Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 4.3 “Caught In The Draft”

Posted on May 27, 2026 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 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, it’s for the draft.

Episode 4.3 “Caught In The Draft”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on October 19th, 1988)

The Bulls attend the draft and screw everything up. It turns out that allowing the players to own the team was a really bad idea. In fact, it goes so badly that TD Parker (OJ Simpson) really deserves to be fired for suggesting it in the first place. But, nobody wants to get on TD’s bad side, for some reason.

How badly does it go?

The Bulls need a linebacker. Sonny Cowers, the phenom out of Louisiana, is available in the first round. Unfortunately, Mad Dog worries that, if he drafts Sonny, the Bulls will then either release or trade him. Seeing as how Mad Dog owns the team, I’m not really sure how he could be traded or released but whatever. Mad Dog picks a player that the team doesn’t need and Sonny is picked by another team.

Meanwhile, Jethro and Bubba insist on drafting an unheralded running back because they’re convinced the man is in their hotel room and threatening to commit suicide if he’s not drafted. It turns out that the man in the hotel room was just an actor and that the Bulls just got conned into drafting some fat guy from Tennessee.

The Bulls do get a new head coach when TD trades a sixth round draft pick for the new coach of Houston’s term, Ernie Denardo. That’s right, Denardo’s back!

The draft is such a disaster that the bank cancels their loan and the players are forced to sell the team to the fast food company that they were trying to avoid being purchased by in the first place.

I actually liked this episode. I enjoyed the chaos of the draft and it was hard not to laugh at the earnest stupidity of the players. Shouldn’t you guys be trying to draft a quarterback? I thought at one point and, for a second, I felt like a sports expert.

Seriously, they need do need to get a quarterback.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 4.2 “The Inmates Buy The Asylum”

Posted on May 20, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The center cannot hold.

Episode 5.2 “The Inmates Buy The Asylum”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on October 12th, 1988)

If there’s one thing that you can depend on when it comes to this show, it’s inconsistency.

Last week, the players decided to buy the team. This was portrayed as being a genius move on their part. Dr. Death dressed up in a suit and said that he was ready to be a businessman as well as a player. TD Parker (OJ Simpson) told the players that it would be a good idea to take a blade to the typical player/owner relationship.

This week, the players buy the team and everything starts to fall apart. Suddenly, the players are all too concerned with their own petty issues to be smart businessmen. Dr. Death is no longer wearing a suit and shows up for a meeting of all the team owners in a denim jacket. (All of the owners except for one walk out on him.) The team decides to fire Coach Grier. Why? They just don’t like him. T.D. delivers the news to an embittered Grier and admits that the players are not good owners. Gee, TD, maybe you shouldn’t have told them to buy the team!

In other words, the players have seized the means of production and screwed everything up. If nothing else, this episode was a good example of why communism will never work.

Meanwhile, agent Max Green was still in Louisiana, trying to sign college linebacker Sonny Clowers (Gary Kasper). Fortunately, a chance meeting with the preacher of Sonny’s church gave Max an inside track. But with the Bulls be able to get it together in time to draft him?

I guess we will find out next week. As for this episode, it felt as if the writers suddenly realized that it was a mistake to have the players buy the team so they set out to course correct at the last minute. Myself, I’m wondering how being both a player and an owner would work. Who sets the salaries? If a player is traded, is he still an owner?

Seriously, this all seems like a bad idea.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.4 “A Long Way From L.A.”

Posted on May 7, 2026 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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This episode makes the mistake of pretending to leave California.

Episode 1.4 “A Long Way From L.A.”

(Dir by Arnold Laven, originally aired on October 26th, 1984)

Bleh. This episode annoyed me.

Wally Wallerstein (Paul Eiding), a pickpocket wanted in Los Angeles, is arrested in Texas. Because he needs a break from them, Captain Cain sends Hunter and McCall to retrieve him. Wally turns out to be a nice guy but, when Hunter’s car breaks down in Wilson County, Texas, Wally is accused of attacking a local waitress and is then killed by a sniper. The real culprit is pretty obviously Sheriff Jake Cutter (Bo Svenson), who is the stepson of Chuck Easterland (Morgan Woodward), the richest man in town.

