Tag Archives: television

Horror on TV: One Step Beyond 3.19 “The Gift” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode, a fake fortune teller appears to develop actual psychic abilities, just in time to see her son committing an unspeakable crime in the future.

This one has an interesting cast.  Mario is played by Scott Marlowe, who was Italian despite his name and who was apparently a major contender for the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, back when the film was still envisioned as being a low-budget B-crime film.  Also keep an eye out for Joe Turkel as Mario’s friend.  Turkel later played both Lloyd the Bartender in The Shining and Eldon Tyrrell in Blade Runner.

The episode originally aired on January 31st, 1961.

Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.15 “Love on the ‘Net”

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, a guest star from Hang Time comes to Malibu, CA!

Episode 1.15 “Love on the ‘Net”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on January 31st, 1999)

Scott is meeting women though a new and weird method that is called the — let me see, I wrote down the term just so I would get it right — the Internet.  Jason, who hasn’t had any luck getting a date since he broke up with Stads, says that only “geeks and weirdos” spend any time on this Internet thing.  He thinks his brother is crazy for making a date with a girl who met online.  But when Jason sees the picture that Jocelyn sends Scott, he changes his mind.

Being a sociopath, Jason switches out the photo of Jocelyn with a picture of a female body builder.  He tells Scott that he should stand Jocelyn up and Scott agrees.  Jason then meets Jocelyn (played by Daniella Deutscher, who previously played Julie Connor on Hang Time) and claims that he’s Scott.

Seriously, Jason is the absolute worst.  Scott, to his credit, at least feels bad about standing up Jocelyn.  He’s still a jerk but at least Scott is capable of feeling guilt.  Jason, on the other hand….

Eventually, Scott discovers what Jason is doing.  Scott pretends to be Jason and tells Jocelyn that his brother loves doing extreme things …. like skydiving!  Soon, all three of them are in an airplane.  When a terrified Jason admits that he’s not actually Scott and then a cocky Scott explains that he’s not actually Jason, Jocelyn says that she would rather jump out of a plane than be with either of them.  And then she does just that.  Hopefully, she remembered to put on her parachute.

Jason and Scott apologize to each other for being jerks.  Then, they fall out of the plane because this is a Peter Engel sitcom and you can bet that, in the Engelverse, there’s no way anyone’s going to go up on a plane without falling out of it.  Unfortunately, both Jason and Scott remembered their parachutes.

While this is going on, Tracy gets a role on Baywatch and follows around Stads in order to learn how to be a lifeguard.  Stads gets annoyed when Tacy gets credit for saving a hot wealthy guy who invites Tracy to his yacht.  Stads says that Tracy is a bad actress and a bad lifeguard.  “And you’re a bad friend!” Tracy replies.

YOU TELL HER, TRACY!  Seriously, Stads was really annoying in this episode.

This episode was dumb but it does have value as a time capsule from the age when the Internet was still viewed as being something exotic and new.  Any 90s kid will smile at the sight of Scott’s bulky computer.  As for this episode’s guest star, Daniella Deutscher is far more likable here than she ever was on Hang Time.  She told both Jason and Scott to go to Hell so that makes her a winner in my book!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.19 “Far Below”

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, there’s something in subways!

Episode 2.19 “Far Below”

(Dir by Debra Hill, originally aired on February 25th, 1990)

Alex Kritz (John Scott Clough) is a city bureaucrat who has been sent to do an audit and discover why one subway maintenance crew is getting paid so much despite the high rate of turnover on the crew.  The head of the crew, Dr. Vernon Rathmore (Barry Nelson), not only overpays his workers but he also offers them full insurance and a pension.  Kritz not only wants to understand why Dr. Rathmore is spending so much money but also how he has been able to get away with it for so long.

Dr. Rathmore invites Kritz to watch a monitor so he can observe two of his workers gunning down what appears to be a Yeti with glowing white fur.  Kritz is outraged, accusing Rathmore of killing a homeless man.  Rathmore explains that his section of the subway is full of prehistoric, ape-liked monsters who feast on human flesh.  Rathmore has taken it upon himself to keep the population under control.

When Kritz again accuses Rathmore of genocide, Rathmore reveals that he actually has two of the monsters locked away in the office.  And one of them is his wife!  It turns out that she has quite the appetite for nosey bureaucrats….

