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Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 3.18 “Spirit of Television”

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 Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The entire series can be found on YouTube!

This week, people are dying and somehow television is to blame.

Episode 3.18 “Spirit of Television”

(Dir by Jorge Montesi, originally aired on April 30, 1990)

Ilsa (Marj Dusay) claims to be a medium.  She uses a television set to summon the spirits of the dead for her rich clients and then, later on, the spirits kill her customers and Ilsa, who has a degenerative disease, gets another ten days added to her life.  If she doesn’t continually kill, her skin starts to look like rubber and her fingernails fall off.  Agck!

This was largely a Jack episode.  Jack is the one who, with his years of experience as a magician, assumes that Ilsa is a fake.  He’s also the one who recruits an old friend named Robert Jandini (Paul Bettis) to go undercover and check Ilsa out.  And when Robert is inevitably killed as a result, Jack is the one who has to live with the guilt.  One thing that I’ve always appreciated about Friday the 13th is that it doesn’t shy away from showing what a lifetime of battling the supernatural would do to someone’s psyche.  At the end of this episode, Jack is about as depressed as I’ve ever seen him.  The great Chris Wiggins was always Friday the 13th’s not-so secret weapon and he gives another stand-out performance here.

In fact, this episode is so focused on Jack, Jandini, and Ilsa that Micki and Johnny largely feel like bystanders.  There’s nothing wrong with that, to be honest.  Micki and Johnny just don’t have the same sort of enjoyable chemistry that Micki and Ryan had.  Still, watching Johnny in the background, it’s hard not to consider that the third season’s writers never really figured out who the character was meant to be or what they really wanted to do with him.  I have sympathy for Steve Monarque because he doesn’t come across as being a bad actor.  Instead, he comes across as being an actor who was saddled with an extremely inconsistent character.

As for this episode, it was nice to finally get an episode that was just about a cursed antique and that didn’t feel the need to try to reinvent the show’s format.  That said, the television seems likes a really bulky object to curse.  How did Ilsa even figure the curse out?  What if the television had been purchased by someone who wasn’t terminally ill?  Can Ilsa watch regular programming on the television or is it always a portal to Hell?  These questions go unanswered.

Still, it’s an atmospheric episode and Chris Wiggins gives a strong performance.  For a season 3 episode, this wasn’t bad.  It’s also the the third-to-late episode of Friday the 13th.  Only two more left to go.

I’m going to miss this show.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.5 “A Wing and A Prayer”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988.  The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!

This week, St. Elsewhere observes a holiday.

Episode 2.5 “A Wing and a Prayer”

(Dir by Bruce Paltrow, originally aired on November 23rd, 1983)

It’s Thanksgiving in Boston!  While everyone else is watching the Patriots and celebrating with family, 15 residents are stuck at St. Eligius, working during the holiday.  To make it even worse for them, Dr. Craig puts himself on the schedule to teach them a lesson about what it means to be a doctor.  (It’s also subtly suggested that Craig is looking for an excuse to get out of visiting his in-laws.)  When Craig learns that Ehrlich is planning on make a “California-style” turkey, Craig insists on making a turkey of his own.

Meanwhile, Dr. Auschlander is reading a book on “dying with dignity.”  It’s a British book, one that makes the case for euthanasia.  (Anglicans are so pessimistic!)  Auschlander is convinced that this will be his last Thanksgiving.  He becomes obsessed with the case of Joe Dempsey (Cory Yothers), a little boy who might have Hepatitis or who could just as easily be suffering from Leukemia.  Neither option is great but Joe can recover from Hepatitis.  Death-obsessed Auschlander spends the entire episode convincing himself that Joe is going to die.  Fortunately, Auschlander is wrong.  When the test results come back, it turns out that Joe does have Hepatitis.  Auschlander’s hope is renewed.  He tosses away his assisted suicide book.  He tells his wife he’s looking forward to next Thanksgiving.  It’s kind of predictable but Norman Lloyd’s performance sells it.

Did I cry during this episode?  Yes, I did.  Last year, at this time, I was fighting with an insurance company to keep my dad from getting kicked out of his rehab center.  I knew, deep in my heart, that if he was sent home, he would die.  The insurance company wanted to kick him out on the 4th of July.  I successfully appealed their decision, just as I would appeal several more of their decisions.  I won countless battles and I felt pretty proud of myself but ultimately, I lost the war.  My Dad was eventually evicted from the rehab center and, as I feared would happen, he died a few weeks later.  Every holiday since August of last year has been my first without my Dad.  So, yeah, when I watched an episode of a hospital drama with Dr. Asuchlander obsessing on death while Dr. Morrison experienced his first holiday since the passing of his wife …. you better believe I cried.