Not a single small town stereotype went unused in this episode. As a Texan, I was annoyed by the fact that everyone had a Southern (as opposed to a Southwestern) accent. And while I understand that the show probably didn’t have the budget or the time to shoot on location, it was still hard not to smirk at the sight of a very California mountain range in the background. This is the flatlands, folks. We don’t have mountains like that in Texas.

Hunter and McCall need to stay in Los Angeles.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 3.13 “Championship Jinx”

Posted on May 6, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, season 3 comes to an end.

Episode 3.13 “Championship Jinx”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 16th, 1987)

Things have a way of working themselves out on 1st & Ten, especially when the season ends and a lot of plotlines need to be hastily wrapped up.

Last week, TD Parker (OJ Simpson) was arrested under suspicion of ticket scalping. This episode, it turned out that 1) ticket scalping isn’t illegal and 2) TD’s ex-mistress quickly figured out that her boyfriend was trying to frame him. Someone trying to frame OJ Simpson!? Like anyone would ever buy that. Anyway, the main theme here seemed to be that it was a good thing TD cheated on his wife because otherwise, no one would have been around to exonerate him.

Last week, Yinessa was letting fame go to his head. This week, his father died and the funeral was a media circus. Yinessa decided to focus on playing football. That’s a good thing, seeing as how the Bulls had yet another championship game coming up.

Zagreb was concerned that he was a jinx after he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. (Yinessa told him that players who appeared on the cover often lost the spark afterwards.) Luckily, Cliff and Jethro brought in a voodoo priestess (Roxie Roker) to exorcise the jinx.

Before the game, Jill told the team that they weren’t only playing for themselves. They were playing for the memory of Tom Yinessa’s father. Unfortunately, the Bulls lost the game at the last minute when Billy Cooper’s game-winning catch was reviewed by the booth and declared to be out of bounds. So, I guess Yinessa’s father is in Hell now.

And so ends the rather odd third season. Coach Denardo left after the first episode. Delta Burke left about halfway through the season, just to be replaced by a new female owner who gave a pre-game speech that referred to all of the previous times she had gone to the Championship Game with the Bulls just to see them lose, despite the fact that she wasn’t even a part of the show’s cast during the previous two seasons. The season began with a player dying of steroid abuse and ended with OJ Simpson proving his innocence. Oh! And Zagreb discovered his father was a CIA agent and then he got married.

Was it a good season? Not really. This isn’t a good show. But season 3 was definitely a lot stranger than the previous two seasons and that’s definitely a point in 1st & Ten‘s favor.

Next week, we start season 4!

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 3.11 “Land of the Free (Agent)”

Posted on April 22, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The playoffs continue!

Episode 3.11 “Land of the Free (Agent)”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 2nd, 1987)

The Bulls are in the playoffs but they need a new running back. Jill decides to sign Brian Bozworth (Brian Bosworth), a player who was drafted by Arizona but who refused to sign his contract because he felt he wasn’t being offered enough money. TD Parker (OJ Simpson) tells Jill that it would be highly irregular for the Bulls to sign Bozworth because, technically, he still “belongs” to Arizona. Jill tells TD to take a knife to the rules and sign Bozworth.

And it’s a good thing that she did because, after some opening jitters, Bozworth plays a key role in getting the Bulls a win over Arizona in the playoffs. Recognizing what the Arizona defense is going to do, he gives Yinessa a heads up. Yinesa throws Bozworth the ball, Bozworth gets the Bulls into good field position, and Zagreb kicks the game-winning field goal.

Zagreb is only able to make that kick because Mad Dog lied to him and told him that Anna had called and agreed to marry him. The next day, at the wedding ceremony, Anna is a no-show. Or, at least, she is until Mad Dog breaks into her house, forces her to put on a wedding gown, and then carries her to the ceremony. She arrives just in time to hear Zagreb giving a speech about how much he loves her. Anna and Zagreb marry.

Finally, Jethro is upset when Bubba is offered a commercial contract with Squelch Sports Drink. Squelch doesn’t want Jethro in its commercials. But when Bubba can’t find the strength to lift a drum of Squelch and pour it over Coach Grier’s head, his contact is canceled.

