Tag Archives: television

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 11/17/24 — 11/23/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Believe it or not, I didn’t really watch anything this week (beyond, of course, the shows that I’ve been reviewing for my Retro Television Reviews).  I haven’t even watched the latest episode of Hell’s Kitchen yet.  What can I say?  Thanksgiving and Christmas are both approaching.  Erin’s birthday is on Sunday.  (Happy birthday, Erin!)  Jeff is leaving for Maryland on Monday.  It’s been a busy week and, for the most part, I’ve just been preparing for the next week.  And the week after that!

I did, on Friday night and early Saturday morning, watch Thanksgiving episodes of Bewitched and an old show called That Girl.  And then I watched an episode of Night Music, which had nothing to do with Thanksgiving.  All three of those were on YouTube.  That’s pretty much it, though.

So, the next time someone says I watch too much TV, I’ll point them to this post.  Sound good?

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 2.21 “Here Comes The Bride”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Christian gets married!

Episode 2.21 “Here Comes The Bride”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on March 15th, 1987)

Jack Christian (marvelously played by Jeff Pustil) is getting married!

He’s known the girl (Barbara Radecki) for twenty minutes and he’s not totally sure what her name is.  (It’s turns out to be Gilga.)  Gilga is the niece of Jan (Barry Baidero), the store’s never-bef0re-seen butcher.  When Jack first meets Gilga, she’s crying.  Her visa has expired.  The only way that she’s going to avoid being sent back to her home country Baclavia is if she manages to get a Canadian green card.  One quick way to do that is to get married.  Jan offers to pay Christian to marry Gilga and then divorce her after she gets her green card.  Christian agrees.

However, there’s a problem.

Christian is actually falling in love with Gilga but he doesn’t know how he can convince Gilga that his love is real.  Howard tells him that the only way to do it would be to give back the money.  That sounds simple enough but Christian really likes money.  Plus, he needs a new car….

(Maybe he could just stay married to Gilga and so charm Jan that Jan would buy him a new car just to welcome him to the family.  The possibility of anyone sincerely liking Christian is never really considered, which is kind of sad.)

This episode was fairly dumb but it was more enjoyable than the usual Check It Out! offering, if just because it focused on one of the show’s few consistently funny characters.  Since the first season, Jeff Pustil has been one of the stronger members of the cast, playing Christian as being such an unapologetic sleaze that it’s impossible not to like him.  No one should ever trust Jack Christian but he still comes across like he would be fun to catch a movie with.  Unfortunately, up until this episode, the show rarely took advantage of Pustil’s strong work as Christian.  This episode finally gives Pustil the spotlight and he manages to wring quite a few laughs out of so-so material.  Much like Gordon Clapp and Kathleen Laskey (who played Marlene and married Pustil after the show ended), Jeff Pustil brought enough odd quirkiness to his role that he often transcended the show’s scripts.

Along with giving Jeff Pustil a chance to show off, this episode also featured several never-bef0re-seen employees of Cobb’s.  They show up for Christian’s bachelor party and the wedding, both of which take place at the store for some reason.  I’ve often wondered how a major supermarket managed to survive with only two cashiers and one bagger.  (It often seemed strange that Howard had a secretary but apparently not a janitor.)  This episode revealed that a lot of people worked at Cobb’s, the viewer apparently just never noticed them before.

This was a rare good episode.  Next week, we conclude season two!

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back Kotter 4.9 “The Barbarino Blues”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC  from 1975 to 1979.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime.

Well, they tease him a lot …. even though he’s not longer on the spot….

Episode 4.9 “The Barbarino Blues”

(Dir by November 3rd, 1978, directed by Norman Abbott)

Gabe Kaplan is not in this episode but John Travolta is.  The audience goes wild when they see John Travolta stepped onto the soundstage.  Maybe they were worried they were going to get stuck watching one of the episodes in which Barbarino doesn’t appear.

