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Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.20 “Mesmer’s Bauble”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, things get dark.

Episode 2.20 “Mesmer’s Bauble”

(Dir by Armand Mastroianni, originally aired by May 1st, 1989)

Howard Moore (Martin Neufeld) is the latest in a long line of nerdy Friday the 13th villains.  With his long hair, unwashed appearance, and crazy eyes, Howard is an easy target for some of the less compassionate citizens of Canada.  Of course, Howard doesn’t help things by having a totally creepy personality.  He works in a vinyl record store, where he offers up unsolicited music advice to the teenage customers, the majority of whom giggle awkwardly whenever he’s nearby.  Howard is obsessed with a singer named Angelica (Vanity) but there’s no way Howard could ever actually meet her.

Or at least, that’s the case until he finds Mesmer’s Bauble.  Having once belonged to the inventor of hypnotism, this crystal pendant grants Howard anything that he asks for, as long as he first uses it to hypnotize people and then kill them.  (It turns out that merely looking at the pendant is enough to send someone into a hypnotic trance.)  As with so many Friday the 13th villains, Howard quickly comes to love having the power to kill people.  I’ve always felt that the majority of this show’s villains are basically addicts.  Instead of being addicted to drugs, they’re addicted to the rush of power that comes with using a cursed antique to get what they want.  That’s certainly the case with Howard.

At first, Howard thinks that he wants Angelia to love him.  He kills both her publicist and her manager in order to get closer to her.  But, once he’s finally close to her, Howard apparently realizes that he actually wants to be Angelica.  In an effectively nightmarish sequence, Howard and Angelica’s body appear to merge into one.  Howard literally turns into Angelia while Angelica presumably withers away into nothingness.  Howard is now Angelica, which will undoubtedly upset Ryan, who has bought two tickets for Angelica’s latest show.

It’s up to Micki and Ryan to recover the pendant and they manage to do so in the most anticlimactic way possible.  They go to Angelica/Howard’s concert and Micki grabs the pendant while Angelica/Howard is singing.  Without the pendant, Angelica dissolves into Howard and then a panicked Howard is promptly electrocuted on stage.

Howard’s dead but so are a lot of other people.  At the shop, Micki and Ryan confess to Jack that they feel that they failed because so many people died before they got the pendant.  Jack shrugs and basically tells them “that’s life.”  What a dark ending!  Actually, it was rare that Friday the 13th didn’t end on a dark note.

This was an effectively creepy episode, one that worked because of just how dark it allowed things to get.  Even Jack pointed out that the pendant’s powers didn’t always make sense, which made it even more dangerous in the hands of someone like Howard.  There were a few loose ends.  I found it a bit odd that there wasn’t a bigger public reaction to a famous black woman turning into an ugly white guy and then dying in front of a crowded club.  In fact, the show left it a bit unclear as to what actually happened to Angelica after Howard transformed into her but I’m going to guess it was nothing good.  In the end, though, this episode was effectively macabre.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 1.4 “Cora and Arnie”

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’s episode made me cry.

Episode 1.4 “Cora and Arnie”

(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on November 23rd, 1982)

While orderly Luther (Eric Laneuville) practices his karate moves in the hallway and anesthesiologist Vijay (Kavi Raz) composes a letter to his family in India and Dr. Fiscus continues his sex-only relationship with Kathy Martin, four patients learn about life and death at St. Eligius.

One of them is an unnamed man (Lionel Mark Smith) who comes in with a complaint of backpain.  Fiscus examines him and discovers that the man has been shot in the back.  The man announces that he’s on parole and he doesn’t feel like going back to prison.  Fiscus offers to admit him under an assumed name but the man says he already gave his real name to the front desk.  The man tries to leave the hospital but collapses from pain and blood loss.  Later, when the man wakes up, Fiscus tells him that the bullet has been removed and he’ll be fine.  The man says he won’t be fine because he’s going to go back to prison as soon as he leaves the hospital.

Meanwhile, Kathleen McAllister, who has been in a coma ever since Andrew Reinhardt set off a bomb at a bank, finally dies.  Reinhardt, when he’s informed of the news, sneers.  He doesn’t care that she died.  He’s all about the class struggle.  (If this show was made today, he’d have thousands of followers on Bluesky.)  When Dr. Beale tries to examine him to determine if he’s mentally ill, Reinhardt spits in his face.  Reinhardt is convinced that nothing will ever happen to him but, after Kathleen dies, he’s informed that he’s being taken to prison.  As Reinhardt is rolled out of his hospital room, Kathleen’s husband (Jack Bannon) appears in the hallway and shoots him dead.

