westphall insists to the Hospital Board that he has no regrets about shutting down the ward and that he did what he had to do.  Westphall is vindicated when it turns out that he was correct about the Legionnaires outbreak but he still has to admit that administrator H.J. Cummings (Christopher Guest) has a point about Westphall’s actions causing a panic.  Cummings argues that Westphall could have quietly closed the ward without alerting the media.  In the end, it doesn’t matter as Cummings explains that he’ll be the one who gets fired over the bad publicity, not Westphall.  The episode ends with Westphall returning to his small home, carrying the birthday present that he was supposed to give his son that day.  Westphall has dedicated his life to the hospital and it’s obvious that his family has often had to wait until he has time for them.

(I’m starting to understand why Westphall always seems so damn depressed.)

Some people take advantage of the chaos.  Two gang members (one of whom is played by a very young Robert Davi) hit Fiscus over the head and steal his wallet after Fiscus stitches up one of their hands.  Peter White, eager to get away from his troubled marriage, shows up to work Morrison’s shift for him.  Dr. Chandler glares at a nurse that he previously accused of unprofessional behavior.  Dr. Craig tries to find someone foolish enough to buy his old convertible from him.  And head nurse Helen Rosenthal finds herself being called over and over again to the room of patient Martha Mulvahey (Ann Bronston).

Poor Martha!  She has a reputation for being a problem patient, because she’s always calling for the nurses and asking them to do things for her, like wash her hair or raise her bed.  Only Helen is willing to put up with Martha but even Helen loses her temper when Martha asks for help putting on her makeup.  Finally, Martha breaks down and explains that her arthritis is so severe that she can barely move her hands.  She’s a librarian and she can’t even turn the pages of a book anymore.  (Excuse me, I think I have something in my eye….)  A friend is coming to visit her at the hospital and she just wants to look good for him because she doesn’t want him to remember her as someone who can’t even get out of a hospital bed.  Helen helps Martha put on her makeup.  At the end of the episode, the hospital may be in chaos but Martha gets to see her friend and that made me happy and brought even more tears to my eyes.

Meanwhile, psychiatric patient Jane Zontell (Laraine Newman) returns to the hospital and checks herself back in for treatment.  Dr. Beale (G.W. Bailey) is shocked to learn that Jane is three months pregnant.  But it’s only been two months since Jane was last a patient at St. Eligius so that father must be someone at the hospital.  Uh-oh.

(Personally, I suspect Fiscus.)

This was a good episode.  I cried for Martha.  I felt bad for Westphall.  I hope someone buys Dr. Craig’s car so he’ll stop bothering everyone else about it.  This episode was about how bad things can get at a hospital but, with Martha and Rosenthal, it offered up some hope as well.  All in all, it worked.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.7 and 3.8 “Love and Marriage”

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 Freevee and several other services!

This week, we’ve got a two-hour episode of Highway to Heaven.

Episode 3.7 and 3.8 “Love and Marriage”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on November 12th, 1986)

It’s Mark and Jonathan’s four-year anniversary!

For four years, they have been traveling around the country and helping people out.  Mark is so excited that he makes a cake and decides not to watch the football game so that he and Jonathan can talk about old times.

“I remember the first time I met you,” Mark says at one point.

Later, Jonathan laughs and says that he remembers one really funny adventure they had.

Still later, Mark says, “Remember when Scotty proposed?”

Yay!  I thought as I watched all of this unfold.  It’s a clip show!  This will be easy to review!

However, it turned out that only first 20 minutes of the episode was a clip show.  Soon, Mark got a phone call telling him that his niece was getting married and that she wanted Mark to be the head usher.  Meanwhile, Jonathan put on his collar and became Rev. Smith, the man who would perform the ceremony.

Unfortunately, not all is well at the wedding rehearsal.  When the grandparents of the bride — Clarence (Bill Erwin) and Rose (Mary Jackson) — decide to get a divorce, this leads to the parents of the bride — Frank (Robert Mandan) and Carla (Barbara Stuart) — splitting up as well.  Seeing her elders splitting up, Trish Kelly (Anne Marie Howard) decides that there is no way she could marry Brad (Dean Scofield).