Well, no worries for them!  This episode is all about Barbarino and the Sweathogs.  Unfortunately, the majority of it takes place in Barbarino’s incredibly ugly and dirty-looking apartment.  I don’t know why but every 70s sitcom appeared to take place in the filthiest locations possible.  I saw an episode of All In The Family recently and I found myself cringing at the thought of all the bugs and weevils that were probably buried in Archie Bunker’s chair.  Welcome Back Kotter takes thing even further by having Vinnie live in what appears to be the drug room in an abandoned building.  Joe Buck and Ratso lived in a nicer place.

Anyway, Barbarino is depressed.  He was going to break up with his girlfriend but she dumped him first.  “I’m so depressed!” Travolta says, in his high-pitched Barbarino voice.  The other Sweathogs try to help Barbarino conquer the blues.  This means that a good deal of the episode is taken up with Beau giving advice to Barbarino.  The whole thing is set up as a changing of the guard sort of thing.  It’s as if the show is saying, “You think John Travolta’s cool?  Well, check out Stephen Shortridge!”

It’s a dumb episode.  At one point, the Sweathogs point out that Barbarino hasn’t come to school in three days and it was a bit jarring to be reminded that the middle-aged-looking men were all supposed to be high school students.  Usually, whenever this show had a bad episode, John Travolta would serve as Welcome Back Kotter‘s saving grace.  But, with this episode, Travolta appears to be as bored as just about everyone else.  Travolta had movie stardom to focus on.  By the time this episode aired, he had been nominated for an Oscar.  It’s probably safe to say that being a Sweathog was the last thing on Travolta’s mind.

Speaking of the Sweathogs, I have defended Ron Pallilo’s performance as Horshack in the past.  Yes, Horshack is annoying but Pallilo occasionally managed to capture the character’s sweet and innocent nature.  But I have to admit that I’ve spent  most of the fourth season hoping that someone will finally toss Horshack off the Brooklyn Bridge.  Everyone turned into a caricature during the fourth season and, since Horshack was already a caricature, that just made his character even more annoying.  There’s also the fact that Ron Pallilo was 30 years old during the fourth season and he looked older.  Whenever he did Horshack’s signature laugh, the wrinkles on his face would suddenly appear and make him look like a map of the interstate highway system.

I guess my point is that this is another episode that left little doubt that it was time for everyone to move on.  I mean, when even Kotter isn’t around to be welcomed back, it’s time to graduate and start a new life as a featured player Off-Broadway.  To quote the Chambers Brothers: “TIME!”

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.19 “The Butcher”

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, it’s all about Jack!

Episode 2.19 “The Butcher”

(Dir by Francis Delia, originally aired on April 24th, 1989)

Horst Mueller (Colin Fox), a Nazi scientist, uses a magic amulet to bring back to life the fearsome Col. Rausch (Nigel Bennett), a Nazi war criminal who was infamous for using barb wire as a garotte whenever he was carrying out executions.  Rausch was killed during the war by a squad of soldiers led by a young lieutenant named Jack Marshak.  Once Rausch is brought back to life, he not only sets himself up as a radio talk show host but he also seeks revenge on the men who killed him.  One-by-one, he kills the members of the squad until eventually, only three are left alive, Simpson (Julius Harris), Shaw (John Gilbert), and Jack.

There were many episodes of Friday the 13th in which Jack was absent and described as being out-of-town while Micki and Ryan dealt with the latest cursed antique.  This, however, is the first episode to feature Jack on his own.  He mentions that Micki and Ryan are out-of-town, presumably because they’re tracking something down.  This leads Jack to face Rausch with only the help of Simpson and Shaw.  Watching this episode, one gets the feeling that Jack wouldn’t have it any other way.  While this episode features all of the usual blood and melodrama that we’ve come to expect from this show, it also serves as a tribute to the friendship between Jack and his comrades-in-arms.  Jack relates to Simpson and Shaw in a way that he can’t relate to the much-younger Micki and Ryan.  If Jack is usually cast as a fatherly figure, this episode finds him working with equals and fighting against a monster with whom he has a personal connection.  This is the rare episode to not feature any of Lewis’s cursed antiques.  Instead, the magic amulet is one of the many artifacts for which Heinrich Himmler and the SS spent much of the war searching.