George (Bernard Behrens) and Lillian Rogers (Anne Gerety) are tourists who are visiting Boston.  When Lillian faints in her hotel room, George rushes her to the hospital.  Lillian says she’s feeling fine but she still goes through a series of tests to determine why she fainted.  In the end, the tests are inconclusive.  No one can figure out why she fainted so she’s told to just see her family doctor when she returns home.  When George and Lillian check out of the hospital, they are presented with the bill for all the tests.  George freaks out when he sees that he’s being charged …. $1,380.90!

Now, admittedly, that is $1,380.90 in 1982 money.  If George received the same bill today, it would be for $4,517.10.  Still, considering all the tests that Lillian had done, that seems remarkable cheap, even by today’s standards.  My father died in August and the majority of his medical costs were covered by insurance but his estate is still receiving bills from various hospitals, specialists, and ambulance services.  I’ve been told that the same thing happened when my mom passed away in 2008.  (Personally, I think if someone dies while in your care, you’ve forfeited your right to be paid.)  By today’s standards, having to pay less that $5,000 feels like a bargain!

Finally, and most heart-breakingly, Dr. Morrison takes care of a homeless woman named Cora (Doris Roberts), who comes into the hospital with her companion, Arnie (James Coco).  Due to a head injury, Arnie is almost childlike.  While Cora learns that a case of gangrene is going to kill her unless she gets her foot amputated, Arnie repeatedly asks, “Can we go now?”  In the end, Cora chooses not to have the surgery, leaving the hospital with Arnie.  As she explains to Dr. Morrison, someone has to take care of Arnie and she can’t do that with just one foot.  When Morrison tells Cora that she’s probably going to die in a year, Cora shrugs and says it won’t be any great loss.

OH MY GOD!  Seriously, I was in tears at the end of this episode.  The Cora and Arnie story had the potential to be a bit too schmaltzy for its own but Doris Roberts and James Coco both gave such incredibly moving performances that I couldn’t help but get emotionally involved in their plight.  And I understood why Cora made the decision that she did.  Having been rejected by both her family and society, Cora knew that there wouldn’t be anyone around to take care of her after the operation.  So, she decided to accept things the way that they were and spend her last year with the one person who didn’t judge her, Arnie.  (I’m getting teary-eyed just writing about it.)  Playing out against all the other petty dramas going on at the hospital, this storyline was emotionally devastating.

This was a powerful episode.  Watching it, I understood why St. Elsewhere is so often described as being one of the best medical shows of all time.

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.4 “Another Kind of War, Another Kind of Peace”

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, Jonathan and Mark bring together a family.

Episode 3.4 “Another Kind of War, Another Kind of Peace”

(Dir by Dan Gordon, originally aired on October 15th, 1986)

Clancy (Eugene Roche) is an old man who has never gotten over the death of his son in Vietnam.  He lives alone in an apartment in Los Angeles.  His only friend is Guido Liggio (Ernest Borgnine), an Italian taxi driver who lives next door.  Guido, who came to this country as a refugee during World War II, is the type of salt-of-the-Earth character who says stuff like, “Clancy, how come you no be a-nice to the people?”  And Clancy is the type of bitter old man who says stuff like, “Don’t ask me for money, ya bum!”

Jonathan and Mark show up at Clancy’s apartment and inform him that they work for an agency that brings refugees to the United States.  They explain that Clancy’s son had a child in Vietnam.  Now, both Clancy’s grandchild and the grandchild’s mother are in the United States and they need somewhere to stay.  Clancy is angered by the news, claiming that the mother is lying and just trying to get into the country.  But eventually, he agrees to allow Lan Nguyen (Haunani Minn) and Michael Nguyen (Ernie Reyes, Jr.) to stay in his apartment.  He even agrees to give Michael lunch money so that Michael won’t starve at school.  Otherwise, Clancy says that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with either of them.