This was a simple but entertaining episode of Monsters, one that was well-acted by Nelson and Clough and which made great use of two sets, Rathmore’s office and the atmospheric and dark subway tunnels where Rathmore’s men work.  The escalating tension between Rathmore and Kritz was well-handled, with Rathmore growing more and more annoyed with Kritz’s questions.  Based on all of the urban legends that have sprung up over the years about monsters living in the subways and the sewers (check out Raw Meat for another example), this was an effective episode that managed to tell a complete and interesting story in only 20 minutes.  Monsters was a frequently uneven show, as is true of most anthology series.  Fortunately, for every couple of bad episodes that the viewer got, the viewer would also occasionally get a masterpiece like Far Below.

Far Below was directed by Debra Hill, who is probably best-known for co-producing several of John Carpenter’s early films, including the original Halloween. This episode was Hill’s directorial debut and it was one of only two things she directed.  (The other was an episode of a 90s sitcom called Dream On.)  She did an excellent job with this episode and it’s a shame that she didn’t direct more.

Finally, this was the final performance of actor Barry Nelson.  Nelson was the first actor to ever play James Bond, playing an Americanized version of the character in a 1950s television adaptation of Casino Royale.  (Nelson technically played “Jimmy Bond.”)  Modern horror fans know Nelson best for his wonderful performance as the blandly professional Mr. Ullman in The Shining.  The scene where Nelson (as Ullman) cheerfully talks about what happened to the last caretaker and his family is one of my favorite bits of acting of all time.  Nelson retired after this episode of Monsters and it’s nice to able to say that he went out on a high note.

Horror on TV: One Step Beyond 3.17 “Dead Man’s Tale” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond, a down-on-his-luck writer checks into an Alaskan motel with his wife.  After glancing through a cheap guidebook, the writer is inspired to write a story.  After the story is published, the writer is shocked to discover that the story he thought of as being fiction might actually be true!

This episode originally aired on January 17th, 1961.  Alaska had been a state for a little over a year when this episode was broadcast.  It was still a land of mystery.

(For many of us, it still is!)

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 5.1 and 5.2 “The Expedition/Julie’s Wedding/The Mongala/Julie’s Replacement/The Three R’s/The Professor’s Wife”

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 start season 5 of The Love Boat!

Episode 5.1 and 5.2 “The Expedition/Julie’s Wedding/The Mongala/Julie’s Replacement/The Three R’s/The Professor’s Wife”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on October 10th, 1981)

The fifth season of The Love Boat opens with a two-hour spectacular.  Our Love Boat crew is in Australia, where they will be guiding The Sea Princess on a voyage through the South Pacific.  It’s a bit odd to start off a season of The Love Boat on a different boat but I guess the plan was to show off all the different ships that sailed for Princess Cruise Lines.  This episode was actually shot on the boat during a cruise.  It’s interesting to see how different the Sea Princess is from the show’s usual location.  It has nicer hallways than the Pacific Princess and a much larger lobby.  However, I prefer the relative privacy of the Pacific Princess’s multi-level dining room to the wide open space provided by the Sea Princess.

Captain Stubing, Gopher, Isaac, and Doc are shocked when Julie does not board the ship.  She’s been on vacation with her boyfriend, Tony (Anthony Andrews), for the last few months. Tony lives in Australia so, really, it shouldn’t be too hard for Julie to make it to the ship. Instead, a substitute cruise director named Yvonne (Delvene Delaney) shows up.  Doc and Gopher are happy because it gives them a new co-worker to lust after.  Captain Stubing is upset because Julie has sent them all a letter in which she explains that she will be marrying Tony and retiring to the animal habitat where he works.  She asks Stubing to give her away and she invites Vicki to be a bridesmaid.  Gopher, Isaac, and Doc will be ushers.

Doc is briefly distracted from chasing Yvonne when he spots Barbara Carroll (Michelle Phillips) boarding the boat.  However, Barbara has eyes for Ralph Sutton (Patrick Duffy), a rancher who is blind without his glasses.  Unfortunately, that means that he can’t read the love letter that Barbara wrote him.  Because she wants Ralph for herself, Connie Walker (Jennilee Harrison) lies about what the letter says.  *GASP*  (Don’t worry, it all works out.)