It falls to Jonathan and Mark to bring all of the couple back together.  Mark invades Clarence’s dreams and shows him how empty his life would have been if he had never married Rose.  Jonathan appears to Carla and explains that he’s an angel.  He gives Carla a chance to appear to Frank as a totally different woman.  Calling herself Ono, Carla dates Frank for a week but Frank eventually tells her that he loves his wife too much to be unfaithful to her.  Frank says that dating Ono made him realize how much he loved Carla.  It’s a good thing that Carla actually was Ono or Frank probably would have gotten the heck slapped out of him.

Seeing all of the members of her family getting back together inspires Trish to go ahead and give marriage a try.  Jonathan performs the wedding but now it’s a triple wedding as the grandparents and their parents join their daughter and renew their vows.  Wow, you all,  way to hog the spotlight on Trish’s special day.

This episode was a bit too cutesy for its own good.  I think if Jonathan and Mark has only been repairing one or two relationships, it would have been fine.  But three just felt like showing off and, more importantly, it left the episode feeling a bit overcrowded and overstuffed.

Fortunately, next week’s episode is one that I’ve actually seen before and I can promise you that it’s going to be a huge improvement!

Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.23 “The New Cook”

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!

This week’s episode is stupid!  Let’s get to it.

Episode 1.23 “The New Cook”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on May 2nd, 1999)

After a relative in Texas breaks his leg — *sigh* I can already tell you that I’m going to hate this episode — Peter announces that he has to go down to the Lone Star State to look after the ranch because, of course, everyone who lives in Texas owns a ranch.  (Except for me apparently.)  Peter leaves Jason and Scott in charge of the restaurant.  Jason points out that he doesn’t get paid to be an assistant manager.  He gets paid to be a waiter and you know what?  Jason is perhaps the biggest douchebag to ever appear on a television show but, in this case, he’s absolutely correct.

Seriously, does Peter not have any adult employees that he can leave in charge?  Jason and Scott are not managers.  They are just his good-for-nothing sons who he hired because they were too irresponsible to be left on their own.  Scott has grown a bit more responsible over the course of the season but neither he nor Jason really has the track record of someone who you would leave in charge of a complicated business.  Jason and Scott do some pretty stupid things in this episode but it’s all Peter’s fault for being dumb enough to give them so much responsibility in the first place.

With Peter gone, it falls to Jason and Scott to hire a new chef for the kitchen.  They hire Inga (Victoria Silvstedt) because she’s tall, blonde, and apparently comes from a country where there are no laws about nepo kids sexually harassing their new employees. Unfortunately, it turns out that Inga cannot cook.  The head chef refuses to work with her and storms out of the restaurant.  Because neither Jason nor Scott can work up the courage to fire her, they try to teach her how to cook.  Then they try to run the kitchen themselves.  A bunch of Texans are coming to the restaurant and they’re expecting lobster.  Uh-oh, Traycee set all the lobsters free!  She dumped them in the ocean.  Hey, Traycee, you probably just killed all of those lobsters!  Can no one on this show think?

(And seriously, what was this episode’s deal with Texas?)

Scott and Jason have to figure out what to do about their guests who claim to be from Texas but who all have the fakest accents that I’ve ever seen.  Bleh.  Screw this storyline.  It’s too stupid.  I’m done talking about it.

Meanwhile, in the B-plot, Murray is visited by the legendary surfer, Webfoot Wilson (Peter Flanders).  Webfoot says that he’s putting together a charity for injured surfers.  But, after Sam and Stads see Webfoot stealing money from the Surf Shack’s cash register, they realize that he’s just a con artist!  Will they find the courage to tell Murray that his friend is a thief?  Of course, they will.  What a stupid B-plot but I will give credit where credit is due.  Brandon Brooks’s performance as Murray was probably the only thing that worked about this episode.  Murray may have started out as a standard weird sidekick but Brooks was actually able to make him into a surprisingly likeable and occasionally even funny character.

Next week …. oh, who cares?  Something will happen.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.4 “Cellmates”

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.

It’s Rex Manning Day on Monsters!

Episode 3.4 “Cellmates”

(Dir by Stephen Tolkin, originally aired on October 21st, 1990)

Timothy Danforth (Maxwell Caulfield) is a rich American kid who has gotten in trouble while visiting Mexico.  He was arrested after hitting a kid with his car and then punching out the kid’s father, who just happened to be a cop.  After Danforth was arrested, the cops looked inside his car and found a lot of drugs.  Convinced (perhaps correctly) that Danforth is a drug dealer and a smuggler, the cops promptly toss him into a filthy jail cell.