Guido, on the other hand, is more than willing to host Lan and Michael.  He’s a refugee himself and, even more importantly, he’s everyone’s favorite character actor, Ernest Borgnine!  But Jonathan and Mark understand that their assignment is to bring together Clancy and his grandson.  Guido is a nice guy but he’s not Michael’s grandfather.

At school, a bully (Adam Gifford) is stealing Michael’s lunch money.  When Michael says that he needs the money for food, the bully threatens to hurt Clancy.  What a jerk!  Seriously, check out this totally 80s bully:

When the principal tells Mark and Jonathan that Michael has been spending his lunchtime searching for food in the school dumpsters, Jonathan tells Clancy.  Clancy, angered that his money is being wasted, heads down to the school and confronts the bully.  Jonathan briefly gives Clancy and Michael “the stuff,” which allows them to beat up the bully and his entire gang.  This experience brings grandson and grandfather together.  So, I guess the message here is that violence is the answer.  Forget about that turning the other cheek stuff.  Instead, just throw your bully through a car window.

This episode was pretty much what most people picture when they think of a typical Highway to Heaven episode.  It was unabashedly sentimental and a bit simplistic in its approach.  It was earnest enough to be likable though a bit too heavy-handed for its own good.  Any show that features Ernest Borgnine as a special guest star is not exactly going to deliver anything resembling a subtle story.  While this episode was never quite as good as I wanted it to be, I was still glad that Michael and his mother found a home.

Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.20 “The Older Woman”

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, things get even dumber than usual.  Forever summer!

Episode 1.20 “The Older Woman”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on April 11th, 1999)

Tracyee wants to try to out for the Lakers cheerleading squad.  Unfortunately, she makes the mistake of sharing her plans with Samantha and Stads, both of whom are morally offended that Tracyee would actually want to do something that could bring her 1) a steady income and 2) the fame that she’s desperately been searching for since this show started.  Stads and Sam both declare cheerleading to be sexist and degrading.  However, when they find out that the auditions will be televised, they decide to try out so that they can denounce the Lakers on television.

(Of course, unless the try-outs are being aired live, it’s probable that anything Samantha or Stads said would have been edited out of the program.  Add to that, it doesn’t seem to occur to either one of them that they would also probably be ruining Traycee’s chance of making the squad as well.)

Now, I should point out that this is just the B-story.  Only a few scenes are devoted to Murray training Sam, Stads, and Traycee before their try-outs.  In the end, Murray is such a good coach that he’s the one hired for the cheerleading squad.  The most (and really the only) interesting thing about this B-story is that it shows just how unlikeable and one-dimensional both Sam and Stads became as the first season progressed.  There’s really no reason for them to even involve themselves in Traycee’s quest to become a Lakers Girl.  Traycee indicates that she knows that it’s all sexist and exploitive but — and this is key — she doesn’t care.  As soon as Traycee indicates that she doesn’t care, that’s the signal for Stads and Sam to back off.

(One of the consistent things about all of the teen sitcoms produced by Peter Engel was that feminists, whether they were Jessie Spano on Saved By The Bell or Julie on Hang Time, were always portrayed as being shrill, humorless, and, worst of all, hypocritical.)

As for the main plot — hey, it’s stupid too!  In fact, it’s both stupid and creepy!  Peter has hired a graphic artist named Laura (Odile Corso) to redesign the restaurant’s menus.  Peter seems to like Laura and Jason decides that he’s going to help his father get laid.  (He doesn’t put it that way but that’s still the general idea.)  However, while Jason is trying to convince his father to ask out Laura, Laura decides to ask out Jason.

This is a bit awkward, seeing as how Jason is supposed to be a high school student!  Even worse, the episode ends with Peter explaining that Laura was too young for him and suggesting that Jason should have asked her out.  Again, why would a successful and attractive woman in her mid-to-late 20s want to date a shallow high school student who works in his father’s restaurant?  This is not the first time that I’ve wondered if this show’s writers remembered that Jason and Scott were established, at the start of the season, as being high school students.  Then again, even if Jason wasn’t a high school student, he would still be a sociopathic nepo baby so maybe Laura just has bad taste in general.  As for Peter, he ends up dating a dentist, who is played by Deborah Shelton (who, in presumably better times, had a key role in Brian DePalma’s Body Double).

This was a dumb episode, even by the standards of Malibu, CA.

