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Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.11 “Dreams that Kill”

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 Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!

This week, Springwood Confidential struggles to keep a host.

Episode 2.11 “Dreams That Kill”

(Dir by Tom DeSimone, originally aired on December 17th, 1989)

In this follow-up to Dream Come True, Dick Gautier plays Charlies Nickels, the new host of Springwood Confidential.  When he announced that his next show will be a discussion about whether or not a nightmare can kill you, he soon finds that his dreams are being haunted by Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund, hamming it up and apparently enjoying the opportunity to do more than just host for once).  Freddy is worried that the show will cause people to stop sleeping.  I’m not really sure that I follow Freddy’s logic — sleep is unavoidable, no matter how much you want to stay up for days at a time — but whatever.  Eventually, Freddy torments Charlie to the point that Charlie ends up in a coma, where Freddy can torture him 24/7.

At the hospital, a doctor (Nicholas Cascone) removes some of Charlie’s brain fluid and injects it into a comatose teenager named Mark Lindstrom (Christian Borcher).  Mark comes out of his coma but now he has Charlie’s personality and he desperately wants to be the next host of Springwood Confidential.  Mark gets the job but soon, he’s having nightmares involving Freddy.

“This is supposed to be Charlie Nickels’s dream!” Freddy says, spying Mark.  “Two for the price of one!”

As you probably already guessed, this episode ends with a vengeful Mark injecting his brain fluid into the doctor.  So now, it’s three for the price of one….

I kind of liked the idea of Freddy being passed from one victim to another.  And Robert Englund was entertaining as Freddy.  That said, this episode basically felt like the same story told twice.  Freddy haunted Charlie.  Freddy haunts Mark in the exact same way.  It was better than anything the first season had to offer but this episode still ultimately felt a bit redundant.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 3.18 “Any Portrait In A Storm”

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 Daily Motion.

This week, it’s a stormy episode!

Episode 3.18 “Any Portrait In A Storm”

(Dir by Leo Penn, originally aired on January 30th, 1985)

As a rain storm rages outside, the drama inside St. Eligius continues.

Dr. Auschlander cancels the grand unveiling of his portrait, saying that he doesn’t feel worthy of the attention and also admitting to Westphall that the whole thing not only makes him feel old but also reminds him that he’s dying.  Westphall’s response is to nod glumly because Westphall is the most depressed man on the planet.  Auschlander is dying of liver cancer and he still manages to usually be more cheerful than Westphall.  Even this episode ends with Auschlander in a good mood.  He finally looks at his portrait and discovers that he likes it.  Plus, Luther tells Auschlander how important he is to him and the other workers at the hospital.

While Auschlander feels his age and Westphall sadly stares at the ceiling, Dr. Ehrlich makes an effort to be more polite and fails completely.  Ms. Hufnagle argues about her hospital bill.  In an amusing moment, Warren spots Dean (Tim Van Patten) getting on an elevator and shouts, “Salami!”  Before St. Elsewhere, Byron Stewart (who played Warren) and Van Patten starred together on a show called The White Shadow.  Stewart played Warren, the same character that he plays on St. Elsewhere.  Van Patten played someone named Salami.  What makes the scene especially humorous is that Dean hesitates before saying, “You got the wrong guy,” as if he somehow remembers being a different character on another show.

Dean is at the hospital to tell his pregnant girlfriend that, despite the fact that she’s currently in labor, he’s leaving Boston for Florida so he can set up a drug deal.  Both Dean’s girlfriend, Maddy (Lycia Naff), and Peter White’s widow, Myra (Karen Landry), give birth in this episode.  Tragically, Maddy’s daughter dies.  Myra has a son, who survives and who she names Peter.  Afterwards, she receives an anonymous present — a little ski mask, identical in every way but size to the one that her late husband used to wear while he was terrorizing the hospital.

This was not a bad episode.  The rain served as a good (if perhaps too obvious) metaphor for the drama happening inside the hospital.  A good deal of this episode centered around Dr. Woodley trying to get Maddy to accept some help and get Dean out of her life.  The problem is that this is only Dr. Woodley’s third or fourth episode and, as a result, I still don’t feel like I know much about the character.  Having her suddenly take center stage for this episode felt a bit premature.  Still, Norman Lloyd’s performance as Dr. Auschlander and the scene were Dr. Craig realizes that he left his lights on when he got out of his car kept things watchable, occasionally humorous, and, in the end, rather poignant.  Sometimes, Dr. Asuchlander could be almost too good to be true but Norman Lloyd’s performance always sold every moment.  That was certainly the case here.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.3 “The Hot Grounder”

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

This week, the police commissioner is suspected of murder!

