Tag Archives: television

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.13 “Eye of Death”

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, Ryan goes into the past.

Episode 2.13 “Eye of the Death”

(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on January 30th, 1989)

Atticus Rook (Tom McCamus) is an antiques dealer, one who is well-known to Jack.  No one seems to really like or trust Atticus Rook.  Everything about him seems to scream sleaze.  But Atticus has somehow managed to get artifacts from the American Civil War that no one else has ever been able to find.  His latest claim is that he will soon be selling Robert E. Lee’s sword.

How is Atticus accomplishing this?  He has a cursed magic lantern that he uses to project old pictures onto his wall.  He’s then able to step into the picture and enter the time period in which it was taken.  (Hey, that sounds like a fun cursed object to own!)  Atticus has been going into the past and telling Gen. Lee (Bernard Behrens) that he’s a spy.  However, the information that he gives Lee is just stuff that he remembers from history class.  Atticus thinks that he’s got a pretty good operation going but there are two catches.  To go to the past, he has to kill someone in the present.  To return to the present, he has to kill someone in the past.

Naturally, Ryan ends up in the past while trying to retrieve the magic lantern.  Ryan meets General Lee and tries to present himself as also being a spy but it turns out that Ryan paid even less attention in history class than Atticus did.  Ryan being Ryan, he also falls in love with a widow named Abigail (Brooke Johnson).  As we all know, having Ryan fall in love with you is pretty much a death sentence on Friday the 13th.  Abigail’s death does allow Ryan, Jack, and Micki to return to the present.  Moving the lantern allows Atticus to get trapped in his own wall, where he suffocates while trying to return to the present.

This was a surprisingly good episode.  I say “surprisingly” because you wouldn’t necessarily think that a low-budget Canadian show would do a great job of recreating the American Civil War but this episode pulls it off.  The costumes, the sets, the words used by the people encountered by Ryan and Atticus, all of them work to make the episode’s Civil War setting feel very realistic.  Tom McCamus is a great villain and Bernard Behrens is well-cast as Robert E. Lee.  Even the obviously doomed romance between Ryan and Abigail works remarkably well.

I have to admit that I’ve always assumed this show took place in Canada, largely because of all of the Canadian accents and the Canadian scenery.  This episode reveals that Friday the 13th is supposed to be taking place in the United States, despite the way that people pronounce the word “sorry.”  When Ryan ends up in the Civil War, he says that he’s from Chicago.  (It’s not necessarily a good idea to go back to the Civil War era and immediatly tell everyone that you’re a Yankee.)

Well, this show can pretend that the antique store is in Chicago if it wants to, but it’ll always be Toronto to me.

Horror on TV: One Step Beyond 2.5 “Night of the Kill” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

When young Davey Morris tells his parents that he’s been hanging out with a friendly Bigfoot-type creature, all of the adults in town react in the worst way possible.

This episode, from the second season of One Step Beyond, was one of the first to deal with the legend of Bigfoot.  Needless to say, it’s the adults who turn out to be the true monsters in this scenario.

This episode originally aired on October 20th, 1959.

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.18 “Suspect”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to 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 T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990.  The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, we have yet another surprisingly serious episode of T and T.

Episode 3.18 “Suspect”

(Dir by Ken Girotti, originally aired on May 5th, 1990)

On trial for having physically abused his girlfriend, Giles (Tom Melissis) can only smirk when his girlfriend, Ally (Isabelle Mejias), takes the stand and says that she doesn’t remember who beat her.  Far less amused is Ally’s lawyer, Terri (Kristina Nicoll).