Meanwhile, an expedition headed by shady Deke Donner (Jose Ferrer) goes to an island and captures a hairy man (Patrick Ward) who they believe is the Mongola, a.k.a., the missing link!  (Wait, what?)  They hide the ape-man in the ship’s cargo area (huh?) and try to keep anyone else from learning that they’re transporting a living thing.  Everyone acts like he’s a caveman but it’s kind of obvious that the Mongola is just a confused guy with a beard.  Dr. Jill McGraw (Donna Dixon) falls in love with the Mongola, much to the consternation of her colleague, Dr. Barry Mason (Gary Frank).  Meanwhile, Deke’s old friend, Prof. Milo Ender (Harry Morgan), is stunned to discover that the Mongola has a vaccination scar.  Milo’s wife, Vivian (Katherine Helmond), encourages Milo to keep the secret to himself so that they can at least make some money off of the Mongola.  (Like, seriously, what the Hell is even going on with this story?)  Milo agrees, though it doesn’t seem to occur to him that, if he could notice the vaccination scar, then pretty much anyone could notice the vaccination scar.  Eventually, the Mongola gets loose from his cage and jumps overboard.  “He’s shark food,” Deke says.  (What in the name of God is going on here?)  However, the Mongola apparently survives because the police are waiting to arrest Deke as soon as the ship docks in Australia.

But what about the wedding!? you’re saying.  Well, the wedding doesn’t happen.  It nearly happens.  Julie shows up at the church.  However, Tony finds out that he’s going to die in a month or two so he leaves Julie at the altar.  Julie flies back to Los Angeles with the rest of the Love Boat crew.

Seriously, this is the most morbid episode of The Love Boat that I’ve ever seen.

Still, morbid or not, it’s an entertainingly weird episode and the Australian and New Zealand scenery is lovely to look at.  (As with all of the two-hour episodes of The Love Boat, there’s a lot of travelogue padding.)  There’s something oddly appealing about seeing the usual Love Boat shenanigans mixed in with a story about the Missing Link and Julie discovering that the love of her life is terminally ill.  I mean, the song isn’t lying.  The Love Boat really does promise something for everyone.

I mean, in the end, we all know that Julie couldn’t get married because then she’d have to leave the show and that wouldn’t happen until Lauren Tewes’s cocaine use became a problem during the seventh season.  Tony could either cheat on her or he could die.  (Better he die than do what almost every man does at his bachelor party.)  The episode ends with Tony still alive so I guess the show’s writer were leaving their options open.  Maybe Tony will make a miraculous recovery, who knows?

Myself, I’m just happy that the crew is back together.  It’s time to set sail …. again!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.15 “The Mobius”

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 and Ryan go to the future!

Episode 2.15 “The Mobius”

(Dir by David Livingston, originally aired on March 2nd, 1997)

Mitch and Ryan’s plans to attend the opening of a hot new club on the beach are interrupted by the arrival of Ashley (Laura Interval), who is an old college friend of Ryan’s.  Ashley explains that her husband and colleague, John (Neil Roberts), has managed to open a portal to an unknown world and now he spends all of his time obsessing on it.

(Well, who wouldn’t?)

Accompanied by Teague, Mitch and Ryan go with Ashley to the laboratory.  John is busy tossing a football into the portal.  Something or someone on the other side throws the football back.  Teague and Ryan are really impressed with the portal.  Ashley and Mitch both think that the portal is something that shouldn’t be messed with.  When Ashley accidentally stumbles into the portal and vanishes, Mitch and Ryan follow.

They find themselves in what appears to be the ruins of Los Angeles.  Ryan speculates that they’re in a parallel universe while Mitch thinks that they might be in the future.  (Technically, they’re both right.  It is the future but it’s the future of a parallel universe.)  Mitch finds a newspaper announcing that the world had caught on fire due to pollution burning a hole in the Earth’s atmosphere.  In an amazing coincidence, they also stumble across one of Ryan’s professors.  Professor Arnold (Kay E. Kuter) is old and dying but he still has his notes that detail what should have been done to prevent the end of the world.