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.1 “Stressed Environment”

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, we begin the third season of Monsters!

Episode 3.1 “Stressed Environment”

(Dir by Jeffrey Wolf, originally aired on September 30th, 1990)

The third season of Monsters starts off with the story of an experiment gone wrong.

For twelve years, Dr. Elizabeth Porter (Carol Lynley) has been experimenting with lab rats, trying to help them evolve into a higher form of intelligence.  Her work is supervised by Dr. Robert Winston (Victor Raider-Wexler) and her assistants are the cowardly Keith (Scott Weir) and Gina (Kathleen McCall).  The episode opens with a lengthy (by Monsters standards) scene of Gina undressing and then putting on her special rat feeding uniform while Keith tries to discreetly watch.  It’s a scene that really has little to do with the rest of the episode but I guess the producers of Monsters decided that the best way to survive to a fourth season would be to appeal to teenage boys.

Anyway, Keith’s crush on Gina comes to naught because Gina is killed while trying to feed the rats.  It turns out that the rats have gotten smart.  They’ve gotten smart enough to build crude spears and crossbows and use them as weapons.  Dr. Winston wants to shut the experiment down.  Keith wants to go home.  Elizabeth, however, wants to protect her rats and see if she can convince them to give up their weapons and live in peace.  Dr. Winston points out that if humans can’t convince their own species to do that, how is Elizabeth going to convince a bunch of rats?

And Dr. Winston has a point.  Elizabeth may think that she has a special bond with the rats but the rats disagree.  Soon, Gina is not the only person to have lost their life to an army of spear-carrying rats.  The episode ends with Keith as the sole survivor and his ultimate fate is still up in the air.  The rats are angry, ruthless, and armed.

And cute!

Seriously, this episode probably might have been more effective if the rats themselves have been a bit more frightening but it wouldn’t have been as much fun.  As it is, the use of crude puppets actually made the rats look kind of adorable, especially when they were holding their little spears and setting up their little crossbows.  Of course, one reason why I found the rats to be cute is because I’m used to CGI.  I take CGI for granted.  This episode was made when special effects people still had to use puppets for their monsters and, as a result, the rats don’t really look like rats.  They’re so fake-looking that it’s hard not to like them.  They’re a throw-back to a simpler and more innocent time.

This was actually a pretty entertaining episode and a great way to start season 3!  I appreciated that this episode of Monsters featured actual monsters.  After the uneven batch of episodes that finished up the second season of this show, it’s nice to season 3 starting off on the right foot.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 5.8 and 5.9 “Farnsworth’s Fling/Three in a Bed/I Remember Helen/Merrill, Melanie & Melanesia/Gopher Farnsworth Smith”

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!

This week, we have a two-hour special!

Episodes 5.8 and 5.9 “Farnsworth’s Fling/Three in a Bed/I Remember Helen/Merrill, Melanie & Melanesia/Gopher Farnsworth Smith”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on November 21st, 1981)

The Love Boat crew is back in Australia, sailing from Sydney to Fiji and back again.  The Captain remembers his time in the Navy and a lost love who he met while serving in the South Pacific.  Julie remembers her love affair with Tony and how he left her at the altar after he discovered that he was dying.  Anthony Andrews, who played Tony, is listed as being a guest star on this episode but he only appears in archival footage.  Tony, we learn, has died but his brother, David (Brendon Lunney), assures Julie that her letters to him provided him with much comfort during his final days.

(David only appears for a minute or two, when Julie visits the animal preserve where Tony worked.  Still, in that minute, he and Julie have so much chemistry that I found myself hoping that David would spontaneously propose to her.)

As for the cruise, the majority of the cabins are populated by the relatives of William Otis Farnsworth (Lloyd Bridges).  Farnsworth is one of the richest men in the world and he’s taking a cruise with his entire family because he wants to see who is truly worthy of inheriting his fortune.  The ship is full of people looking to get rich, including:

  1. Jenny (Moran Fairchild) and Bud Boyer (Grant Goodeve), who are hoping that William will not discover that they’ve recently gotten divorced,
  2. Hazel (Patti MacLeod) and Frank Fransworth (Russell Newman), who hope that Hazel imitating William’s deceased wife will cause William to mention them favorably in his will,
  3. Marcia (Jessica Walter), who was married to William’s brother and who has basically hired gold digger Jessica Halberson (Linda Evans) to seduce and marry William, and
  4. Burl “Gopher” Smith, who thinks that he might be distantly related to William and who, with Isaac’s encouragement, tries to get close to William.  Gopher even calls his mother (Ethel Merman) to find out if he’s a relative.  She’s not much help.