After telling Ally that she needs to recant her testimony and testify against Giles, Terri starts to receive threatening letters.  While Turner immediately suspects that Giles is the one behind the threats, it turns out that it’s actually Ally!  Ally explains that she’s actually an ex-convict named Deborah, a former client of Terri’s who got sent to prison.  This, of course, leads to a huge question — why didn’t Terri recognize Ally when she agreed to serve as her attorney?  And how did Ally manage to fool everyone into thinking she was Ally when she’s actually Deborah?  Ally doesn’t say anything about getting plastic surgery or anything like that.  She also implies that her last encounter with Terri was only a year or two ago.  (Seeing as how Terri wasn’t even on the show until the start of this season, it couldn’t have been that long ago.)  Terri immediately recognizes the name Deborah but she didn’t recognize Deborah when she was standing right in front of her.  Wow, Terry …. and I thought I was self-centered!

No worries, though!  Despite all of the threats, Terri agrees to not turn Ally into the police as long as Ally testifies against Giles.  I don’t know if I could so easily overlook a harassment campaign but whatever.  The important thing is that Giles goes to jail and Ally is free to continue leading a double life.

This episode featured good performances from Isabelle Mejias and Tom Melissis and I appreciate any show or film that ends with an abuser getting sent to either prison or the graveyard.  But the story itself felt really rushed.  This is one of those episodes that would have benefitted from a longer running time because there was a lot to unpack in just 30 minutes.  As well, it’s hard not to feel that Ally’s backstory would have had more impact if Amy was still on the show.  Season 3 (and the show itself) are nearly over and I still don’t feel like I really know how Terri Taler is supposed to be.  Amy was established, over the course of two seasons, as a whip-smart attorney who had a long history as a crusader.  Terri, on the other hand, still feels like someone who just showed up nowhere.

Like last week, this was a surprisingly serious episode of T and T.  The episode didn’t quite work but the show still deserves credit for trying.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.20 “Summit”

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 do their bet to save the world from nuclear annihilation.  Good for them!

Episode 2.20 “Summit”

(Dir by Dan Gordon, originally aired on March 5th, 1986)

Maria Malinoff (Eda Reiss Merlin), a Russian immigrant, is dying.  Before she dies, she wants to see her son one last time.

The good news is that her son, Andrey Malinoff (Nehemiah Persoff), is currently in the United States.  Even better, Mark and Jonathan have been assigned to let Andrey know that his mother wants to see him and to convince him to set aside his bitterness and see her.

The bad news is that Andrey is now the deputy premier of Russia and the reason why he’s in the United States is to attend a summit with the President (voiced by Frank Welker).  Andrey is a communist who doesn’t believe in angels or American exceptionalism!

Mark and Jonathan are able to get jobs as waiters for the summit.  (It helps that there is another angel working at Camp David.)  They are even able to get Andrey away from his handlers long enough to take him to see his mother.  Andrey is convinced that Jonathan and Mark are with the CIA and their whole “mission” is a trick to keep him from attending the summit.  Mark dislikes Andrey because he’s a Russian and he think his country is superior to America.  Jonathan dislikes Andrey because he’s abrasive and refuses, at first, to accept that Maria is his mother.

Eventually, though, Maria starts to talk about what Andrey was like as a child.  Realizing that she is who she says she is, Andrey sits with his mother and talks to her until she passes away.  Then, he returns to the summit a (slightly) changed man.  He may still be a communist but at least now he knows the meaning of the word compassion.  Mark takes a few minutes to ask Andrey and the President to work out their differences, explaining that everyone in the world is scared of nuclear war.  The President, who is heard but not seen, is touched by Mark’s plea and agrees to have a long conversation about peace with Andrey.

Having apparently brought about world peace, Mark and Jonathan head off to their next assignment.

This episode — which was one of the few to be directed by neither Michael Landon nor Victor French — just felt silly, especially when compared to the strong episodes that came before it.  Nehemiah Persoff does a lot of blustering in the role of Andrey but he never convinces us of the character’s emotions or his transformation.  As an anti-communist, I enjoyed listening to Mark insult the Russians but otherwise, this well-meaning episode was a definite misfire.