This was a weird episode. A lot of stuff was going on but none of it really added up too much. At first, Bozworth seemed like a bad player and then, suddenly, he was a good player. Jethro and Bubba were arguing and then suddenly they weren’t. Zagreb got married and good for him. Zagreb is perhaps the most cartoonish character on the show but then again, 1st & Ten is rather cartoonish in general.

Anyway, the Bulls are one step closer to the Championship Game. We’ll see if they make it next week.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 3.5 “Illegal Use Of Love”

Posted on February 25, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

With their best player now dead, the Bull begin their new season.

Episode 3.5 “Illegal Use Of Love”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on September 2nd, 1987)

Uh-oh, TD Parker is cheating on his wife with assistant, Kay (Alexa Hamilton). TD explains that his wife is upset about the amount of time that he’s putting in with the team. She feels that he’s neglecting his family. She doesn’t even like football anymore!

Yep, TD has a lot of excuses for cheating on his wife but don’t think that he’s a bad guy or anything. As he tells his mistress, everything is fine except for….

As I’ve said before, probably the most interesting thing about 1st & Ten is the way that everything that OJ Simpson says now has a double meaning. At the time this was filmed, OJ was just a former football player who had become a likable if not particularly versatile actor. Watching it today in 2026 …. well, words land differently.

As the Bulls, the team is in trouble. Their season opener against Baltimore is a disaster. Yinessa is still out and demanding a new contract before he’ll play so, instead, he sits in the stands and watch as the backup quarterback throws interception after interception. Later, he tells Teddy’s daughter, Jill Schrader (Leah Ayres), that all he wants to do is play football. If that’s the case, why not sign your stupid contract and play football? Seriously, when did Yinessa get so whiny?

There’s a brief sign of hope during the Baltimore game. Dr. Death intercept a pass. But then Dr. Death runs the wrong way and gets tackled behind the other team’s goal line. A local sports commentator says that Dr. Death and Mad Dog (who blocked while Death was running the wrong way) are idiots. He’s correct but he retracts his statement after Death and Dog threaten to destroy his car.

The Bulls need a quarterback. Teddy goes behind Diane’s back and arranges a trade for arrogant Johnny Valentine, the coke-addled quarterback who Diane kicked off the team the previous season. Diane gets angry but what can she do? Teddy owns half of the team….

For now!

TD’s mistress shows TD some financial reports that show that Teddy has been making his money through insider trading. TD is shocked.

If anyone knows about illegal….

It looks like Teddy might be in some trouble. It also looks like Diane might be in some trouble as well because the other owners think that she’s failed to control the drug use on her team. (They’re not incorrect.) We’ll see what happens next week but I have a feeling that a change is coming.

And really, that change can’t come a minute too soon. Even with the steroid storyline, this season has been a snoozefest so far. Here’s hoping things perk up next week!

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 2.3 “A Second Chance”

Posted on October 29, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Things are getting crazy at training camp!

Episode 2.3 “A Second Chance”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on September 8th, 1986)

This week’s episode featured the unforgettable sight of O.J. Simpson tackling a knife-wielding Don Swayze and saving the life of Delta Burke.

Swayze was playing Clay Daniels, a tight end who was drafted by Coach Denardo, even though he apparently pulled a knife on a professor in college. After Clay threatened Johnny Valentine after he felt Valentine wasn’t throwing him the ball enough, Denardo explained that he drafted Clay because Clay can play football. Okay, Ernie, I guess that justifies having a knife-wielding maniac in the locker room….

After Denardo finally cut Clay from the team, Clay showed up at Diana’s house with a knife. Fortunately, Diana was able to call Denardo and T.D. Parker for help. Denardo showed up and promised he would give Clay a second chance. And then T.D. tackled Clay and grabbed that knife like a pro!

Meanwhile, Yinessa returned to training camp but he was not happy that his friend and roommate, wide receiver Jamie Waldren (Jeff Kaake), had a drug problem. This episode ended with Yinessa getting into a fight with someone who broke into their room in search of Waldren’s cocaine. An angry Yinessa flushed all of Waldren’s cocaine. Considering that this episode also featured Diana being named Chairperson of the League’s Anti-Drug Committee, I’m sure this won’t lead to any sort of awkwardness with the team.