It’s a change-of-pace episode that gives Chris Wiggins a chance to show off his considerable talents an actor.  Rarely has Jack been as haunted as he is in the episode and Wiggins’s sad eyes allow us to see what a lifetime of dealing with unbelievable evil would do to a person.  In this episode, Jack is not just aware of the evil in the world but he’s also aware that he and his comrades-in-arms, the members of the so-called “Greatest Generation,” are aging and their time is passing.  Jack and his friends are at an age where they should be enjoying their retirement.  Instead. they’re still fighting against the legacy of Hitler’s evil.

This was a good and melancholy episode of Friday the 13th.  This show could be uneven but episodes like this were good enough to make one mourn that the series did not last longer than just three seasons.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 1.3 “Down’s Syndrome”

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, we get to know a very bad doctor.

Episode 1.3 “Down’s Syndrome”

(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on November 16th, 1982)

St. Eligius is home to several doctors, some of whom are good at their job and some of whom are really, really bad.

One of the bad ones appears to be Dr. Peter White (Terrence Knox), a resident who was in the background during the previous two episodes but who was at the center for a good deal of this episode.  Peter has a terrible bedside manner, absolutely no social skills, and his knowledge of medicine appears to be subpar at best.  When a homeless man comes in and complains of pain, Peter gives him a dose of potassium that nearly kills him.  (Only the quick thinking of Dr. Ehrlich — who himself hardly appears to be the perfect doctor — keeps the patient alive.)  Dr. White seems to be overwhelmed and it certainly doesn’t help that his wife is constantly calling the hospital and demanding to speak to him about every little thing.  That said, it’s hard to have much sympathy for Dr. White.  Yes, he’s overwhelmed but his mistakes nearly kill a man.

I have to admit that, as I watched Dr. Peter White on this week’s episode, I kept thinking about some of the doctors who treated my father after he had his car accident in May.  Whenever I spoke to them, they would brusquely answer my questions, usually in technical language that reflected that it had been a long time since they talked anyone who hadn’t gone to medical school.  At the time, I made the same excuses for them that I just made for Dr. White.  They were young, they were busy, and they were overwhelmed.  After my father died, though, I stopped making excuses for them and I instead just accepted that they weren’t very good at their job.  And perhaps Dr. White should admit the same.

It doesn’t help that Dr. White is contrasted with Dr. Auschlander, a kind and elderly liver specialist who is battling cancer but who still manages to treat all of his patients with kindness and respect.  The episode made it clear that all of the residents should hope to become a doctor like Dr. Auschlander.  While Peter snaps at his patients and nearly kills a man, Auschlander takes the time to play cards with a woman who is dying.  We should all be so lucky as to have an Auschlander in our life.

Finally, Brian Whitehill (Tony Bill) and his pregnant wife, Denise (Maureen Whitehill) are informed that their baby will be born with Down’s Syndrome.  In a scene that brings to mind Icelandic eugenics, Brian suggests that Denise get an abortion but Denise refuses, especially when she learns that she’s going to have a son.  (She already has two daughters.)  A day later, Brian comes home from work and tells Denise that he’s realized that she’s right and he’s prepared to be the father of a special needs child.  Denise replies that she had the abortion earlier in the day.  Seriously, what a depressing story!  That said, I respected what the show was doing here.  The patients are just as important as the doctors.

(And while Denise is getting an abortion, Dr. Morrison is learning that he’s going to be a father and, in contrast to Brian Whitehill, joyfully cheering in the hospital stairwell.)