Can I fairly judge this episode, all things considered?  Probably not.  Watching it, I could tell that this episode was shamelessly manipulative and there were a few moments that were a bit overwritten.  There wasn’t much subtlety to be found.  But, dammit, it got to me.  The emotions got to me.  It earned my tears and, to be honest, I felt a little better after I cried.  Joe Dempsey’s going to live.  Yay!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 4.3 “Fight For Your Life”

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 Tubi and several other services!

This week, it’s a boxing episode.

Episode 4.3 “Fight For Your Life”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on September 30th, 1987)

I’m just going to say it.  This episode is pretty bad.

The plot is simple enough.  Jonathan and Mark are working as cornermen for boxer Morty “Sailor” Zadan (Michael Shaner).  Morty coulda been a contendah, but instead his brother Jerry (Robert Miranda) always arranges for Morty to throw his fights.  When Morty meets and trains a young fighter named Billy Ryan (Nick Garfield), he also starts an unlikely romance with Billy’s sister, Julia (Jennifer Parsons).  The mob demands that Morty to fight Billy.  They offer Billy money to throw the fight and Morty has to decide if he wants Billy to follow his example and become a bum.

As I said, it’s a simple plot but the execution is just terrible.  Even by the admittedly generous standards of Highway to Heaven, the story and the dialogue is often corny and the performances are pretty much uniformly bad.  At no point did I buy the romance between Morty and Julia.  For that matter, I really didn’t buy the idea that Julia would be so excited about her younger brother pursuing a career that would mean getting beaten up every few weeks.  By it’s nature, Highway to Heaven tends to be an old-fashioned show.  But this episode really did feel like one of those old Warner Bros. B-movies from the 30s.  Those movies, of course, hold up well as long as they star James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, or George Raft.  Unfortunately, none of those folks show up in this episode.  Instead, we just got Micahel Shaner portraying a boxer who seems like he’d lose a game of tic tac toe against Lenny from Of Mice and Men.

Jonathan and Mark don’t do much in this episode.  They spend most of the story as just observers.  That said, this episode does end with Jonathan beating up a bunch of gangsters, smiling because they don’t have the same powers that he has.  Keeping in mind that most gangsters probably do deserve to get beaten up, it still didn’t feel like proper angel behavior.

Retro Television Review: Malibu CA 2.17 “The New York Girl”

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.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Yes, this is from the first season. I don’t care. I refuse to waste my time looking for a second season advertisement.

This week, it’s guest star time!

Episode 2.17 “The New York Girl”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on February 26th, 2000)

There are only two likable characters on Malibu CA.

One of them is Murray, played by Brandon Brooks.  Usually, I hate overly eccentric sidekicks but Brooks played the role with such sincerity that he won me over.  The other is Traycee, played by Priscilla Inga Taylor.  Traycee is likable because she’s supposed to be an airhead but, because everyone around her is so terrible, it’s hard not to appreciate her kind and nonjudgmental attitude.

As for our other characters, Scott (Trevor Merszei) is not as bad as he was during the first season but he’s still basically a shallow frat boy.  Jason (Jason Hayes) is a sociopath and, deep into the second season, Hayes still had a bad habit of looking directly at the camera before delivering his lines.  Peter (Ed Blatchford) was likable but it’s hard to respect his decision to continually leave his restaurant in the hands of idiot sons.  Lifeguard Alex (Suzanne Davis) is boring.  Scott’s girlfriend, Lisa (Marquita Terry), is a judgmental killjoy who needs to change her name.  (If her name was Lisa Marie, I’d probably have to abandon this show.)

My point is that there’s really no one to root for on Malibu CA.  Murray and Traycee are mostly just supporting characters and all of the main characters suck.  Given that no one was going to watch this show for the main cast, it’s perhaps not a surprise that, in the 2nd season, Malibu, CA started bringing in guest stars from other Peter Engel shows.  Earlier, Hang Time’s Dick Butkus showed up as Uncle Charlie.  This week, City Guy’s Marissa Dyan shows up as Maggie, an old friend from New York.  Maggie used to be awkward and had braces and Jason pretended to be sick to get out of going to prom with her.

