Tag Archives: TV

Scenes That I Love: Tony Soprano Dreams Of A House In The Sopranos

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

With our annual Horrorthon starting in three days, I thought that this would be an appropriate time to share a creepy scene that I love from The Sopranos.

The Sopranos was well-known for its dream sequences. For me, this dream from the season 4’s Calling All Cars is one of the best and scariest of the series. It’s full of menace and ominous atmosphere, from the minute we see Tony being led to the house by the deceased Ralphie. And then, when that mysterious shadow appears on the staircase — AGCK!

I look forward to inviting you inside the TSL House of Horrors this October.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi: The Next Generation 3.12 “Holiday: Part Two”

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 Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015!  The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi.

This week, we finish up Christmas in Canada!

Episode 3.12 “Holiday Part Two”

(Dir by Philip Earnshaw, originally aired on December 17th, 2003)

Craig has no idea how to cheat.

It’s Christmas and he currently has two girlfriends.  He’s scheduled to perform in Degrassi’s holiday pageant with Ashley.  At the same time, he’s told Manny that he and Ashley have broken up.  For Christmas, he buys gifts for both Ashley and Manny.  Ashley gets a badass Ramones t-shirt.  (Ashley reminds me a lot of myself).  Manny gets a pink sweater and a skating bracelet.  Foolishly, Craig leaves Ashley alone in his room and Ashley discovers the gift bags.  She sees all of the gifts.

Later, at the Christmas pageant, she notices that Manny is wearing the bracelet.  And she has a gift bag with the sweater in it!  When Ashley asks Manny who gave her the gifts, Manny refuses to say.  However, she does tell Ashley that she hopes Ashley can move on after losing Craig.  Agck!

The holiday pageant does not go well for Craig.  Ashley walks out on stage and slaps him.  So much for their deut of All I Want For Christmas Is You.  Joey later finds Craig sulking in the hallway.  Joey tells him about the time that he cheated on Caitlin with Tessa Campanelli.  Craig responds be telling Joey that he’s obviously still in love with Caitlin.

*sigh*

(By the way, that’s a sigh of frustration, not romance.)

Yes, this is the episode where Joey realizes that he’s still in love with Caitlin and dumps Sydney on Christmas Eve.  The first time I saw this episode, I thought that the way that Joey rushed down to the airport and caught Caitlin before she left for Montreal was romantic.  Rewatching it, I realized just how self-absorbed both Caitlin and Joey are.  Joey treats Sydney like dirt, despite the fact that Sydney has spent months looking after his daughter, taking care of the house, and devoting almost all of her time to him.  The show tries to turn Sydney into a villain but all she did was ask Joey’s ex-girlfriend to start trying to break into his house.  To me, that seems pretty reasonable.

As for Caitlin, it’s hard to know where to even begin.  When this show started, Caitlin was portrayed as being a largely down-to-Earth, mature human being.  With this episode, Caitlin is suddenly transformed into a neurotic klutz.  Suddenly, she’s slipping a love note through Joey’s mail slot and then getting stuck in the kitchen window when she tries to break in to retrieve it.  That’s not the Caitlin who was previously on the show.  I assume the show’s writers were trying to make her into an adorkable romantic comedy lead but, as it is, she just seems like someone who has an unhealthy hang-up on a guy who cheated on her in high school.

Oh well.  I do appreciate that this was a Christmas episode.  All of the snow looked lovely.  That said, I will always feel bad for Ashley and Sydney.  They both deserved a better holiday.

 

Retro Television Review: Law & Order 8.6 and Homicide 6.5 “Baby, It’s You”

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 Sundays, I will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC!  It  can be viewed on Peacock.

This week, Homicide crosses over with Law & Order.

Law & Order 8.6 “Baby, It’s You”

(Dir by Edwin Sherin, originally aired on November 12th, 1997)

Homicide 6.5 “Baby, It’s You”

(Dir by Edwin Sherin, originally aired on November 14th, 1997)

In New York City, Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) find themselves investigating the death of a 14 year-old model named Brittany Janeway.  The daughter of plastic surgeon Steven Janeway (Tom Tammi) and his wife Gayle (Maureen Anderman), Brittany died after complaining to her father about abdominal pain.  The medical examiner determines that, two weeks before her death, Brittany was sexually assaulted with such severity that it resulted in internal injuries that led to toxic shock.