As with the previous episode, there was a lot going on in the background.  Dr. Beale attempted to analyze terrorist Andrew Reinhardt (Tim Robbins), who is still basically acting like an arrogant prick.  Kathleen McAllister, the victim of Reinhardt’s attack, is still in a coma.  Dr. Westphall gave a tour of the hospital to two community leaders who both suggested that St. Eligius should shut down and move its operations to a wealthier neighborhood.  Dr. Fiscus got a blow job in an elevator from Kathy Martin.  (“Going down?” Fiscus asked the next guy who got on the elevator.)  It was a busy day at the hospital!  It was a good episode, even if it didn’t really have any of the big wow moments that the previous two episodes featured.  This episode was more about following a few days in the life of a hospital and the emphasis was on the nonstop flow of patients and doctors, some of whom were doing their best and some of whom were on the verge of giving up.  In the end, the main thing I took away from this episode was that there may not be enough Aucschlanders to make up for all the Peter Whites.

 

Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.3 “For The Love Of Larry”

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 episode features a very good boy.

Episode 3.3 “For the Love of Larry”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on October 8th, 1986)

At the start of this episode, we find Jonathan and Mark on a dangerous assignment.  They’re in the city and apparently, they’re working as undercover cops and trying to catch a local drug dealer.  At least, I assume that the people working with Jonathan and Mark were supposed to be cops.  None of them were in uniform so I guess they have just as easily been a neighborhood vigilante group.  As Jonathan and Mark prepare to confront the dealer, Jonathan says that the scourge of drugs is the greatest threat that American will ever face.

It’s a heavy assignment but it doesn’t really seem like a Highway to Heaven sort of assignment.  Usually, Mark and Jonathan are specifically assigned to help someone.  This time, though, it appears that they’ve just been assigned to help the cops do their job.  Jonathan and Mark don’t really do anything that any other cop couldn’t have done.  Mark gets excited when the dealer tries to shoot him because he’s convinced that God is causing the bullets to miss him.  Only after the dealer is captured does Jonathan reveal that God didn’t do Mark any favors.  Mark just got lucky.

Mark’s earned a break!  He and Jonathan drive off to another one of those small towns that always seem to show up on this show.  They rent a cabin for a few days.  However, Mark’s attempts at relaxation are continually interrupted by a dog.  First, the dog runs in front of the car.  Then, the dog somehow shows up at the cabin.  Even though Mark took the dog to a shelter, the dog somehow managed to get out and track Mark down.

Eventually, Mark and Jonathan figure out that they need to follow the dog.  The dog leads off the main road, to an overturned car that is hidden away in the woods.  A father and a son, both badly injured but still alive, are in the car.  Jonathan and Mark are able to rescue them but then they notice that the dog is in the back seat and was apparently killed in the crash.

The camera pans up to the sky and gets lost in the clouds.  Suddenly, the dog’s ghostly form appears and seems to actually wink at the audience, letting us know that the dog may have died but his spirit stayed on Earth long enough to rescue his owners.  (The Larry of the title is the son of the dog’s owner.)

Did this episode make me cry?  You better believe this episode made me cry!  I’m not even a dog person and I was still sobbing at the end of this episode. As I’ve mentioned before, there’s an earnest sincerity at the heart of this show that makes it effective even when it should be silly.  Having the dog appear in the clouds is the type of thing that a lot of shows probably would have screwed up.  In lesser hands, it would have been too heavy-handed and overly sentimental to work.  But, on this show, it does work.  It helps that the dog was cute.

This was a simple episode but sometimes, it’s the simple episodes that work the best.

Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.19 “Jason’s New Job”

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, I continue to torture myself by watching this dumb show.

Episode 1.19 “Jason’s New Job”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on February 28th, 1999)

Frustrated with always being the one who is accused of screwing things up at the restaurant, Jason decides to get a new job.  That seems a bit petulant on his part, especially when you consider that Jason is the one who is always screwing everything up.  But anyway….