The cocky Danforth is convinced that his father will soon free him from the prison.  However, in the next cell, an old man (Ferdy Mayne) says that Danforth has been tossed into a special cell.  It’s a cell that is reserved for the worst of the worst.  The Old Man says that no one ever leaves the cell.  At first, Danforth laughs off the old man’s claims but, at night, the Old Man dissolves into a puddle of liquid that enters Danforth’s cells and attempts to attack him.  Danforth survives but when he tells his lawyer and his jailers about what happened, the authorities respond by chaining Danforth to a wall, leaving Danforth at the mercy of the Old Man.

It’s a pretty good thing that Danforth is such an unlikable and downright loathsome character because, otherwise, this would be a really disturbing episode.  Instead, Danforth is a stereotypical rich kid who thinks that he can get away with anything and that the rules don’t apply to him.  He shows no remorse about having hit a kid with his car.  He’s cocky and arrogant from the minute we see him.  He’s exactly the kind of guy who gives Americans abroad a bad name.  In the end, it’s hard not to feel that he really doesn’t have anyone but himself to blame for his predicament.  He’s a victim of his own very bad choices and he’s so confident that he’s untouchable that his final fate feels like karma.

This is a pretty simple episode.  A bad guy falls victims to his own stupidity.  There’s nothing likable about Timothy Danforth, though Maxwell Caulfield certainly does a good job in the role.  Caulfield plays Danforth as being an incredibly spoiled brat, someone who has never been held responsible for his actions and who can’t believe that he’s actually in real trouble.  Surprisingly, Caulfield almost gets you to feel sorry for Danforth at the end of the episode.  Danforth really had no idea what he was getting himself involved with.  That said, in the end, bad decisions are bad decisions and Danforth has no one to blame but himself.

This was an effective episode, with a lot of atmosphere and a good performance from Maxwell Caulfield.  So far, Season 3 of Monsters is off to a good start.

 

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 5.12 “Take a Letter, Vicki/The Floating Bridge Game/The Joy of Celibacy”

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!

Set sail for adventure, your mind on a new romance….

Episode 5.12 “Take a Letter, Vicki/The Floating Bridge Game/The Joy of Celibacy”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on December 12th, 1981)

Captain Stubing notices that Vicki seems to be depressed.  He asks his crew if they have any idea what’s wrong with her.

Actually, he could have just asked me.  Why is Vicki depressed?  Maybe it’s because she’s a teenage girl who spends all of her time on a boat surrounded by people who are all at least twenty to thirty years older than her?  Maybe it’s because she doesn’t have any friends her own age?   Maybe it’s because Julie’s now too coked up to be the surrogate mother figure that she was during the previous two seasons?  Seriously, there’s a lot reasons why Vicki might be depressed but they all have on solution.  Let Vicki go to school on the mainland and allow her to have some friends her own age!

The crew, however, thinks that the Captain should just hire Vicki to be his secretary.  Stubing agrees.  Vicki is happy to have a job and she immediately does the exact same thing that I would do under those circumstances.  She rearranges the captain’s entire office.  The Captain can’t find anything but personally, I think his office does look better once everything has been straightened up.  A messy office leads to a messy mind and, on a cruise ship, a messy mind can lead to a collision with an ice berg.

Vicki then issues a cheerful memo, telling all the members of the crew that they should give the Captain a daily run-down of their plans for the day.  Again, I think that makes total sense.  The crew, however, is outraged.  The Captain is worried that Vicki is taking her position too seriously but he doesn’t know how to fire her.  (When did Captain Stubing become a wimp?  This is a weird episode.)  The crew decides to give Vicki so much work that she’ll quite out of frustration but they discover that Vicki is determined to do a good job.  No one knows what to do….

LET HER HAVE FRIENDS HER OWN AGE AND A NORMAL LIFE!  THAT’S THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE TO DO!

Anyway, the overworked Vicki eventually falls asleep on the job.  The Captain uses that as an excuse to fire her.  Vicki smiles because she didn’t really enjoy the job in the first place.  Usually, the relationship between the Captain and Vicki is one of the better elements of The Love Boat but this episode left me feeling really bad for Vicki.  She’s really missing out on the best years of her life.