(Why was Jason going to prom in New York when, last season, he was a junior at Malibu High?)

When Maggie shows up in Malibu, Jason is shocked to discover that she now looks like Cassidy from City Guys.  Jason is eager to date her now because Jason is an extremely shallow person.  When Maggie finds out that Jason faked being sick to get out of prom, she gives him a chance to come clean.  “Were you really sick?” she asks.  Jason, being the worst person ever in the history of television, swears that he was.  He also asks her to bid on him in a bachelor auction that Lisa and Alex have put together for charity.

Ha ha, Jason, joke’s on you!  Maggie not only doesn’t bid on him but she allows Jason to be “won” by Kitty (Missy Dotty), who is slightly overweight.  The audience gasps, stunned at the idea of Jason having to spend time with someone who isn’t blonde.  And it bears repeating that Malibu CA is, without a doubt, the worst freaking thing I have ever watched for Retro Television Reviews.  Anyway, Jason apologizes to Maggie before she goes to New York.

Meanwhile, Peter and Scott had a stupid bet going over which one of them could raise the most money for charity at the bachelor auction.  Does no one find it weird that the auction is basically just Peter and his sons?  Peter’s a wimp and his sons probably aren’t going to survive the #MeToo era.  Are Lisa and Alex actually trying to raise money for charity or is this all a cruel joke?

I hate this show.

 

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.23 “The Maker”

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, we have the second-to-last episode of Monsters!

Episode 3.23 “The Maker”

(Dir by William Wesley, originally aired on April 18th, 1991)

Mack (Philip Anglim), a suit-wearing vagrant, wanders into what he thinks is an abandoned hotel.  Mack just wants a place to spend the night and he’s shocked to discover that the hotel is also occupied by Freddy Fredericks (Eddie Bracken), a former stage magician who is now an alcoholic.  When Mack asks how an abandoned building has electricity, Freddy explains that he can create things with his mind.  Mack is skeptical so Freddy creates an apple and a banana.  Mack asks for money and Freddy creates that.  It’s quite a power except there always seems to be some small mistake.  For instance, the money has Mack’s picture on it.  When Freddy tries to create gold, he creates brass instead.  Mack decides that the alcohol is holding Freddy back and he demands that Freddy quit cold turkey.

Bad idea.

When someone can create things just by thinking about them, the last thing you want is for that persons to get the DTs.

This, the second-to-last installment of Monsters, was definitely an effective episode.  It wasn’t perfect.  It got off to a slow start and Eddie Bracken occasionally went a bit overboard as Freddy.  But the idea of Freddy’s alcoholism inhibiting his powers was a good one and the episode took it in a pretty clever direction.  The monster — half snake/half-woman — that was created by Freddy’s DTs was genuinely frightening and the episode’s final twist not only made sense but it also worked.  All in all, it was a very good episode.

Next week, we’ll finish up Monsters with a Stephen King adaptation starring Tom Noonan.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 6.5 “Hyde and Seek/Command Performance/Sketchy Love”

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’s cruise is brought to you by Bolivian Nose Candy.

Episode 6.5 “Hyde and Seek/Command Performance/Sketchy Love”

(Dir by Jerome Courtland, originally aired on October 30, 1982)

Gopher dates a 14 year-old!

WHAT!?

Of course, Gopher doesn’t realize that she’s fourteen.  I’m not really sure how Gopher doesn’t realize that because the girl is played by Kim Richards, who was 18 at the time but looked considerably younger.  It should also be noted that the girl is also pretending to be her own fictional older sister and she claims to be 18 but …. eh.  I have a hard time buying that Kim Richards could have convinced Gopher that she was two different people, just because that underbite was pretty hard to disguise.  Even if we give Gopher the benefit of the doubt, he’s still a guy in mid-thirties, dating a teenager while he’s supposed to be working.  I like Gopher but the Captain might have to find a new purser after this.  How to explain Gopher’s self-destructive behavior?  My theory is that he found Julia’s coke stash.

Fear not, though.  It all works out.  The truth comes out.  Kim Richards’s father (played by Dana Andrews) announces that he’s going to spank his daughter.  She’s fourteen, you’re not going to spank anyone, you old weirdo.