Horror on TV: One Step Beyond 2.4 “Doomsday” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond deals with that classic horror theme, the curse of a dying witch.  In this case, a woman burned at the stake in Scotland curses the family of her wealthy persecutor, saying that the eldest son will be destined to always die before his father.

I swear, witch’s curses are always so complicated!

The episode aired on October 13th, 1959.

In the words of Criswell, “Can you prove it didn’t happen?”

Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.13 “Mom Returns”

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, Jason and Scott’s mom returns to America and quickly decides to leave again.

Episode 1.13 “Mom Returns”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on January 17th, 1999)

With their Dad stuck in San Diego on his birthday, Jason and Scott decide to throw a wild party at the house.  The music is loud.  The house is crowded.  Murray jumps off the second floor balcony.  The police show up and start dancing.  Oddly enough, Stads shows up and there’s absolutely no awkwardness between her and Jason, despite the fact that they just broke up.

Everything is going great until Michele (Carol Huston) shows up.

Michele is Jason and Scott’s mother, the one who sent them to Malibu so that she could take a job in Saudi Arabia.  She’s returned home and Jason and Scott panic that she’s going to order them to return to New York.  When they overhear Michele talking to their Dad about getting married again, Jason and Scott are convinced that their parents are getting back together.

Of course, this being a Peter Engel-produced show, it’s all a big misunderstanding.  Michele is getting married again but she’s marrying a guy that she met in Saudi Arabia.  In fact, she’s planning on spending another year in Saudi Arabia.  I guess she likes not being allowed to drive and having to cover herself from head to toe while living in the middle of the desert.  Still, when Jason and Scott start wearing suits and behaving like perfect angels in an attempt to convince their mom to let them stay in Malibu, their Dad decides to play a trick on them and basically allows them to believe that he and Michele are getting back together….

Wow, what a fucking asshole.

Seriously, it’s rare that I curse but this is one of the worst things that I’ve ever seen a television father do.  I’m a child of divorce.  I know exactly how it feels to fool yourself into thinking that your parents are going to get back together.  That’s not something joke about.

Their father also jokes about sending his sons to Saudi Arabia.  He even gives them some keffiyehs to wear.  The audience laughs.  Today, of course, Scott and Jason would just look like a typical Ivy Leaguer.

Anyway, after this episode, I understand why Michele got a divorce and couldn’t wait to get away from the kids.  She probably could have escaped to a less misogynistic country but I guess she was desperate.

While all of this was going on, Sam and Stads competed to see who could raise the most money for charity.  Stads really got over Sam kissing her boyfriend quickly!  Both of them recruit Tracy to help them raise money.  Tracy walks around the beach in a bikini and says, “Who wants to give me money?”  It works.

This was a dumb episode.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.17 “One Wolf’s Family”

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, Jerry Stiller is a werewolf!

Episode 2.17 “One Wolf’s Family”

(Dir by Alex Zamm, originally aired on February 11th, 1990)

In this rather heavy-handed episode of Monsters, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara star as Victor and Greta, two immigrants who have built a successful life for themselves in America.  Victor is very proud of his heritage and his success.  He’s even more proud of the fact that he and Greta are pure-bred werewolves.  He expects his daughter, Anya (Amy Stiller), to marry a purebred werewolf.

(Ben was apparently busy when they shot this episode.)

So, how will Victor react when he discovers that Amy’s fiancé, Stanley (Robert Clohessy), is a were-hyena!?

*sigh*

Okay, I will give some credit here.  The scene where Victor meets Stanley and they all gather around the kitchen table for dinner does have some funny moments.  Stanley, being a hyena in human form, cannot stop laughing, even when he’s being insulted.  And when Jerry Stiller launches into a rant about how no daughter of his is going to hang out on the roadside and eat trash, I did laugh.  This was largely due to Jerry Stiller’s delivery of the line.  Jerry Stiller was always funny whenever he started to rant.