As for the other two stories, neither was very interesting.  A bridge club made up of four widows takes the cruise and are shocked when one of them (played by Nanette Fabray) decides she would rather spend time with a handsome dentist (Robert Alda) than play bridge.  My question here is why would you spend money to play bridge on a cruise while you could just play at home for free.  If you’re on a cruise, enjoy the scenery!  Don’t just play bridge.  Meanwhile, Barry Styles (Jim Trent) pretended to be a big believer in celibacy in order to get “ice queen” Linda Trent (Carlee Watkins) to fall for him.  Doc and Gopher made a bet on whether or not he would be successful.  DOC!  GOPHER!  You two know you’re better than that!

This week’s cruise was just sad.  The bridge club wasted a lot of money.  Linda was the center of a misogynistic bet.  Vicki is still going to be lonely and depressed next week.  What a sad trip on The Love Boat.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 1.1 “Pilot”

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.

Last month, we finished up Baywatch Nights.  For our next show, we have Pacific Blue, which was often described as being Baywatch On Bikes.  Before watching the episode reviewed below, I had only seen one previous episosde of Pacific Blue.  I was in Rome and the episode was dubbed into Italian.

As I sit here typing this, it is currently 32 degrees and windy outside.  On Thursday, we’re supposed to get hit with ice and snow.  Fortunately, on Pacific Blue, it’s forever summer!  Let’s dive right in with the first episode!

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by Ralph Hemecker, originally aired on March 2nd, 1996)

Welcome to Santa Monica in the 90s!

The skies are sunny, the ocean is blue, everyone’s wearing a bikini or a swimsuit, and the cops are on bikes!

The pilot for Pacific Blue opens with Officers Victor Del Toro (Marcos A. Ferraez) and Cory McNamara (Paula Trickey) riding their bikes down the boardwalk and talking about how criminals and even citizens often don’t pay them enough respect because they’re on bicycles.  And, to be honest, they do look pretty silly riding their bicycles with their grim “I am the Law” facial expressions.  Judge Dredd would never be caught dead on a bicycle.

When Victor and Cory catch a couple of graffiti-spraying vandals, they get to show off what they can do with their bicycles.  “They can run but we can fly,” Victor says as he takes off after the fleeing vandals.  And …. no, sorry.  The bikes still look dorky.  I don’t care how many bad guys the bike cops capture.  The dark shorts and the crisp white t-shirts and the Schwinn bicycles, none of it is intimidating.

Chris Kelly (Darlene Vogel) was once a hotshot Navy pilot until her eyesight dipped below 20/20 and she was discharged.  (You have to have 20/20 eyesight to fly a plane?  Well, I’ll add that to my list of things that I will never be allowed to do!)  Chris joined the Santa Monica police force and found herself assigned to tell kids not to go off with strangers while wearing a milk carton costume.  After Chris catches some drug dealers (again, while dressed up like a milk carton), she is transferred out of public relations and over to …. BIKE PATROL!

Her new boss, Tony Palermo (Rick Rossovich), explains that Chris will require three days of bicycle training before she’s officially a member of Bike Patrol.  In one montage, Chris learns how to ride a bike like a …. well, I would say like a “badass,” except for the fact that she’s on a dorky Schwinn.  She is then partnered up with TC Callaway (Jim Davidson), who orders her to lose the attitude when it comes to riding her bike.  No one is too good for bike patrol!

TC’s girlfriend, Sandy (Cindy Ambuehl), thinks TC should get a job working for his wealthy father.  TC’s younger brother agrees.  But TC loves the beach.  He loves chasing criminals.  He loves riding his bike!  TC was born to work with ocean in the distance and sand getting stuck in the spokes of his bike,

Speaking of criminals, someone has stolen Mayor Mickey Dolenz’s car.  (Mickey Dolenz appears as himself.)  The Bike Patrol takes down a bunch of car thieves and closes down their chop shop.  It’s a standard cop show plot but keep in mind that this is just the first episode.  The purpose of a first episode is to introduce all the characters and explain the premise of the show.  And that’s what this pilot did so technically, this episode has to be considered a success.

The only problem — and I have a feeling that I’ll be coming back to this point frequently over the next two years or so — is that the Bike Patrol looks incredibly dorky.  Pacific Blue was obviously meant to capitalize on the success of Baywatch but the thing with Baywatch is that, as incredibly dumb as that show could be, the slow motion running looked cool.  The members of the Bike Patrol riding their bikes up and down the beach just look silly.