Jason ends up working at a gym.  His job title is Customer Relations.  His actual job is cleaning up after people.  He’s a janitor, basically.  Meanwhile, at the restaurant, Peter hires another waiter, who is also named Jason and who is totally responsible.  He’s so responsible that Peter and Scott start calling him “Super Jason.”

And I’ll say this …. as stupid as this show is and as much as I regret deciding to watch and review it, the Super Jason thing was kind of funny.  Mostly it was funny because the other Jason is such a douchebag that it’s fun to watch him get humiliated.

Anyway, Super Jason “cleans out” the restaurant.  Peter thinks that means that Super Jason is really working hard to keep the place clean but no, actually, Super Jason stole the cash register, the deep fryer, the security cameras, and just about everything else he could get his hands on.  What’s funny is that, even when Peter and Scott are looking at their now empty restaurant, they still keep calling the guy Super Jason.

Suddenly, a food critic shows up.  She’s not amused when she’s told that she can’t have what she wants because the kitchen has been cleaned out.  She’s going to give the restaurant a bad review!  Oh no!  Oh wait, there’s Ordinary Jason with a plate of food.  He saves the day by making her order.  How does he do that when there’s no supplies left in the restaurant?  Who knows?

Meanwhile, Murray and Tracy are convinced that they (and Stads) have been cursed with bad luck.  They convince Stads to put on a bird costume and dance on the beach.  A guy who likes Stads sees Stads doing it and cancels their date.  Stads is like, “My friends betrayed me!”  Seriously, when did lifeguards get so whiny?

This episode was pretty stupid, if slightly (and just slightly) more amusing than the typical episode of Malibu, CA.  As I watched, I thought about the show’s pilot, in which both Jason and Scott were sociopathic, Peter was a cool surfing legend, Stads was the tomboy lifeguard, Murray was crazy, and Samantha was the girl that Jason and Scott were both in love with.  The pilot introduced us to the principal of the high school and suggested that she and Peter were in love with each other.  Now, 19 episodes in, Scott is the responsible one while Jason is an immature douchebag.  Peter is now a dorky restaurant owner.  Stads is whiny.  Samantha is so bland that it’s easy to forget that she’s on the show.  Neither the high school nor the principal have been seen since the pilot.  And Murray and Tracy are probably the only redeeming things about this show, if just because Brandon Brooks and Priscilla Inga Taylor really throw themselves into playing those ludicrous characters.

Next week …. oh, who cares?  It’ll be dumb whatever it is.

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.23 “The Bargain”

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, a woman gets more than she bargained for when she gives it all up for love.

Episode 2.23 “The Bargain”

(Dir by Tom Noonan, originally aired on May 27th, 1990)

Sarah (Kim Greist) is a lonely woman who owns a used bookstore and who is in love with the man who appears to be her only customer, Joe (Kevin Geer).  Joe is a TV repairman and he presents himself as being a typical blue collar guy, except for the fact that he’s always buying books of romantic poetry.  He claims that they’re for a friend.  Sarah recites a French poem for him.  “I don’t speak French,” Joe replies.

Sarah feels that she’s too shy and plain to ever catch Joe’s eye.  But then, while looking through an old magazine, she comes across an advertisement for a mask that will make all of her dreams come true.  On a lark, Sarah calls the number.  Soon, a horribly scarred woman named Carmen (Sharon Sharth) comes to the store.  Carmen gives Sarah a mask but she says that there’s a price.  First off, by putting on the mask, Sarah will be agreeing to give up all of her books to Carmen.  Secondly, Sarah must never remove the mask.  Sarah agrees.