Episode 1.3 “The Hot Grounder”

(Dir by Bill Duke, originally aired on October 5th, 1984)

After the police commissioner’s wife is blown up by a car bomb, all the homicide detectives hide out in the bathroom because they don’t want to get assigned the case.  Captain Cain still manages to track them down and gives the case to Hunter and McCall.  When McCall asks Hunter why he didn’t do a better job hiding, Hunter replies, “I’m too tall!”

Hunter and McCall soon come to suspect that Commissioner Crenshaw (William Windom) had his wife killed.  Because Crenshaw was being blackmailed with photographs of him with another man, his wife was threatening to divorce him.  Despite all of the evidence against Crenshaw, the police chief (Jason Bernard) tries to protect him.  Hunter and McCall find themselves suspended from the force.  They still manage to prove Crenshaw’s guilt.  Crenshaw goes to prison and Hunter and McCall get their badges back.

This episode felt like a rough draft.  I enjoyed the humor at the start of it.  All of the detectives trying to hide felt very realistic.  Dryer was always obviously still getting comfortable with the role when this episode was shot but his jokes were well-delivered.  That said, the mystery itself felt half-baked and William Windom was not particularly believable in his role.  By the end of the episode, Hunter had been reduced to repeating, “Works for me,” over and over again.

This episode didn’t really work for me.  It was obvious that the show was still trying to figure out who Hunter and McCall were and how they would react to each other.  As such, their chemistry felt off in this episode and the end result was forgettable.

Retro Television Review: Decoy 1.29 “Cry Revenge”

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 Decoy, which aired in Syndication in 1957 and 1958.  The show can be viewed on Tubi!

This week, Casey gets involved in a domestic drama.

Episode 1.29 “Cry Revenge”

(Dir by David Alexander, originally aired on April 28th, 1958)

Mrs. Hart (Fran Carlon) has been getting threatening phone calls from criminal James Anderson (Lee Bergere), who is trying to keep Mrs. Hart from testifying against him in court.  Casey is sent over to the Hart home to provide 24-hour protection.  It’s there that she meets Norma (Zohra Lampert), Mrs. Hart’s club-footed daughter.  Norma blames her mother for both her father’s death and her disability.

Norma stuns everyone when she announces that she has married Howard Farley (Lonny Chapman), one of Anderson’s criminal associates.  Norma is getting back at her mother but what she doesn’t realize is that Howard only married her so that he and James could rob the family business!

Casey didn’t really get to do much in this episode, as she herself admitted at the end of the episode.  (In her closing  monologue, she tells us that she’ll always think of the Harts whenever she wonders what happens behind the curtains of a seemingly perfect home.)  This episode is a bit of a soap opera, with Norma eventually discovering the truth about her alcoholic father and how he was responsible for her twisted foot.

Zohra Lampert, who previously appeared on this show as the victim of a heroin dealer, gives a good performance as Norma, playing her as being both vulnerable and vindictive.  This episode eventually got a bit too overwrought for its own good but Lampert made the episode worth watching.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 3.12 “Of Scalpers and Superstars”

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

This week, OJ’s in trouble!

Episode 3.12 “Of Scalpers and Superstars”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 9th, 1987)

O.J. Simpson gets arrested!

Okay, technically, OJ Simpson is not the one being arrested.  He’s just playing TD Parker, the Bulls’s general manager.  TD is the one who is arrested at the end of this episode after being framed for stealing 5,000 ticket to the Championship Game and selling to a ticket scalper.  Still, as is so often the case with this show, the casting of OJ Simpson does bring a while new layer to the action of meaning to the action onscreen.

Who framed TD?  The answer is Dolph Crane (Forry Smith), a former player who was cut from the team.  Dolph has never appeared on the show before but, judging from what TD says when he sees Dolph hanging around the stadium, it seems that Dolph was cut last season.  One of the things that I’ve noticed about 1st & Ten is that new characters will often pop up out of nowhere and people will act as if they’ve been there the whole time.  Dolph appears to be one of those pop-up character.  Dolph mentions that he’s now dating TD’s former mistress.  Dolph and the owner of Arizona’s team are the ones who conspire to take out TD.  Hopefully, they didn’t plant a bloody glove anywhere in the office.