Otherwise, this episode was pretty disappointing.  There’s a subplot about a nosey neighbor named Agnes (Karen Shallo).  Agnes is upset to discover that her neighbors are werewolves that keep dead bodies in their refrigerator so that they’ll have something to snack on.  “It’s bad enough that they’re immigrants!” Agnes says.  And yes, I get it.  Agnes is supposed to be a small-minded suburbanite who doesn’t understand that America is a country of immigrants and all the rest.  The problem is that, regardless of how Agnes feels about immigrants, she has every right to be concerned about living next door to a werewolf who keeps a dead body in his refrigerator.  When she sees Victor eating a foot, it totally makes sense that she would be upset about it.  The show’s satire would have worked if Agnes’s sole objection to them had been that they were immigrants.  (It would have been even funnier if Agnes has absolutely no problem living next door to werewolves as long as they were born in America.)  But by making them werewolves and having Agnes be upset by the fact that they were werewolves, the show instead suggests that Agnes might have a point.

Not that it matters.  Stanley turns into a hyena and rips off Agnes’s head and brings it to Victor and Greta as a gift.  Stanley is accepted into the family while Jerry Stiller howls a the moon.

Political satire is always hit-and-miss and this episode was definitely a mess.  It’s a shame because Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara were definitely funny people.  (If you’ve ever seen the documentary Have A Good Trip, there’s a scene where Ben Stiller tells a story about accidentally taking several tabs of LSD in college and, in a panic, calling his father for help.  “I know what you’re going through,” Jerry told him, “I once smoked an entire Pall Mall cigarette.”  “My father was Jerry Stiller, not Jerry Rubin,” Ben explains.)  This is one of those episodes that I was really hoping would be good but it just didn’t work.

Horror On TV: One Step Beyond 2.1 “Delusion” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond.…

A young woman (Suzanne Pleshette) desperately needs a blood transfusion.  Fortunately, the police have managed to track down one of the only people to share her blood type, an accountant named Harold Stern (Norman Lloyd).  Harold seems like a nice, rather mild-mannered guy and he has a long history of donating blood.  However, when the police approach him, Harold refuses to donate.

“What type of crumb are you!?” the police demand.

Harold explains that, whenever he gives someone blood, he develops a psychic connection with that person.  He can see their future.  And that’s simply a burden that he can no longer shoulder….

This episode of One Step Beyond originally aired on September 15th, 1959.  Norman Lloyd, who plays Harold, got his start as a member of Orson Welles’s Mercury Theater and he also played the villain in Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur.  (Speaking of Hitchcock, Suzanne Pleshette played the doomed school teacher in The Birds.)  When Lloyd appeared in this episode of One Step Beyond, he was 44 years old.  He would go on to live for another 62 years, making his final film appearance at the age of 101!

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.27 “Maid for Each Other/Lost and Found/Then There Were Two”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On 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, a baby is abandoned, an aunt visits, and for some reason, Joe Namath is on the boat.

Episode 4.27 “Maid for Each Other/Lost and Found/Then There Were Two”

(Dir by Howard Morris, originally aired on May 9th, 1981)

Ted Harper (Joe Namath) boards the boat with his best friend, Richard Henderson (Fred Willard).  Ted and Richard were fraternity brothers.  While in college, the members of the frat decided that, whenever one of them got married, some money would be contributed to a pot.  The last single member of the frat would end up getting all of the cash, which is now up to $60,000.  Ted and Richard are the last two single members of the frat and they’re competing to see who can hold out the longest.

(Can we just agree that guys are weird?)

Ted has a plan to get the money. He’s gotten his ex-girlfriend, Paula (Karen Grassle), to agree to trick Richard into falling in love with and marrying her, in exchange for some of the money.  However, Richard is smarter than Ted realizes and instead offers Paula even more of the money to get Ted to marry her.  However, Karen falls for Ted for real.  Karen and Ted do get married when the ship docks in Mexico.  When Richard announces that he paid Karen to marry Ted, Ted is hurt at first but then he realizes that he was willing to do the same thing to Richard and nothing matters more than love.  Awwww!