That said, the beach scenery was nice to look at and this show does seem like it might have the potential to be fun in a so-bad-it’s-good sort of way.  So, we’ll see what happens.  By the end of this month, I’ll either be happy that I picked this show to review or I’ll be cursing my terrible judgment.  We’ll find out soon enough.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.22 “The Ghost’s Story/The Spoilers”

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, season 5 comes to an end.

Episode 5.22 “The Ghost’s Story/The Spoilers”

(Dir by Don Chaffey, originally aired on May 8th, 1982)

The latest batch of guests are arriving and Julie is nowhere to be seen!  Perhaps that’s because, as Mr. Roarke explains to Tattoo, Julie is helping out a guest who has an invisibility fantasy.  Tattoo and Roarke watch as the guest walks by.  His body may be invisible but his pants are not.

This is the final episode of the fifth season and it’s also the final episode in which Wendy Schaal will be credited as a part of the cast.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the Julie character but it still seems like a bit of a shame that she didn’t get to do anything in the finale.  Then again, this episode doesn’t really feel like a finale.  I don’t know what was going on behind the scenes during the fifth season but it’s hard not to feel, with the way that Julie and Tattoo have randomly shown up in different stories, that the season’s episodes were not shown in the order in which they were filmed.  Maybe all the Julie episodes were filmed at one time, while Herve Villechazie was off doing something else.  Who knows?  It’s just been a strange season.

That’s all wonderful and interesting, Lisa …. But what about this week’s fantasies!? you may be asking.

They both feel a bit familiar.  That’s not always a bad thing, of course.  Fantasy Island is a comfort show and a part of the comfort is knowing that things are always going to play out in a certain way.  But, with this episode, both fantasies felt as if they had been done better in the past.

Harry (Bo Hopkins) is a bounty hunter who comes to the Island to track down fugitive Nick Tanner (Robert Fuller).  Nick has been accused of robbing a bank and is hiding out on a nearby island.  Harry goes to the island but he soon discovers that Nick is innocent and that the real bank robbers have also come to the island in search of Nick.  Luckily, there’s a widow named Juliet (Jo Ann Pflug) who is also living on the island.  Harry and Nick hide out at her place before they all team up to defeat the real bank robbers.  Nick and Juliet fall in love and Mr. Roarke performs one of his trademark wedding ceremonies.  Nick and Juliet then board the plane back to America and …. wait a minute, what about Harry?  It was his fantasy!  We don’t ever see Harry leave Fantasy Island.  Maybe he’s still living there.

(Personally, I think he married Julie and that’s why she was no longer working there once season six began.  I like that.  Consider it to be canon.)

The other fantasy is a haunted house story.  Amanda Parsons (Tanya Roberts) comes all the way from Baltimore to spend 24 hours in one of Fantasy Island’s many haunted houses.  Two other paranormal investigators attempt to do it before Amanda but they end up fleeing after two minutes.  I’m not sure why.  The manor looks creepy but it turns out that the ghost is a rather wimpy and not at all frightening guy named Timothy Black (Dack Rambo).  Cursed by his own father after Timothy refused to fight a duel with Captain Fitzhugh Ross (John McCook), Timothy has spent two hundred years haunting the old manor.  Amanda takes sympathy on him.  It turns out that Ross’s descendant is also on the Island.  Timothy challenges him to a duel, causing the latest Ross to run in fear.  Timothy and his ghost dad (John Myhers) realize it’s okay to be scared of getting shot.  Ghost Dad asks Roarke to bring Timothy back to life so that he can pursue his romance with Amanda.  Roarke does just that, despite the fact that, in many previous episodes, Roarke has specifically said that he cannot bring the dead back to life.

Usually, I enjoy Fantasy Island‘s haunted house fantasies but this one didn’t do much for me.  I think it’s because the ghost was just too wimpy.  There’s nothing more annoying than a whiny a dead guy,

And so ends this very odd season.  Next week, we being season 6!

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.3 “Valley Go Home!”

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!

This week, Ponch and Jon go to the beach!

Episode 3.3 “Valley Go Home!”

(Dir by Barry Crane, originally aired September 29th, 1979)

There’s been a string of thefts at the beach.  Someone is stealing radios out of cars and then making a fast getaway.  Somehow, this thief is able to blend in so well with everyone else that no one even notices him breaking into the cars until it’s too late.  Jon and Ponch have been assigned to patrol the beach and keep the radios safe.