Not interested in the money is William’s niece, Eloise (Beth Howland).  Eloise, who is William’s administrative assistant, finds herself falling in love with William’s valet, country boy Wayne Burton (Jim Nabors).  Words cannot begin to express just how annoying Jim Nabors is in this episode.  “Surprise surprise surpise!” Wayne says when he shows up on the boat.  “Golly!” Wayne says when a conscience-stricken Jessica tries to break up with William.  I found myself covering my ears whenever Nabors appeared on screen.

The main problem here is that none of these people are remotely likable.  Not even William Farnsworth is likable.  He’s meant to be likable but really, he comes across as being a judgmental jerk.  When Jessica tries to leave the ship and fly back to Sidney, William reacts by buying every single plane ticket on the island.  Jessica can’t leave but hey …. neither can anyone else!

Far more likable was Melanie (Margaret Laurence), the daughter of the Captain’s former lover, Madeleine.  Melanie is a dead-ringer for her mother and the Captain falls in love with her.  Melanie also falls in love with him.  She proposes marriage.  Awwww!  But then she realizes marrying the Captain would mean abandoning her job as a teacher so she calls the wedding off.  So now, both the Captain and Julie have had their heart broken in Australia.  At least they now have something to bond over.

For a two-hour episode, there really wasn’t much plot to this episode.  It was largely a travelogue.  There were a lot of kangaroos and koala bears and they were certainly cute.  The scenery was lovely.  Otherwise, this was a cruise full of rather unlikable people.  Australia deserved better.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.21 “The Vortex”

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 Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, Mitch has a day off but still has to work.

Episode 2.21 “The Vortex”

(Dir by L. Lewis Stout, originally aired on May 9th, 1997)

Mitch has the day off and he’s spending it with Ryan!  No matter what else one might say about Baywatch Nights and the direction it took as the production budget grew smaller, David Hasselhoff and Angie Harmon made for a cute couple and, as this episode began, I was kind of looking forward to watching them spend the day together.

Unfortunately, when they come across a fortune teller’s shop, Ryan insists that they go inside and discover their future.  Mitch mocks Ryan for “believing in that stuff” and says that there’s no such thing as psychic powers or being able to see the future, despite the fact that, over the course of the second season, Mitch has both gotten psychic powers and traveled through time.  Seriously, I get that Mitch was supposed to be the skeptic of the group but, by this point in the series, Mitch has seen and dealt with enough that his continual skepticism is just not believable.  Especially after last week’s episode, Mitch should be prepared to accept anything.  If this was a Lovecraft short story, Mitch would be ranting about the things he’s seen while locked away in an insane asylum.

At first, the store appears to be deserted.  Ryan sits at the fortune telling table and, when an actress (played by Priscilla Inga Taylor of Malibu CA), comes in the store, Ryan is able to tell her that she’s going to get the next role for which she auditions.  (I’d like to think that Taylor is playing her Malibu CA character, Traycee, here.)  After the actress leaves, Mitch and Ryan are suddenly joined by the owner of the shop, Wahote (Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman).  Wahote invites them to step behind a curtain and into a vortex and soon, Mitch and Ryan find themselves ten minutes into the future and watching as their future selves receive a call from Teague telling them that they need to investigate a boat that’s come back from the Amazon.  Future Mitch complains about always having to do things on his day off.  What I find strange is that neither present not future Mitch and Ryan seem to be curious as to why Teague, who apparently has connections with the CIA, is always asking the two of them to do these things.

A mysterious woman (Elaine Bilstad) shows up and says something about pollution and the rain forests.  Mitch and Ryan jump around in time and eventually, future Ryan and Mitch have to help present Ryan and Mitch get off the boat because the boat is full of mutants that have been created by pollution.  Or something.  To be honest, I had a hard time following the plot of this one.  Time travel nonsense is always a bit difficult for me to follow and the constantly moving camera was a bit of a distraction.