When the detectives learn that Brittany was in Baltimore two weeks earlier, they call Lt. Giardello and ask if he can send two of his detectives to check on the family’s Maryland home.  The job falls to Detective Munch, who is still angry over the fact that Briscoe once slept with his first wife.  Munch asks Falsone (ugh!) to accompany him.  When Munch and Falsone learn that the son of the Janeways’s New York housekeeper was seen in Baltimore on the night that Brittany was raped, they have a suspect.  Danvers sends them to New York with one mission.  Arrest the guy and bring him back to Baltimore to stand trial.  Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) is not happy about that.  Because Brittany died in New York, he feels that it’s his case to prosecute.  Because the rape that led to Brittany’s death happened in Baltimore, Danvers claims that it’s his case.

Of course, once the suspect is arrested, it turns out that he wasn’t the perpetrator.  Instead, he was a witness.  According to him, Brittany had already been raped by the time he arrived at the house.  The suspicion immediately shifts to Dr. Janeway.  When the doctor is arrested in Baltimore, McCoy heads down to Maryland to argue that the case should be tried in New York.  Judge Andahl (Sagan Lewis), who was last seen getting Elijah Wood off of a murder charge, disagrees.  However, she allows McCoy to be co-counsel with Danvers.

In a twist that will not surprise anyone who has ever seen an episode of Law & Order, it turns out that Brittany was not assaulted by her father.  Instead, she was assaulted by her mother.

The last time Law & Order and Homicide did a cross-over, the emphasis was on Pembleton and Bayliss and their unorthodox interrogation technique running up against McCoy’s need for admissible evidence.  This time, when McCoy goes down to Baltimore, he quickly befriends and starts to discuss life with — you guessed it! — Detective Paul Falsone!  In fact, Pembleton and Bayliss are barely present in this cross-over.  While Munch does get to engage in some fun passive-aggressive banter with Lennie Briscoe, this cross-over is ultimately all about Paul Falsone, the super detective who never makes a mistake.

Good Lord, why?  WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE ABOUT FALSONE?  Falsone is a boring character.  We are five episodes into the sixth season and Falsone has been a major part of four of them.  The veteran Homicide actors were pushed to the side so that Jon Seda could wander around and mutter his lines.  I get that show was trying to appeal to fans of more action-orientated cop shows with the character of Falsone but, in what I’ve seen so far, Seda has not shown a hint of charisma in the role. The fact that Homicide keeps insisting that Falsone is the greatest detective in the history of detectives does not make the character any more intriguing.

This crossover was a disappointment,  The story, which was obviously based on the JonBenet Ramsey case, was sordid simply for the sake of being sordid and the big reveal that the murderer was the mother was not quite the shocking moment that it was bult up to be.  Anyone familiar with Law & Order could have guessed who the murderer was going  to be.  And then, on top of everything else — FALSONE!

This was not a good one.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell 3.7 “Check Your Mate”

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 Saved By The Bell, which ran on NBC from 1989 to 1993.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Screech is actually good at something!

Episode 3.7 “Check Your Mate”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on October 5th, 1991)

Bayside has got chess fever!  Screech Powers has advanced to the all-city chess finals, where he will be facing off against Valley High’s Russian exchange student Peter Breschnev (Matt Kaminsky), the grandson of a legendary player.  Screech fears that he won’t have a chance but then he remembers that he never seems to lose as long as he’s wearing the lucky red beret that Violet purchased for him.

Around the same time that Zack and Slater place a bet on the outcome of chess match, Allison (Hillary Hayes) shows up.  She says that she’s from a chess magazine and she wants to do a profile of Screech.  She even invites Screech to the magazine’s mansion so that he can swim in the pawn-shaped pool.  However, it turns out that Allison is actually a spy from Valley High and she’s been sent to sabotage Screech’s game.  Allison steals his lucky beret.  How can Screech win now!?

Usually, I can’t stand any episode that revolves around Screech and Violet but I have to admit that I do like this one.  Yes, Dustin Diamond and Tori Spelling are just as bad as usual (and Diamond really goes overboard with the goofy faces in this one) but, luckily, Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Mario Lopez are also present and they do some of their best work in this episode.  Zack and Slater, for instance, kidnap the Russian and tie him up in a broom closet.  Zack then pretends to be the Russian and forfeits the match after making one move.  Meanwhile, Slater reports on the match for Bayside’s radio station and he does so with just the right amount of earnest enthusiasm.  (Jessie: “And now the Russian is hopping out onstage in his underwear!?”  Slater: “What an exciting match so far!”)  Slater knows nothing about chess but he does know that he wants to see “that commie” defeated.  Amongst the guest stars, Hilary Hayes and Matt Kaminsky are perfectly cast and score some laughs of their own.  (“I’ll see ya …. at the Galleria.”)