Of course, Jon and Ponch don’t just worry about radio thieves.  When two women lose control of their car while towing a sailboat, Jon and Ponch are there to not only help them stop the car but also to ask them out on a windsurfing date.  (Every episodes of CHiPs found a way to promote the so-called “California lifestyle.”  It was probably one of the most effective tourism commercials ever filmed.  I don’t even swim and this episode still made me want to go wind surfing.)  They also get involved in the rivalry between three local white surfers and a group of Latino teenagers from the Valley.  Both groups drive Chevy vans with ornate decals.  One gets the feeling that the blonde surfers call their van the “Second Base Mobile.”

This is an episode of CHiPs that takes place at the beach so you’ve probably already guessed that it doesn’t take long for Ponch to find an excuse to put on a speedo.  Baker and Ponch not only work together but they also hang out together.  On the show, they’re best friends.  (Behind-the-scene, Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada were not quite so close.)  They spend a lot of time at the beach, eating ice cream.  Baker wears modest swim trunks.  Ponch walks around in his speedo and shows off his dazzling smile.  One gets the feeling that, if this episode had been made in 1999 instead of 1979, Ponch would have been handing out AOL CDs to everyone he met and saying, “When you sign up, I get fifteen free minutes to talk to you.”

Ponch has a theory that the radio thief is disguising himself as someone who works at the beach.  (Needless to say, Ponch comes up with the theory while Baker agrees because, on CHiPs, everything was much pretty much about Ponch.)  Ponch suspects that the thief might be the local ice cream man.  Ponch and Baker eat a lot of ice cream in this episode.  Eventually, it turns out to be the local trash collector.  The ice cream man is off the hook!

As far as the surfers and the Valley kids are concerned, it all works out.  Of course, it works out in the most dangerous way possible, with the surfers and the Valley kids chasing each other in their vans and both crashing their vehicles.  After 48 hours in jail, all of them are back on the beach.  The surfers agree to teach the Valley kids how to handle a board.  The Valley kids agree to take the surfers to Mexico.  Ponch and Jon have a good laugh before going windsurfing.  How can you not love California?

This was a pretty silly episode but the beach scenery was nice.  It’s hard for me to not enjoy a show that features not one but two vans.  All hail the 70s!

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 3.12 “Down For The Count: Part One”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Miami Vice says goodbye to a friend.

Episode 3.12 “Down For The Count: Part One”

(Dir by Richard Compton, originally aired on January 9th, 1987)

Larry Zito finally gets his own episode!

Played by John Diehl, Larry Zito was a part of the show from the very beginning.  Occasionally, it’s easy to forget that Diehl was a part of the ensemble because his character was rarely given anything to do and we rarely learned that much about Zito.  He was Switek’s partner and he seemed to have a quirky sense of humor.  Occasionally, he had long hair and a beard and he seemed to enjoy wearing elaborate disguises while working undercover.  That said, Zito was always a bit of an enigma.  Even the rare episodes that centered on the Switek/Zito partnership seemed to feature Zito mostly in the background.

In this episode, though, we finally learn a bit about Zito.  We learn that he has a background as a boxer and he’s good at training other fighters.  We learn that he takes it seriously whenever he hears about a crooked promoter manipulating a boxer.  We learn that Zito is a recovering alcoholic.  In this episode, we learn that Zito is more than just goofy comic relief.  He’s got a heart as gold.  When the Vice Squad investigates a crooked promoter named Guzman (Pepe Serna), Zito takes it upon himself to train an up-and-coming boxer named Bobby Sykes (Mark Breland).  Bobby’s previous trainer (played by Randall “Tex” Cobb) was a friend of Zito’s and was murdered by Guzman.  For Zito, this case is personal.  He even helps Bobby win a championship.  Yay, Zito!  That’s not bad for a supporting character!

Unfortunately, this also leads to Zito dying.  After the fight, Zito is confronted by Guzman and his men.  Switek later finds Zito’s body in the gym with a hypodermic needle sticking out of his arm.  Guzman gave Zito a fatal overdose of heroin.

This really depressed me!  I mean, Zito finally gets a chance to handle a serious case and, even more importantly, John Diehl finally gets a chance to show off the fact that he’s a very good actor and then, at the end of the episode, Zito’s dead!  Poor Zito!