Now, it may seem strange to cast Joe Namath and Fred Willard as friends.  To me, it’s even stranger that this was not the first time that Joe Namath, who was not much of actor, appeared on The Love Boat.  Just as he did the last time he was on the boat (and also just as he did when he last visited Fantasy Island), Namath wanders through the story with a goofy grin on his face.

Speaking of goofy, Gopher is super-excited when his wealthy aunt Loretta (Jane Powell) boards the boat.  Loretta, however, is scared to tell Gopher that she has lost all of her money and is now working as a maid.  Loretta need not have worried.  I mean, it’s not as if Gopher has a particularly glamorous job.  Plus, Loretta’s not going to be poor for long, not after she meets and falls in love with wealthy Duncan Harlow (Howard Keel).

Finally, Eddie Martin (Gary Burghoff) is a mechanic on the Love Boat who decides to abandon his baby with the captain.  The captain, who apparently doesn’t know much about the people who work for him, has no idea who the baby’s father is.  But when the baby is taken ill and needs a transfusion of super-rare AB blood, Eddie is forced to stand up and accept the responsibility of being a father.  Good for him, I guess.  Personally, I like fathers who don’t abandon their babies in the first place.

This was a fairly bland episode.  The fourth season is nearly over and, with this cruise, everyone seemed to mostly be going through the motions.  This episode seemed like a collection of stories that the show had already handled (and handled better) in the past.

Next week …. season 4 comes to an end!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.13 “Nights to Dragon One”

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 play a deadly game!

Episode 2.13 “Nights to Dragon One”

(Dir by Richard Friedman, originally aired on February 16th, 1997)

Mitch and Ryan are hired to discover what has happened to a father and his daughter.  When last seen, they were entering a mysterious building.  The father was a lifelong adventurer and he had apparently heard that the building was home to “the ultimate game.”  Along with daughter, he had to play.  Now, they’re both missing.

So, of course, Mitch and Ryan enter the building and soon find themselves in a computer-simulated dungeon, complete with traps, deadly archers, random flames, and a cackling Game Master (Vincent Schiavelli) who occasionally materializes so he can taunt Mitch and Ryan about their lack of progress in the game.

Ryan is actually excited about playing the game, explaining the she played an earlier version of it when she was in college.  All Mitch cares about is saving the man and his daughter.  Mitch doesn’t get the point of computer simulations and virtual reality and all that sort of thing.  Mitch probably thinks that email is just a fad as well.  Mitch is the guy who goes to an escape room and, instead of reading the clues, just tries to break the door down.

And yet, it’s Mitch who ends up entering and winning the final confrontation with the Game Master, even though Ryan points out that it would make more sense for her to do it because she’s actually played the game before.  Sorry, Ryan.  The Hoff is here to save the day so just stand back and be quiet, I guess.

Vincent Schiavelli is a welcome presence as the Game Mater and he at least seems to be having fun with his role.  That said, this is the worst episode of Baywatch Nights that I’ve seen so far and that includes out of the episodes from the non-supernatural first season as well.  A huge problem is that the game itself is just boring.  Mitch and Ryan have to make their way through a corridor of laser beams.  Mitch and Ryan have to avoid the arrows being shot at them by a mysterious archer.  Considering that this is a computer simulation where, in theory, anything could happen, this episode is a huge missed opportunity.  Things should have been a lot stranger than they were.

Finally, this is one of those episodes where the camera never stops moving.  As opposed to being disorientating or frightening, the constant movement just becomes annoying.  There’s only so many Dutch angles that can be used in one scene before they lose their effectiveness.

This game could have been a lot of fun but instead, it’s just kind of dull.  The Hoff wins but honestly, I feel like I could have won it as well.  The Hoff/Angie chemistry is still strong but it’s not enough to save this middling episode.