In this episode, Screech nearly loses Violet when he lets his chess fame go to his head.  Violet forgives him but this would still be her final episode.  I guess dating a chess jock wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 9/20/26 — 9/26/20

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Again, this week was largely about getting ready for Horrorthon.

I did take the time to watch Big Brother.  I’m so excited.  Only a few more days to go and then this season will be over with and I’ll never have to think about it again!  We are now down to the final three houseguests.  I imagine that next Thursday, Devens will defeat Drew by a vote of 6-1.  I’ve written a little about Big Brother over at the Reality TV Chat Blog.

I was happy to see Survivor return.  I wrote about my thoughts on the first episode of season 51 here.  I’m looking forward to the start of The Amazing Race on Wednesday.

On Netflix, SCTV continues to bring me happiness.  This week, I watched a parody of The Godfather and I got to know Sammy Maudlin and his favorite guest, Bobby Bittman.

I also watched and reviewed episodes of Saved By The Bell, Hunter, 1st & Ten, Degrassi, and Sledge Hammer!

 

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.21 “Game of Chance”

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 Baywatch, which ran on NBC and then in syndication from 1989 to 2001.  The entire show can be viewed on Tubi.

This week, Harvey has a gambling problem.

Episode 2.21 “Game of Chance”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on May 11th, 1992)

Harvey (Tom McTigue), the lifeguard who always appears in the opening credits but rarely does anything in the actual show, actually gets a storyline in this episode.

Harvey is on a boat in the ocean, taking part in a floating poker game. Mitch kayaks out to the game so he can tell Harvey to “fold” and get to work. Harvey, however, has a great hand. He wins everyone’s money. Unfortunately, a masked man then shows up and steals all the money for himself. (Whoever put this poker game together should have splurged a little on security.) Mitch and Harvey investigate the robbery and eventually discover that the thief owns an amphibious jeep. This leads to a less-than-exciting chase scene and Hasselhoff making jokes about a talking car.

Meanwhile, Shauni is frustrated because her father doesn’t approve of her dating Eddie. Even after Eddie saves Shauni’s older sister from drowning, her father continues to look down on him. Shauni finally decides to defy her father and move in with the man she loves. This would be really touching except for the fact that Shauni and Eddie have supposedly been living together for a while now. Just last week, someone asked Shauni what it was like to live with Eddie. I’m going to guess that this episode was originally meant to air earlier in the season but, for some reason, got pushed to the back.

This was all pretty silly, and the script itself felt like something left over from the first season, when Shauni was still a spoiled princess, Eddie was a rough-edged former delinquent, and John Cort was the resident trouble-making lifeguard.

Next week, the second season comes to an end.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Sledge Hammer! 1.7 “All Shook Up”

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 SLEDGE HAMMER!, a cop comedy which ran on ABC from 1986 to 1988. The entire series can be found on Prime!

Trust him.  He knows what he’s doing.

Episode 1.7 “All Shook Up”

(Dir by Jackie Cooper, originally aired on November 7th, 1986)

15 Elvis impersonators have been murdered in the city.  Doreau wonders how anyone can be so evil.  Sledge Hammer wonders about the person who draws the chalk outlines at crime scenes.  “What type of life is that?”

Captain Trunk, who spends this episode dealing with a migraine, is upset that there aren’t more clues as to the identity of the murderer.  Hammer suggests that it will be easier to solve the case once more Elvises have been murdered.  To Trunk’s disappointment, Hammer turns out to be right.  A woman witnesses the 16th murder and reports that the killer was not only dressed like Elvis but he was also carrying a golden microphone!

It’s time for Sledge Hammer to go undercover!  Doreau enrolls him in a school for Elvis impersonators and then accompanies him to the National Elvis Impersonator Semi-Finals.  The highlight of the episode is Sledge Hammer imitating Elvis.  He can’t do the voice and he can’t do the dance moves but he’s totally convincing when he draws a gun and shoots it.  Later, he shows off his karate moves and wins a trophy.