(From what I’ve read, John Diehl wanted off the show because he felt his role was underwritten and he also preferred doing theater to weekly television.  That’s understandable.  At least he got one turn in the spotlight before he was written off the show.)

Needless to say, this episode is dominated by the death of Zito.  The scene with a tearful Switek cradling Zito’s dead body makes such an impression that it’s easy to forget that this episode also featured the odd spectacle of Don King playing Mr. Cash, an ex-con turned honest fight promoter who disapproves of Guzman’s tactics.  Somehow, Don King being the voice of integrity makes sense in the topsy-turvy world of Miami Vice.  King says that Guzman is in Miami because it’s a brand new territory and a place where anyone can make it rich.  That’s been one of the recurring themes of this show since it began.  Anything can happen in Miami.  Including Larry Zito dying….

Give me a moment to wipe away the tears.  Seriously, the end of this episode really depressed me!

Next week, Switek is out for revenge.  I hope he gets it!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi High 4.6 “Nobody’s Perfect”

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 Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1989 to 1991!  The series can be streamed on YouTube!

Oh Romeo, Romeo….

Episode 4.6 “Nobody’s Perfect”

(Dir by Eleanore Lindo, originally aired on December 5th, 1989)

This week’s episode is all about relationships, good and bad.

Patrick (Vincent Walsh), a student from Ireland, sees that Spike is wearing a Pogues t-shirt and asks her out.  Spike replies that she wants to but she can’t because she has to take care of baby Emma at night.  Patrick suggests a day date instead.  Spike agrees, even if she’s still struggling to deal with her feelings about Shane.

(Shane, having suffered brain damage after a bad LSD trip, is not enrolled at Degrassi High.  We won’t see him again until the third season premiere of Degrassi: The Next Generation.)

Meanwhile, despite having broken up with him so that she can date “Clode,” Caitlin still volunteers to be Joey’s scene partner for home room.  They’re supposed to perform a scene from Romeo and Juliet and …. yeah, there’s no way that’s going to be awkward, right?  Caitlin tells Joey that, even though they’ve broken up, she hopes they can still be friends.  Joey awkwardly says, “Yeah.”  They talk about why they broke up.  Caitlin even says, “It’s not you, it’s me.”  Those of us who know our Degrassi history know that this is a scene that’s going to be frequently repeated over the next twenty years or so.

Finally, Kathleen has convinced herself that she’s totally in love with Scott.  Afterall, Scott is always telling Kathleen how much he loves her.  He gives her jewelry.  He sends her flowers.  He wants her to spend all of her free time with him.  Of course, when Scott isn’t doing all of that, he’s beating on her and telling her that she’s stupid for wanting to have any interests outside of being his girlfriend.  When Kathleen is disappointed to discover that she hasn’t been cast in the school play, Scott informs her that she’s just not a very good actress and she shouldn’t worry about it.  When Kathleen says that she wants to try out for a play at the community center, Scott tells her that she needs to make time for him.  When Kathleen tries to have lunch with her friends, Scott drags her away so that she can have lunch with him.  When Kathleen stays after school to practice a scene with her scene partner (who happens to be Luke, the guy who gave Shane the acid), Scott goes absolutely crazy and beats her up in the classroom.

“Kathleen,” Scott insists as Kathleen finally walks away from him, “I love you!”

Kathleen turns to look at him.  We get a freeze frame of her bruised face and then the insanely cheerful Degrassi theme music starts playing.  It makes for an interesting juxtaposition.  (Combining cheerful music with depressing freeze frames was a Degrassi tradition.)

This episode deserves a lot of credit for realistically portraying Kathleen and Scott’s relationship and Scott’s abusive personality.  Everything that an abuser does — from the gaslighting to the subtle insults and the sudden accusations to the desperate begging for forgiveness — is present in this episode and Kathleen’s reactions (“I can change him!”) are all too real.  Degrassi High was a show that dealt with real issues and it usually managed to do it without resorting to melodrama or false hope.  The thing that makes this episode so powerful is that we don’t know if Kathleen had the courage to reject Scott after that freeze frame or, if like so many other girls and women in the same situation, she once again forgave her abuser.  Rebecca Haines deserves a lot of credit for her performance here, as does Byrd Dickens, who is terrifying as Scott.  This episode was Degrassi High at its best and most important.