Much like last week’s episode, this episode was so melodramatic and over-the-top that I couldn’t help but enjoy it. Drugs, training camp, and knives! Will the Bulls make it to the Championship Game a second year in a row? It’s not looking good but, considering that they have O.J. Simpson’s razor-sharp instincts at their disposal, I wouldn’t count them out yet!

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 2.2 “The Veterans”

Posted on October 22, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the Bulls face a dilemma. What to do with O.J. Simpson?

Episode 2.2 “The Veterans”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on September 1st, 1986)

This week, veteran running back T.D. Parker (O.J. Simpson) shows up for training camp. All of the players are excited to see him. At the bar where all of the Bulls hang out, Dr. Death (Donald Gibb) announces that T.D. Parker has had over one hundred injuries over the past twelve years but he’s still the heart and the soul of the Bulls franchise. He’s the face of the team! When people think of the Los Angeles Bulls, they think of T.D. Parker slashing through the other team on his way to an ~~acquittal~~ touchdown.

Speaking as a viewer, it seems kind of strange that this is the first that I’m really hearing about the legendary T.D. Parker. Where was he last season? The Bulls went all the way to the Championship Game but I never once heard anyone mention T.D. Parker. I certainly didn’t see him in the locker room. The Bulls actually had a totally different running back named Carl Witherspoon. Oddly, Carl seems to have vanished this season….

As for T.D., his injuries are catching up with him. Denardo and Diana are forced to confront that fact that T.D. can no longer cut it. Even in practice, he’s spilling a lot of blood on the field. Denardo cuts T.D. from the team. When T.D. says that football is all that he knows, Denardo announces that T.D. may not be playing but he’ll still be on the field …. AS A COACH! T.D. looks confused. He’ll figure it out eventually, I guess.

Meanwhile, Jeff East briefly returns as quarterback Bryce Smith but just long enough to fall out of a window at training camp and bust his knee. (He was trying to keep the new kicker — a Bosnian played by future voice of the Crypt Keeper John Kassir — from sneaking out to go into town to get drunk.) Bryce is done for the season. Veteran quarterback and all-around druggie sleaze Johnny Valentine (Sam J. Jones) becomes the new starter and Tom Yinessa is brought back to be his backup. That’ll make Yinessa’s roommate (Jeff Kaake) and Yinessa’s potential girlfriend (Katherine Kelly Lang) happy.

Finally, the NFL owners don’t want to give their players a pension or a raise. They do, however, want to give them mandatory drug tests. Diana protests but she’s overruled by the other owners, all of whom are male and in their 60s. There’s a lot of toupees and cigars at the ownership meeting.

This episode was actually kind of entertaining. That’s doesn’t mean it was good. 1st & Ten isn’t a really a show that’s ever good. But this episode did feature Sam J. Jones giving a totally over the top performance as creepy quarterback Johnny Valentine. Speaking of going over the top, the same can be said of Delta Burke’s performance this season. It would appear that between seasons one and two, Burke realized there was no need to try to be in any way subtle in her line readings. That was probably the right decision.

Next week …. who knows? I’m getting a little bored with training camp so hopefully, we’ll move on!

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 7.8 “Random Choices/My Mommy, The Swinger”

Posted on September 2, 2025 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, we have two more fantasies that do not feature Tattoo. What even is the point?

Episode 7.8 “Random Choices/My Mommy, The Swinger”

(Dir by Bob Sweeney, originally aired on December 3rd, 1983)

Elaine Ashley (Florence Henderson) is divorced and raising two kids on her own. Her fantasy is to be a swinger for the weekend! Mr. Roarke arranges for Lawrence to watch the kids and then he sets Elaine up with tennis player Martin Avery (Robert Goulet). While Lawrence attempts to explain to the kids why their mother doesn’t want them around for the weekend, Martin offers Elaine a job. It’s a good job with a nice salary but it would require her to put her children in a boarding school. On the plus side, I guess Elaine would finally get laid again since that seems to be her main concern. On the negative side, no more kids.