The Bulls are going to the Championship Game …. again!  Maybe they’ll actually win this time.  This is their third trip to the game, after all.  It’ll be kind of sad if they win without Coach Denardo, though.  Coach Grier just isn’t as much fun as foul-mouthed Ernie Denardo.

The entire team gets mad at Yinessa.  After getting injured during a game, he decides that he needs to make as much money as possible so he allows his agent (Bobby Hosea) to promote him as being the “star” of the team.  The rest of the team feels that isn’t fair.  The thing is, though …. Yinessa is kind of the star.  He’s the quarterback.  If he has a bad day, the team doesn’t win.  The Bulls are a bunch of crybabies.  When they find out that a team music video is being reimagined as a Yinessa music video, they literally look like they’re about to break down in tears.  No wonder they always lose the Championship Game.

This episode ended wth the Bulls heads to the Championship and OJ heading to jail.  That seems about right.  Good luck to the team!

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 7.17 “Aunt Emma, I Love You/Hoopla/The First Romance”

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 heart on a new romance….

Episode 7.17 “Aunt Emma, I Love You/Hoopla/The First Romance”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on January 21st, 1984)

This episode is just silly.

Sid Casear and Rose Marie play newlyweds who are on their honeymoon cruise.  The only problem is that Rose Marie has brought along a picture of her Aunt Emma, who never approved of Sid Caesar.  Aunt Emma always wanted to go on a cruise but having her picture around is seriously cramping Sid Caesar’s style.

Teenage Philip McKeon is expecting to meet his father (Bert Convy) on the boat.  Instead, he meets Convy’s secretary (Irena Ferris).  Son and secretary fall for each other.  The only problem is that the secretary has already fallen for the father!  And soon, the father is on the boat as well!

That said, neither one of those stories really matter.  This episode’s main focus is on the Harlem Globetrotters, who are taking the cruise to Mexico, where they’re supposed to play an exhibition game.  Isaac’s friend (Darrow Igus) is the manager of the Globetrotters and he’s already sold a lot of tickets to the game.  Unfortunately, when the stadium is flooded, the game is cancelled.  It looks like Igus is going to be broke and fired.  Wait a minute — what if the Globetrotters play a game on the boat?  And what if the other team is made up of the Love Boat crew!?

Uhmm …. would that really be a workable solution?  I mean, imagine that you spent a lot of money to see a basketball game in a stadium.  Now, imagine being told that the game will instead take place in a small dining room on a cruise ship and that one of the teams is going to be exclusively made up of middle-aged white people, with the exception of one unathletic teenage girl.  I might not demand all of my money back but I would probably ask for at least half of it.

Needless to say, the Globetrotters win the game.  The Love Boat band plays a really sad-sounding version of Sweet Georgia Brown.  The whole thing is just odd.

As I said, it was a very silly cruise.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.1 “Glass Houses”

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 Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network!  It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, we start season 4!

Episode 4.1 “Glass Houses”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on July 26th, 1998)

The fourth season of Pacific Blue opens with many changes.

Palermo and Victor have retired.  Cory is now dating Doug Fraser (Owen McKibbin).  At the start of the episode, Cory and Doug accompany TC and Chris to Vegas, where they are married by — you guessed it! — an Elvis impersonator.

TC is now in charge of Pacific Blue and, while Chris and Cory both make plans to take the sergeant’s exam, TC focuses on bringing in some new blood.  At the police academy, he recruits two recent graduates — hyper-competent Jaime Strickland (Amy Hunter) and edgy rebel Russ Granger (Jeff Stearns).  He asks and gets undercover cop Monica Harper (Shanna Moakler) transferred to Pacific Blue so that she can go undercover to break up a meth operation at the local college.  Everyone is shocked when Monica turns out to be young and blonde.  Were they expecting a 40 year-old undercover college student?

Not happy about having to ride a bicycle, Russ decides to insert himself into Monica’s undercover operation.  Monica and Russ meet the two main dealers, Quincy (Joe Michael Burke) and Cherry (Michelle Beauchamp).  They discover that they’re getting their drugs from a chemistry professor (Robin Thomas).  What they don’t do is make an arrest.  Quincy and Cherry murder the professor and escape after setting off a bomb in the chemistry lab.