Mitch, Ryan, and Ashley want to get those notes back to the present but it won’t be easy.  Not only do they have to find the portal before it closes but they also have to avoid a bunch of mutated humans who now spend their time dressed like monks and chasing people around the ruins.  Even when Ryan, Ashley, and Mitch do find the portal back, the professor’s notes burn up as they pass through.

“I guess we’ll have to figure it out for ourselves,” Mitch says, looking at the charred binder.

Yes, this episode has a message!  Don’t pollute or Los Angeles will end up looking like a messy studio backlot and all your friends will join the Holy Order of Cannibal Mutations.  One has to wonder whether or not this episode influenced Cormac McCarthy when he wrote The Road.  Hmmm …. probably not.

Heavy-handed messaging aside, it’s not a bad episode.  If there’s any actor who born to run through a messy backlot while fighting mutant monks, it’s David Hasselhoff.  Especially when compared to the previous two episodes, The Mobius is fast-paced and it actually has a plot that the viewer can follow.  It’s silly but it’s fun, in the way that a show like Baywatch Nights should be.

As the episode ends, the Hoff suggests that maybe, if the future’s bad, we should be sure to enjoy the present.  That sounds like good advice to me!  That’s the wisdom of the Hoff.

A Blast From The Past: One Step Beyond 3.15 “The Last Round” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this episode from 1961, Charles Bronson stars as Yank Dawson, an aging boxer who finds himself in haunted auditorium in England during World War II. Bronson was 39 years old when he starred as Yank Dawson and he gives a good performance. The role makes good use of both Bronson’s imposing physicality and also the smoldering anger that would eventually make Bronson a star in both Europe and, later, the United States.

The episode below first aired on January 10th, 1961.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.14 “Daddy’s Little Girl/The Whistle”

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, the stars align and John Carradine shows up on Fantasy Island.

Episode 5.14 “Daddy’s Little Girl/The Whistle”

(Dir by Don Chaffey and Don Weis, originally aired on January 30th, 1982)

The plane is landing and Mr. Roarke and Julie are getting ready to meet their guests for the weekend.  But wait a minute — where’s Tattoo!?  Roarke explains that Tattoo has volunteered to spend the weekend learning how to do CPR.  When a voluptuous nurse walks by, Julie rolls her eyes and says that Tattoo only cares about learning “mouth-to-mouth.”

“Julie!” Mr. Roarke snaps, even though Julie is probably correct.

Anyway, any episode without Tattoo feels strange and that’s certainly true of this episode.  There are two fantasies, one of which was dramatically better than the other.  The lesser of the two fantasies involves Christa Ackland (Genie Francis) and her efforts to find out the identity of her father.  All she knows is that her mother (Carolyn Jones) knew her father in the Philippines during World War II.  Christa is going to be married on Fantasy Island and she wants her real father to give her away.

Three men, all of whom served in the Air Force together, step forward and claim, one after the other, to be Christa’s father.  When Christa finally confronts her mother, she learns that her father is not Gene (John Ericson), Al (Alan Hale, Jr.), or Bert (Gene Nelson).  Instead, he was a guy named …. well, Guy.  Guy was shot down while on a mission.  Gene, Al, and Bert all explain that the stepped forward and claimed to be her father out of loyalty to Guy and because they didn’t want Christa to learn on her wedding say that her father was dead.  (Apparently, they felt that information would be better received after the honeymoon.)  Christa is surprisingly forgiving.  She realizes that her stepfather (William Windom) has more than earned the right to give her away.  Christa marries George Stickney (James Daughton, the head of the evil frat in Animal House) and Julie cries at the wedding.  Awwww!

The main problem with this storyline was that Genie Francis gave a surprisingly bad performance as Christa.  Instead of coming across as someone who truly wanted to know about her real father, she instead came across as being petulant and more than a little self-righteous.  Carolyn Jones, William Windom, and the three potential fathers were all likable but none could make up for the unsympathetic lead character.

The other fantasy was a bit more fun, even if was impossible to follow the story.  Iconologist Adrian Brilles (Edward Winters) dreams of making a great discovery that will bring him fame and prove his theories about ancient hieroglyphics to be correct.  Mr. Roarke sends him to a ghost town that is also the home of a museum of ancient artifacts.  Working with curator Leila Proctor (Ann Turkel), Adrian discovers what he describes as being “the Rosetta Stone of hieroglyphics.”  He also discovers an ancient whistle that will grant him three wishes.