Elaine is tempted. In fact, Elaine is so tempted that it actually make her into a really unsympathetic character. At first, Elaine takes the job but then, when she sees how upset her children are about no longer living with her, she changes her mind. Hey, Elaine — how did you think the children would react!?

This fantasy irked me. Of course, to be absolutely honest about things, Florence Henderson irks me in general. Maybe I’m still holding the last episode of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour against her but, whenever Florence Henderson appeared on this show or on The Love Boat, the characters she played always came across as being judgmental and self-absorbed. That’s certainly the case here. You take your children to a tropical paradise and then you abandon them with the butler? Really?

As for the other fantasy, it featured Jose Ferrer as a dying billionaire who needed to find someone who he could trust to give away his money to people who deserved it. Roarke determined that person was Eddie Random (James Read), an angry young man who felt his father had been cheated by Ferrer’s tycoon. The entire fantasy came down to Eddie proving himself by taking supplies to an Island and helping a crotchety old man come to terms with the death of his wife.

This second fantasy felt like a backdoor pilot. It literally ended with Eddie and the billionaire leaving to have many more adventures. As such, the fantasy itself felt rather incomplete and …. well, silly. Why would the tycoon need Fantasy Island to help him find the right person to give away his money? Why does he even need a person to do that? He should have just arranged for a big scavenger hunt and whoever found the most items would get the money. That would have been a lot more fun.

You know who always enjoyed fantasies dealing with money? Tattoo. I miss him.

Wild Rovers (1971, directed by Blake Edwards)

Posted on May 16, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

In Montana, Walter Buckman (Karl Malden) runs his ranch with an iron hand, warning his neighbor, Hansen (Sam Gilman) not to even think of allowing his sheep to graze on his land. Walter has two sons, hot-headed John (Tom Skerritt) and the laid back and good-natured Paul (Joe Don Baker). When Walter learns that two of his ranch hands — aging Ross Bodine (William Holden) and young Frank Post (Ryan O’Neal) — have robbed a bank and are heading down to Mexico, he sends John and Paul to bring them back. Walter is a big believer in the law and he’s not going to allow any of his people to get away with breaking it.

Ross is a veteran cowboy, who only robbed the bank after Walter withheld his pay to cover the damage of a saloon fight between Ross and Hansen’s men. Frank is the wilder of the two. He looks up to Ross and Ross is protective of Frank, even if he has a hard time admitting it. Ross and Frank are heading down to Mexico so Ross can retire in peace. Instead of going straight to Mexico, though, they make the mistake of stopping by a small town so Frank can play a little poker and visit the town’s brothel.

Wild Rovers was Blake Edwards’s attempt to make an epic, revisionist western and he includes plenty of shots of the sun setting over the mountains as well as several violent shoot-outs that are shot in Peckinpah-style slow motion. Unfortunately, the story itself isn’t really strong enough to support Edwards’s ambitions and all of the shots of the countryside, while nice to look at, don’t really add up too much. Wild Rovers was also a troubled production, with MGM slashing Edwards’s original three-hour film down to 106 minutes and advertising it with a poster featuring O’Neal hugging Edwards from behind, making the film look like a buddy comedy in the style of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (or an early version of Brokeback Mountain) as opposed to a violent and elegiac western. (In 1986, a director’s cut was released, which ran for 136 minutes.) If you only know Blake Edwards from his Pink Panther movies, the grim and tragedy-filled Wild Rovers will come as a surprise.

One thing that Wild Rovers does have going for it is a good cast. William Holden and an energetic Ryan O’Neal are a solid team and Karl Malden, Tom Skerritt, Rachel Roberts, James Olson, and Moses Gunn all give good performances too. This movie also provides Joe Don Baker with a sympathetic role and he’s very likable as the laid back Paul Buckman. It’s not the type of role that Baker often got to play and it’s obvious that a lot of scenes between John and Paul were cut from the film but, in the truncated version, Joe Don Baker’s Paul Buckman becomes the moral center of the film’s story.

Wild Rovers was a disappointment at the box office, one of many that Edwards suffered in the 70s before he and Peter Sellers brought back Inspector Clouseau.