TC is not happy with his new cops.  In fact, the episode ends with him telling them that he has doubts about whether or not to keep them at Pacific Blue.  Fortunately, we the viewers know that they’ll be okay because they are all now listed in the opening credits.

Also listed in the opening credits is Bobby Cruz (Mario Lopez), the campus cop who drags Monica out of the laboratory right before it explodes.  Bobby has a history.  He was a member of the LAPD but, disgusted by the anti-Mexican racism that he saw, he became a campus cop instead.  (Where I went to college, the campus cops were the biggest joke around.)  TC offers Bobby a chance to be a member of Pacific Blue.  Bobby says that he’ll think about it.  We all know that means yes.

And that’s a good thing because this show could definitely use more Mario Lopez!  In fact, the only reason I started reviewing this stupid series was because I knew Mario would be joining the cast eventually.  Let’s hope Mario’s magic starts to make things better soon!

As for this episode, it was …. well, it wasn’t good.  Other than Lopez, none of the new characters really made much of an impression.  But, I am an optimist.  I have hope.

Never give up hope.

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 1.13 “Running the Max”

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 Saved By The Bell: The New Class, which ran on NBC from 1993 to 2o00.  The show is currently on Prime.

Today, we finish up season one of Saved By The Bell: The New Class.

Episode 1.13 “Running The Max”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on December 4th, 1993)

The season one finale of Saved By The Bell: The New Class opens with Scott talking directly the audience.  Hey, that’s something that Scott hasn’t done for a while….

When he goes into his Social Studies class (which is being taught by Mr. Belding because Mr. Tuttle is appearing on Oprah to discuss teachers who overeat), he has to pick a group  to join.  Lindsay says, “Hey, Scott, why don’t you join us?”  She says it as if Scott is still a relatively new acquaintance as opposed to the friend who is always a part of the main group.

Despite having made up with each other several episodes ago, Scott and Tommy D suddenly don’t like each other again.

Vicki suddenly has a crush on Scott again, even though that plotline was abandoned episodes ago.

Weasel suddenly has a crush on Megan, despite the fact that plotline was also abandoned shortly after the first season started.

Oh, and Weasel is again making jokes that sound like they were originally written for Screech.

Watching this episode, it quickly becomes apparent that it was meant to air much earlier in the season but it was instead used as the season finale.  That says a lot about how shoddy the first season of Saved By The Bell: The New Class really was.  The finale was an episode that was originally meant to air when everyone was still getting to know one another.  Vicki’s crush on Scott is a major subplot in this episode, despite the fact that the writers eventually abandoned the idea.  By moving this episode to the end, the show wrecks havoc on its continuity but then again, when has continuity ever mattered at Bayside?

On top of all that, this is a dumb episode.  Three businesses agree to let the students run things for a week.  Who would agree to such a stupid idea?  Scott, Tommy, Megan, Weasel, Vicki, and Lindsay end up running the Max.  The Max appears to be open 24 hours a day so I’d love to know how they’re running the Max and still going to class.  For that matter, how are only six students going to run an entire restaurant?  Anyway, long story short: Scott is a bad boss, everyone quits except for Weasel (so, do they all fail the class?), but then they change their mind after they hear that Scott feels bad about his behavior.  The gang hosts a banquet for the football team.  Tommy comes up with the idea of turning into a Country-and-Western-themed barbecue.  Wait a minute — TOMMY’S ON THE FOOTBALL TEAM!  Why isn’t he at the banquet?

This was a dumb ending to a dumb season.  Half of the cast was fired at the end of season one.  Robert Sutherland Telfer, Isaac Lidsky, and Bonnie Russavage would not return as Scott, Weasel, and Vicki for season two.  (Indeed, none of their character would ever be mentioned again, despite Tommy D, Lindsay, and Megan still being around.)  I can’t say that I disagree with the decision.  Telfer was miscast as the new Zack Morris.  Russavage never made much of an impression.  (In all fairness, she wasn’t helped by the fact that the show’s writers didn’t really seem to know what to do with Vicki.)  Lidsky probably did as well as anyone could with the role of Weasel but, from the second season onward, Saved By The Bell didn’t need a new Screech.  New students would take their places and they would be joined by a familiar face.

We’ll start season two next week!

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 5.17 “Alarmed”

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 Prime!

This week, a supporting character steps into the spotlight.