The mask does make Sarah beautiful.  Now going by the name of Mandy, she turns her empty bookstore into a video store.  When Joe comes in, Mandy flirts with him but it turns out that Joe is angry about the bookstore going away and also, he was in love with Sarah.  Mandy protests that she is Sarah, just for Carmen to show up with Sarah’s old face.  Carmen has assumed Sarah’s identity and Joe is now in love with her.  Desperate to prove her actual identity, the real Sarah rips off her mask, leaving her face just as disfigured as Carmen’s used to be.

As Sarah cries, Carmen tells her that the only she can ever fix her face is by selling the mask to someone else….

Featuring three strong performances and a storyline that’s a bit more nuanced than usual for this show, this is a pretty good episode of Monsters.  Interestingly enough, it was directed by actor Tom Noonan, who has played a number of villains over the course of his career, including the memorable killer from Manhunter, in which he co-starred with Kim Greist.  (Kevin Geer actually looks enough like Noonan that, at first, I thought Tom Noonan was pulling double duty as both director and star.)  Noonan directs the episode like a particularly fast-paced play, emphasizing character and location over easy shocks.  Not only do the characters seem real but so does Sarah’s beloved bookstore.  The twist at the end is effective, even if it is a bit predictable.

Next week, we finish up season 2 of Monsters!

 

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 5.6 “Chef’s Special/Beginning Anew/Kleinschmidt”

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 5.6 “Chef’s Special/Beginning Anew/Kleinschmidt”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on October 7th, 1981)

As the passengers board the boat and prepare to set sail, Isaac and Vicki can’t help but notice Gertrude Turner (Trish Noble) and Kurt Kleinschmidt (Siegfried van Kapelhoff).  Gertrude is rich, single, and wearing a very valuable ring.  Kleinschmidt is a German insurance agent who Gertrude has hired to guard her jewelry, though she later reveals that she’s not really that worried about her jewels but instead, she just enjoys Kleinschmidt’s company.

“That man looks just like Doctor Bricker!” Isaac says.

And yes, it must be said that, despite his thick German accent, Siegfried van Kapelhoff, the actor playing Kleinschmidt, does indeed look a lot like Bernie Kopell, the actor who played Doc Bricker.  They’re both tall, thin, in their early 40s, and they even have the same hair color and bone structure.  What are the chances of that happening?  I mean, seriously….

Wait a minute….

THAT’S NOT SIEGFRIED VAN KAPELHOFF AT ALL!

Just as Gavin MacLeod used to do whenever one of Stubing’s brothers boarded the boat, this episode finds Bernie Kopell playing two roles.  Not only does he play Doc Bricker but he also play Kleinschmidt.  And yes, there is a scene where Kleinschmidt talks to Doc Bricker.  It’s done via split screen and it’s not at all convincing.  Bricker doesn’t even appear to be looking at Kleinschmidt while talking to him.

Gertrude’s ring does vanish at one point, which leads to Kleinschmidt interrogating the crew and eventually attempting to arrest Gopher.  Of course, the truth of the matter is that Gertrude herself hid the ring so that Kleinschmidt would stay on the boat with her.  (Kleinschmidt, feeling insecure about his detective abilities, was originally planning on flying home as soon as the boat docked in Mexico.)  When Stubing learns that Gertrude faked the robbery, he is surprisingly understanding, despite the fact that doing so led to Kleinschmidt harassing his entire crew.  I’m not sure that I really bought Stubing’s reaction but maybe he just thought Kleinschmidt was Doc in disguise.

The Kleinschmidt story was far more amusing than it really had any right being.  That was almost totally due to Bernie Kopell, who seemed to really enjoy the chance to play such an over-the-top character.  Kleinschmidt was definitely a bit cartoonish but Kopell’s likability went a long way towards making the character’s stupidity not just tolerable but also kind of sweet.

While all that’s going on, the Love Boat’s chef (Jay Johnson) gets upset when a new chef (Leslie Easterbrook) is hired to work in the kitchen with him.  This storyline requires the audience to believe that 1) no one would bother to warn the original chef that he’s getting a new colleague and 2) that the new chef would risk ruining her reputation just to avoid hurting her predecessor’s feelings.  The less said about this story the better.