There are a few townspeople, all of whom take a lot of interest in Adrian’s work.  Their leader is the town’s mortician and he’s played by — YES! — JOHN CARRADINE!  And though Carradine doesn’t get to do much and was obviously physically frail when he filmed this episode, his famous voice and his piercing stare combine to make the Mortician a memorable character.  There’s also a fairly ridiculous scene where the townspeople reveal their true selves, which means dancing around while wearing rubber demon masks.  It’s silly but it’s effective.

It’s never quite clear what’s happening at the ghost town, beyond the three wishes being a set up to bring the demonic townspeople into the world and to cost Adrian his soul.  Fortunately, Mr. Roarke pops up and gives Adrian some cryptic advice about the third wish being the most important.  For his first wish, Adrian wishes for the townspeople to be their true selves.  (Cue the demon dance.)  For his second wish, he goes for fame and adulation.  For his third wish, he cancels the first two wishes and this somehow set free not only his soul but Leila’s as well.

Yep, it doesn’t make much sense but it’s got John Carradine and a bunch of horror imagery so it’s fun.  That’s all I really ask for when it comes to Fantasy Island.  The whistle fantasy makes up for the wedding fantasy and the lack of Tattoo.  This was a worthwhile trip to the Island.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 2.17 “The Matchmakers”

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, Jon and Ponch play matchmaker!

Episode 2.17 “The Matchmakers”

(Dir by Harvey S. Landman, originally aired on January 27th, 1979)

Cora (Jenny O’Hara) is an eccentric woman who lives in an old farmhouse with a bunch of animals.  Her landlord is evicting her and the county is planning to not only bulldoze her home but also take and possibly destroy all of her animals unless she can find a new place for them.  Twice, she tries to commit suicide by driving her truck recklessly.  Both times, she is saved by Ponch and Baker.

Dirk Hutchins (Gregory Walcott) is a crotchety old man who has served with the Highway Patrol for 30 years and is now on the verge of forced retirement.  He doesn’t know what he’s going to do with himself once he’s no longer on the job.  Hutchins spends his last work week taking outrageous risks, leading Ponch and Baker to worry that he’s trying to go out in a blaze of suicidal glory.

What solution do Ponch and Baker come up with for Cora and Dirk?  They decide to play matchmaker!  Cora ends up moving onto Dirk’s property (and brings along all of her animals) and maybe Dirk will end up falling in love with Cora.  And then, they’ll both have a reason to live!

Listen, this episode’s heart is in the right place.  I’m certainly not going to fault the intentions of any episode that features Ponch and Baker trying to help two suicidal people.  But, seriously, Cora was such an annoying character!  The show portrayed her as being so unhinged and so emotionally unstable that you couldn’t help but wonder if having her move in with grumpy old Dirk was really the best way to go about things.  Cora really did seem like she needed professional help, the type that went way beyond having a place to keep her animals.

As for Dirk, I was happy to see that he was played by Gregory Walcott.  As many of you already know, Walcott’s greatest claim to fame was starring in Ed Wood’s Plan Nine From Outer Space.  Walcott survived Plan Nine and went on to become a durable character actor, appearing in westerns and war films.  Walcott gives a believably ruggedly performance as Dirk, even if the character himself is not exactly someone you would want to get stuck on an elevator with.

There is a subplot involving a private investigator (Danny Wells) who had been hired to kidnap a kid and bring him back to his no-good father.  And there’s a fairly well-done scene where Dirk and Getraer work to keep a truck from turning over on top of a car.  There is a little action but still, this episode didn’t quite work.

Horror on TV: One Step Beyond 3.6 “Moment of Hate” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond, fashion designer Karen Wadsworth (Joanne Linville) believes that she has the power to cause people to die just by wishing death upon them.  Her psychiatrist tells her that this simply isn’t possible and then dares her to try one little test of her supposed powers.

This episode features a good performance by Joanne Linville and, if nothing else, it perhaps makes the case that we should be a little bit less quick to wish the worst upon other people.  Just imagine all of the damage that Karen could have caused if she had ever set up a twitter account.

This episode originally aired on October 25th, 1960.