Episode 5.17 “Alarmed”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on February 14th, 1982)

While chasing a stolen sports car, Officer Bonnie Clark (Randi Oakes) finds herself stuck behind a van that will simply not stop blocking her pursuit.  When the van stops for a red light, Bonnie jumps out of her patrol car to tell the driver of the van to get out of the way.  The driver of the van turns out to be Toni (Christina Hart), an old classmate from the Academy.  A visibly nervous Toni tells Bonnie that she’s working undercover and then speeds off.  Bonnie, suspicious of her former friend, makes some calls and discovers that Toni is no longer with the Highway Patrol.  Bonnie thinks that Toni is a part of a car theft ring.  Bonnie becomes obsessed with putting Toni in prison.

And when I say obsessed, I mean that Bonnie seems to be positively unhinged about proving that Toni is now a criminal.  The way that Bonnie grins while telling her plans to Getraer really makes you wonder if maybe there’s something more to this story than just Bonnie wanting to capture a cop-turned-crook.  I mean, I dislike a lot of people who I went to school with but I wouldn’t ever call the cops on them.  It bothered me that Bonnie wasn’t even curious as to why Toni had become a criminal.  And CHiPs, as a show, wasn’t that interested in it either.  To me, though, that’s really the only interesting thing about Toni.

Bonnie joined the Highway Patrol at the start of the third season.  This is the first episode in which she’s really had the spotlight and, as I watched, I could kind of understand why it took so long.  While she certainly wasn’t helped by the show’s writers, there was still absolutely nothing convincing about Randi Oakes’s performance.  She delivered her lines in an excited rush and she seemed to be oddly giddy at times.  I would not want Bonnie carrying a gun.

This episode also featured cranky old Simon Oakland as a car security specialist who was trying to create a car that couldn’t be stolen.  He was upset that his daughter (Elizabeth Daily) wanted to go into the family business.  Ponch helped him see the error of his ways.

Finally, there was an odd scene where Baker and Ponch took two dates to a mud wrestling match.  Bonnie tagged along with her date.  Bonnie was disgusted by the mud wrestling, calling it degrading.  Of course, when Bonnie later arrested Toni, the two of them ended up fighting in a muddy puddle.

“Degrading!” Ponch said before Bonnie pulled both him and Baker into the mud.  As Toni was led away in handcuffs, Bonnie laughed and laughed.

The highlight of this episode?  Ponch’s bike got damaged and burst into flames while he was pursuing Toni.  Luckily, there  was a lake nearby.  Ponch’s plunge into the water was filmed in slow motion.  By the standards of CHiPs, it was actually pretty cool.

As for the rest of the episode, it featured what one would probably want from the show.  There were a lot of car chases and not a lot of plot.  Hopefully, this was not only the first Bonnie-centric episode but also the last one as well.

Did y’all know that Charles Bronson once duked it out with Roy Rogers?!!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

How many of y’all can say that you’ve met Dale Evans, the wife of Roy Rogers?! I can. She was in Perryville, Arkansas to watch one of my fellow high school students play basketball. I don’t remember if he was her grandson, nephew or what exactly the relationship was, but she was there, and I went and introduced myself to her. This would have been in the early 90’s and she was around 80 years old or so. She was so sweet to me, and I’ve always appreciated that I got to meet her. 

Today I decided to watch the episode of “The Roy Rogers Show, Season 2, Episode 8, THE KNOCKOUT,” where Charles Bronson is the special guest star. In the episode, Roy notices strangers digging on an isolated section of his land. When he investigates, he discovers that the handlers for prizefighter Willie “Killer” Conley (Bronson) have set up a training camp for the champ. However, Roy begins to suspect that quite a bit more than training is going on there. Before long the fists and bullets are flying as Roy and Dale take down the bad guys. Bronson’s character may be called Killer Conley, but he is a decent guy who’s gotten himself in too deep with the bad guys, and he ends up joining the good guys when the rubber meets the road at the end. That made me happy. With that said, Bronson and Rogers punched it out multiple times before everything worked out well in the end! 

This was my first ever viewing of The Roy Rogers Show. From what I understand, it’s a pretty standard entry in a series that consistently displays a simple story with clear morals and a dependable resolution. However, when you consider that this episode was one of the early TV appearances of Charles Bronson, billed as Charles Buchinsky at the time, it emerges as a piece of cinematic history. A couple of decades later Bronson would be the biggest male movie star in the world. At this point for me, it’s nostalgia at its finest! 

The Roy Rogers Show is currently streaming on Tubi.