As for the murderer, he turns out to be the janitor (Raymond Ma) at the Elvis school.  He feels that he’s the best Elvis in the world.  Unfortunately, for him, he’s electrocuted when he accidentally holds his golden microphone too close to a live wire.  With the city safe for Elvis impersonators, Sledge announces that he’s going to Graceland.

This week’s episode was just ludicrous enough to work.  Between the Elvis puns and all of the bad singing and dancing, it kept me laughing (or, at the very least, smiling).  As usual, David Rasche’s enthusiastic performance more than made up for any jokes that didn’t quite land.  This was also a good episode for Anne-Marie Martin, who played Doreau’s relationship with Hammer with just the right combination of frustration and affection.

Sledge Hammer has left the building but he’ll be back next week.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 4.12 “The Boom Boom Womb”

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, St. Elsewhere gets topical.

Episode 4.12 “The Boom Boom Womb”

(Dir by Nicholas Mele, originally aired on January 8th 1986)

When Elliot’s car gets stuck in the snow, Luther offers to help in return for Elliot looking after Luther’s homing pigeon. Elliot, whose father was a veterinarian, agrees. Unfortunately, when Elliot attempts to turn his sink into a birdbath, the pigeon is electrocuted after it accidentally pulls an electric shaver into the water. Elliot originally tells Luther that the bird flew out a window and then froze to death on the windowsill. Luther accepts the story. A guilt-ridden Elliot later tells Luther the truth, and Luther shoves him to the ground.

Watching this storyline, I thought about how bad I always feel for Luther. In many ways, he’s the smartest guy on the show. He’s certainly the most compassionate and the least judgmental. (Yes, he pushed Elliot, but Elliot did lie to him about how the bird died.) And yet, because he didn’t grow up rich, Luther is stuck working as an orderly, and the doctors frequently seem to look down on him.

While Elliot’s lying to Luther, Helen Rosenthal is trying to figure out why her youngest son, Jeff (Ina Fried), keeps acting out in school and at home.  She even takes him to see St. Eligius’s staff psychiatrist, Dr. Weiss (Philip Sterling).  Dr. Weiss’s diagnosis is that Helen’s son is basically growing up to be a jerk.

As for the rest of the episode, it was all about current events, 1986-style. Pru (Amanda Wyss), the developmentally challenged teenager who got pregnant during her last hospital visit, has an abortion even though she doesn’t know what that means. Dr. Morrison struggles to reconcile his pro-life beliefs with his job as a doctor. Dr. Ehrlich, who has no beliefs, performs the operation. Meanwhile, a bomber (Rob Garrison) blows up the Boston Women’s Clinic and, as the episode ends, is seen sneaking a bomb into St. Eligius.

This is typically the type of storyline that would feature Westphall wandering around glumly. Westphall, however, is busy at a hearing to determine whether his housekeeper, Morena (Edith Diaz), will be deported back to El Salvador. Westphall is worried about her being deported because she’s so good with Tommy. In other words, this is yet another example of Westphall making someone else’s problem all about himself.

This episode was a bit too heavy-handed for my tastes, but I did appreciate that Dr. Morrison was at least not portrayed as a monster for his views. When it comes to being heavy-handed, the New Amsterdam episode that aired in 2022 and dealt with Roe v. Wade being overturned will always be the champion. That episode featured a slow-motion montage of people staring at their phones, dropping their coffee cups, and, in one case, running down a street. (“Maybe she’s running to the clinic to get an abortion while she still can,” Erin said when we saw the opening of the episode.) Compared to that, this episode of St. Elsewhere is actually pretty even-handed.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 2.3 “The Biggest Man In Town”

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, Hunter and McCall investigate a murder!  Yes, another one.

Episode 2.3 “The Biggest Man In Town”

(Dir by Bob Bravler, originally aired on October 5th, 1985)

When Charles Lattimer (Gregory Itzin), a man with no criminal record, is found executed gangland-style, Hunter and McCall suspect that it was more than just random California violence.  After they find out that Lattimer was last seen alive while having a tense lunch at an expensive French restaurant, they decide to go undercover in Lattimer’s home town, an exclusive resort full of rich people and women in bikinis.

Hunter, pretending to be an oceanographer, meets Lattimer’s girlfriend, librarian Amy Lauton (Nana Visitor).  McCall, pretending to be an aspiring singer, meets the biggest man in town, insurance tycoon Raymond Bellamy (Stuart Whitman).