Finally, Jenny Langley (Joan Fontaine) boards the cruise and is stunned to see that her former lover, Stan Ellis (Richard Basehart), is on the boat.  Jenny and Stan haven’t seen each other since the end of World War II.  Now, Stan is a widower who has been in a wheelchair ever since the car accident that killed his wife.  Jenny tries to help Stan come out of his shell and find the courage to embrace life.  Stan is resistant but finally comes around.  But when Stan asks Jenny to marry him, Jenny refuses.  Jenny is going blind.  Stan, however, doesn’t care about that.  And, also …. Stan can walk!  It turns out that his paralysis was just psychosomatic.

This storyline was one that I probably would have liked better if I hadn’t found myself thinking about my Dad whenever Stan was onscreen.  (Before he died, my Dad was also in a wheelchair as the result of a traffic accident.)  I will say that Joan Fontaine is wonderful in her role.  This storyline was handled well but right now, the pain of losing my Dad is still too fresh for me to have really enjoyed it.  That said, Fontaine and Basehart were old pros at this type of melodrama and this storyline had a lot to offer fans of old school romance.  This was definitely a storyline for the TCM crowd and I mean that as a compliment!

With two stories that worked and a third one that wasn’t too much of a distraction, this was a worthwhile cruise.

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.19 “The Eighth Seal”

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 gets possessed!

Episode 2.19 “The Eighth Seal”

(Dir by Jon Cassar, originally aired on April 26th, 1997)

Twice, Mitch saves a young girl named Jenny (Esme Ganz) from jumping off a bridge.  When Mitch discovers the Jenny’s adoptive parents don’t seem to care whether she lives or dies, he brings her back to his house and lets her stay the night while he tries to figure out what to do about her.

What Mitch doesn’t know is that Jenny is possessed by a demon named Teddy.  When Mitch does discover that Jenny is housing a denizen of the damned, he does the worst possible thing that one can do in that situation.  He pulls a Karras and allows the demon to enter him.  Now, Mitch is possessed.  Can Daimont and Ryan get the demon out of Mitch or will Mitch have to run in front of truck in order to knock Teddy out of him?

Believe it or not, Mitch does the latter.  He runs in front of a truck!  The truck hits him and sends Mitch falling backwards.  Mitch is out cold.  While Ryan and Daimont try to revive him, Mitch’s spirit is visited by Stephanie Holden (Alexandra Paul).  Though this was Stephanie’s first (and only) appearance on Baywatch Nights, she was a prominent member of the Baywatch ensemble for several seasons.  Her character, who was always implied to have feelings for Mitch, was eventually killed off.  Stephanie’s spirit appears and yes, she is wearing the red Baywatch swimsuit.  And while it’s actually a pretty sweet scene as Stephanie tells Mitch that it’s not his time to die, it’s hard not to smile at the fact that Stephanie is apparently still a lifeguard in the afterlife.  It’s like she went to Heaven and said, “Give me the reddest and tightest one-piece that you have.”

Things end happily.  Mitch is no longer possessed.  Jenny is no longer possessed.  Jenny’s adoptive parents are consumed in Hellfire but that’s okay because they sucked.  And, for once, the viewer is happy as well because this is actually a pretty good episode of Baywatch Nights.  Seriously, you have not lived until you’ve seen David Hasselhoff pretend to be possessed by a demon.  Beyond that, though, his reunion with Stephanie was actually pretty poignant, red swimsuit and all.  If nothing else, it gave Mitch a chance to say goodbye to Stephanie, which was something he never really got to do in Baywatch.

Speaking of Baywatch, do you think Mitch went to his day job and told all the lifeguards, “Hey, you won’t believe what happened to me this weekend!”  Probably not.  I don’t know if I’d want to work with someone who had a history of getting possessed by demons.  That may just be me, though.