To give credit where credit is due, this episode had a good deal of atmosphere and, as I said earlier, Hasselhoff and Harmon were a likable team.  But the episode’s story was nearly incoherent and the fact that Mitch was still a skeptic at the end of the episode required too great of a suspension of disbelief.  During this episode, all I could think about was how obvious it was that Baywatch Nights was on its last legs.

Speaking of which …. next week, we finish up Baywatch Nights!  It’s time for it all to end.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.20 “Forget-Me-Not/The Quizmasters”

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, Tattoo is still missing.

Episode 5.20 “Forget-Me-Not/The Quizmasters”

(Dir by Cliff Bole, originally aired on April 10th, 1982)

Amnesiac Ellen Layton (Jill St. John) comes to the Island in hopes of remembering who she was in her past life.  Ever since she was tossed off a horse and struck her head, Ellen has not been able to recall a single detail of her old life.  Roarke agrees to help, using another one of those magic plants that seem to grow in abundance on Fantasy Island.  However, Roarke also shows Julie a hologram that reveals that, in her previous life, Ellen was a ruthless businesswoman who fired people at the drop of a hat.

As quickly becomes obvious, amnesiac Ellen is far happier than corporate Ellen.  Afterall, amnesiac Ellen has all sorts of friends on the Island and she even has sleazy Mike Collins (Dan Gautier) pretending to be in love with her.  (In what I believe is a Fantasy Island first, we hear the thoughts of Mike and several other men when they first learn that the wealthy and beautiful Ellen can’t remember anything about her past life.)  But when Ellen’s real husband (Brett Halsey) comes to the Island looking for her, she has to decide if she wants to go back to who she used to be or if she wants to continue being the carefree amnesiac that she’s been for the last several months.  Which will she choose?

You already know the answer to that one.  Ellen’s fantasy really wasn’t that interesting.  I preferred the first part of the show’s other fantasy.  Two game show hosts (Gene Rayburn and Jan Murray), who are both in love with the same woman (Vikki Carr), come to the Island because they want to compete in the ultimate game show.  Roarke actually sets up a game show for them, with himself as host and a studio audience.  The two men are asked a question.  The first man to answer correctly is given the choice of opening one of four doors.  Three of the doors contain prizes, like love and money.  The other door is the …. DOOR OF DEATH!

One of the joys of this episode is watching Ricardo Montalban play a game show host.  He appears to be having a blast, especially when he gets to dramatically remind the two contestants about “the Door of Death!”  And, while the two men do manage to open up two of the doors successfully (leading one contestant rescuing Vikki Carr from being burned at the stake as a witch and the other contestant robbing a 1920s bank), the third door that the two men open is THE DOOR OF DEATH!

Unfortunately, the Door of Death turns out to be a bit anticlimatic.  The two men and the women they love have to survive in the wilderness while being pursued by an archer whose fantasy is to — *sigh* — hunt the most dangerous prey of all, man.  The show just did a Most Dangerous Game knock-off just two episodes ago so why do it again?  Fortunately, both of the game show hosts and the woman they’re fighting over survive.  They leave the Island together, their love triangle unresolved.

The game show had a lot of potential but this episode was disappointing.  Unfortunately, Tattoo was not in this episode and Julie served as Roarke’s assistant.  Nothing against Julie but the whole game show thing seemed like it would have been a perfect set up for some Roarke/Tattoo banter.  This show was definitely better with Tattoo than without him.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: CHiPs 2.23 “The Greatest Adventures of CHiPs”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee!

This week, the second season of CHiPs comes to a close.  Now, if you don’t remember much about what happened during the first two seasons of the show, don’t worry.  This finale has got you covered.  But first, let’s watch the opening credits and chair dance to the CHiPs theme song.

Episode 2.23 “The Greatest Adventures of CHiPs”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on May 12th, 1979)

With Ponch and Baker absent from the morning briefing because they’ve gone to Bakersfield to teach a class, Sgt. Getraer announces to the assembled members of the High Patrol that they have been nominated for an award for going beyond the normal call of duty.  Everyone’s totally excited for Ponch and Baker.  Armed with a bulky 70s tape recorder, Grossie asks everyone for their favorite Ponch and Baker stories so that he can write a speech honoring them….

Yep, it’s a clip show.