Now, we already know that Bellamy is the one who ordered Lattimer’s death.  Bellamy is the man with whom Lattimer had his final lunch.  Lattimer was blackmailing Bellamy over a case of insurance fraud.  We also know that the execution was carried out by Sheriff Johnson (Don Stroud).  We know all this because we saw it at the beginning of the episode.  There’s no real mystery here.

Then again, this episode isn’t about mystery.  It’s about Hunter and McCall getting away from Los Angeles for a while.  It’s about McCall getting to sing three songs at the resort’s premier nightclub.  It’s about Hunter getting distracted every time a woman in a bikini walks by.  Mostly, it’s just about the chemistry between Hunter and McCall.  It doesn’t matter how many people die, they’ve always got a quip to trade.

Actually, not that many people die in this episode. Lattimer dies.  His father is murdered.  But otherwise, this episode is almost peaceful by Hunter standards.  For once. Hunter and McCall arrest the bad guys instead of killing them.  Getting out of Los Angeles must have mellowed them.

This episode was entertaining but forgettable.  The story was nothing special but the Hunter/McCall chemistry was enjoyable.  Hunter and McCall are solving crimes and having fun!  Good for them.

Retro Television Review: The Best Of Times

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!  This Thursday, I will be reviewing The Best Of Times, which aired its only episode on ABC in 1981.  The show can be found on YouTube!

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by Don Mischer, originally aired on July 31st, 1981)

The Best of Times opens with a teenage Crispin Glover in his bedroom. Looking straight at the camera, he introduces himself as “Crispin.” His unseen mother starts to yell at him about cleaning his room. Crispin smiles nervously and then introduces us to the kids he hangs out with. There’s Jill Schoelen, Julie Piekarski, Kevin Cortes, Lisa Hope Ross, David Rambo, Janet Robin, and “my friend” Nicolas Coppola.

Nicolas Coppola, of course, would soon be better known as Nicolas Cage. Both Cage and Glover made their screen debuts in The Best of Times. While Glover spends his time talking directly to the camera and smiling awkwardly, Cage spends his time exercising at the beach and talking about sports. The big school dance is coming up, and all of Crispin’s friends are either trying to find dates or the perfect pair of jeans or else they’re trying to join a band. Nicolas Cage, however, isn’t worried about any of that. He’s confident and smooth.

The plot of The Best of Times is not easy to summarize. The show was executive-produced by George Schlatter, the creator of Laugh-In, and it tries to imitate that classic show’s format, just with teenagers in the ’80s. There are quick blackout sketches. There’s a lot of corny one-liners. There’s a surprisingly large number of musical numbers. Crispin Glover puts on a pair of jeans, and all the girls in the cast start singing “Heartbreaker.” “Special guest star” Jackie Mason plays Mr. O’Reilly and rolls his eyes about the kids nowadays. Crispin looks at the camera and tries to explain why teenagers get a little crazy sometimes. “Try to remember,” he tells the parents watching, “when you were our age.”

There’s one dramatic moment. Nicolas Cage stands on the beach and gives a dramatic monologue about how, if war breaks out in El Salvador, he’ll serve his country. His father served in Korea and still suffers from PTSD. Nic hopes that there isn’t a war, but if there is, he’ll be there.

The Best of Times is energetic and relentless, and it’s also rather corny and predictable. It may have been made by the guy behind Laugh-In, but it feels more like a lesser episode of MADtv. (“Tonight, Mad TV looks at teenagers!”) With the exception of Crispin Glover and Nicolas Cage, most of the members of the cast are interchangeable. This show features not one but two dorky guys who can’t get dates to the big dance. That might be realistic, but it still feels like overkill.

That said, it is a pilot starring a young Nicolas Cage. Compared with the actor he would become, Cage is fairly restrained here. He’s likable, but he’s also clearly an actor carefully following direction. The only time he really gets to let loose is at the school dance. His moves are killer.

The Best of Times was not turned into a regular series. Nicolas, Crispin, and Jill Schoelen went on to become beloved cult actors. As for the rest of the cast, David Rambo is now an award-winning playwright, and Janet Robin is an acclaimed composer and guitarist. I doubt any of them remember much about this pilot, but I’m glad they’ve gone on to live the best of times.