It’s not just any clip show, either.  It’s a 90-minute clip show.  Of course, there’s only about fifteen minutes of new footage.  The rest of it is made up of scenes of Baker yelling at motorists and Ponch smiling.  Even when CHiPs attempts to show why both of them deserves a reward, it’s obvious that Baker does all the work and Ponch gets all the credit.

I understand the logic behind clip shows.  They’re cheap and it allows almost everyone to have the weekend off.  They’re not very entertaining to watch, though perhaps they carried more weight in the days before streaming and DVRs ensured that you could rewatch your favorite scenes whenever you wanted to.  They are, however, very easy to review.

This clip show marks the end of the show’s second season.  A clip show always seems like a weak way for a season (much less a show) to go out but again, I get it.  Everyone’s tired.  Everyone wants to head to Cabo for the summer.  Get us out of here!  CLIP SHOW!

(That said, this clip show does get some credit for including some pretty groovy disco footage!  SOLID!  Estrada gets to do his Travolta impersonation while everyone watches and claps.)

The second season of CHiPs was actually pretty entertaining, even if it is kind of silly just how much the show highlights Ponch over Baker.  Technically, of the two of leads, Larry Wilcox was the better actor but Erik Estrada always seemed like he was having more fun.  The second season had a few dud episodes but it also had its share of spectacular stunts and a lot of lovely California scenery.  Sindy Cahill being perfect at everything got old pretty quickly but at least Arthur “Grossie” Grossman was around to provide some comic relief.

Well, that’s it.  There’s not too much you can say about a clip show.  Next week, we’ll start season three!

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 3.10 “Streetwise”

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, Bill Paxton and Wesley Snipes walk the streets of Miami!

Episode 3.10 “Streetwise”

(Dir by Fred Walton, originally aired on December 5th, 1986)

I was excited to see that this week’s episode of Miami Vice featured guest turns from not only Wesley Snipes but Bill Paxton as well!  Then I remembered that guest stars never survive their episode and I felt a little bit sad.  I know what was coming.  Miami Vice is not a show that features happy endings.  Anyone who gets involved in Miami’s vice trade is destined to end up dead, regardless of how innocent or guilty they may be.  It’s a dark world in Miami.

Paxton plays Vic Romano, a vice cop from a neighboring precinct who is arrested during a prostitution bust.  Romano has been having an affair with Carla Cappoletti (Alice Adair), an emotionally fragile prostitute who is abused by both her pimp, Silk (Wesley Snipes), and almost all of her clients.  She knows that Vic is a cop and Vic knows that she’s a prostitute but neither one of them cares.  As Vic puts it, they’re in love.

The Vice Squad is shocked to find that Carla is carrying cocaine that is almost totally pure.  Trying to track down who is supplying Silk with the cocaine, the squad discovers that neither Carla nor Vic want to cooperate.  While Vic tries to explain things to his wife, Tubbs goes undercover as a pimp.  He bails Carla out of jail and tells her that she works for him now.  When Silk shows up to object, Tubbs easily beats him up.  Silk may talk tough but, without a gun to back him up, he’s not much of a fighter.

When Tubbs demands that Carla go to Silk and find out where he’s been getting his cocaine from, Carla refuses.  Tubbs, still pretending to be a pimp, proceeds to yell at her and tear up a hotel room.  A sobbing Carla begs Tubbs not to hurt her “too much,” and Tubbs realizes that he’s gone too far in trying to maintain his cover.  He shows Carla his badge.  It’s always kind of easy to laugh at the way that Tubbs trots out his fake Caribbean accent whenever he’s pretends to be Rico Cooper but Thomas does a really good job in this episode and he is genuinely frightening when he starts yelling at Carla.  I found myself wondering just how far Tubbs actually would go to maintain his cover and I was actually relieved when he pulled out that badge.

It ends, as things often do with this show, in a shootout.  Silk is gunned down by Crockett and Tubbs but not before Romano is shot by Silk.  Romano dies in Carla’s arms and I felt a little teary-eyed.  Bill Paxton was a wonderful actor and he gave a likable and sincere performance as Vic Romano.  Watching the episode, I never once doubted Romano’s love for Carla.  Both Snipes and Paxton were well-cast as their doomed characters.  Neither one survived the hour but I doubt anyone who watched the show ever forgot them.