Meanwhile, a dude (Skip Stephenson) who looks like he’s been up a few nights on a cocaine binge falls in love with Morgan Brittany but …. uh oh!  He’s married!  Fortunately, his wife wants to divorce him, probably because of all the cocaine.  To me, the funniest thing about this story is that, as soon as he gets on the cruise, he starts spilling his guts to Isaac as if they’re old friends.  Dude, you don’t know Isaac.  It’s a big ship and Isaac’s the only bartender.  Isaac doesn’t have time to just stand there and listen to you whine.  But that’s the thing with cocaine.  It makes you a tad bit self-absorbed.  Trust me, I’ve seen Scarface.  I know about the yayo.

And finally, Dan Rowan plays a comedian who has been hired to perform on the ship.  His ex-wife (Marion Ross) and daughter (Eve Plumb) just happen to be on the boat as well.  Eve Plumb wants nothing to do with Dan Rowan, believing that he abandoned his family.  Dan Rowan uses his act to explain what really happened and to beg his daughter to forgive him.  I have to say that, if I was a passenger, I would be kind of ticked off.  You show up at the Acapulco Lounge, hoping to have a good laugh and suddenly the headliner is crying and delivering this really depressing monologue.  Thanks for ruining my cruise, jerk!  Seriously, how coked up do you have to be to sabotage your career like that?

This was not my favorite cruise but at least Julia’s hair looked better here than it did last week.  To be honest, the entire boat seemed to be coked up this week.  Hopefully, they’ll all go to rehab and next week will be a bit more pleasant.

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.9 “Genuine Heroes”

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, the cast of Pacific Blue gets outacted.

Episode 2.9 “Genuine Heroes”

(Dir by Terrence O’Hara, originally aired on October 20th, 1996)

Pacific Blue makes an unforgivable mistake in this episode by giving a plum guest-starring role to Charles Napier.  When your show is populated by boring regular characters and actors who are distinguished by their almost total lack of screen charisma, the last thing you want to do is bring in a certifiable badass character actor like Charles Napier.  If Lt. Palermo and the bicycle crew seem charmless during a normal episode, just imagine how much worse they look when compared to Napier.

Napier plays Tyrone Justice, a Texas bounty hunter who has come to Santa Monica to track down a bank robber and his girlfriend.  The members of the bike patrol are like, “We’re not going to let you cause any trouble down here,” and it’s kind of hard not to smirk because Tyrone Justice is Charles Freaking Napier.  He wears a leather jacket and carries a shotgun.  The bike patrol wears shorts and those stupid plastic helmets and spends all of their time riding their bicycles.  Like, seriously, shut up, bike patrol.

Meanwhile, VJTV (which I guess is the show’s version of MTV) is shooting on the beach for spring break.  Del Toro has a crush on VJTV personality Ginger Delvecchio (Angelica Bridges).  Cory rolls her eyes whenever Del Toro sees Delvecchio, complaining that Delvecchio’s career is due solely to her sex appeal and how she looks in a bikini.  (This argument perhaps would have worked better if delivered on a show that didn’t open every episode with stock footage of women in bikinis.)  Cory complaining feels out of character.  Usually, Kelly is the member of the bike patrol who is written to be  an annoying straw feminist.  At the end of the episode, Ginger leaves VJTV for a show that is obviously meant to be Baywatch.  Seeing as how Pacific Blue itself is an obvious rip-off of Baywatch, all of the smirks and sighs feel a bit hypocritical.

Anyway, this episode was pretty dumb.  It’s impossible to take people who ride bicycles seriously.  When the bike patrol arrested Charles Napier, I had to laugh.  There’s no way Charles Napier would ever surrender to some douchebag on a bicycle.

 

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 6.21 “Remember When….”

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 …. oh no!

Episode 6.21 “Remember When”

(Dir by Philip Leacock, originally aired on May 7th, 1983)

After crashing his little car, Tattoo ends up in the Fantasy Island hospital.  Roarke cancels all of the weekend’s fantasies so that he can stay by Tattoo’s side and keep Tattoo cheerful until it’s time for him to have life-saving surgery.  Roarke and Tattoo share memories and …. YEP, IT’S A CLIP SHOW!

Actually, for a clip show, it’s not that bad.  Yes, there’s a lot of awkward dialogue.  “Boss, remember that time Mickey Gilley opened up his place?”  That said, the clips are well-selected and they all feature Herve Villechaize at his best, turning this episode into a Tattoo tribute.  At the end of the episode, Tattoo says that he’s never going to leave Fantasy Island.  Which …. well, we’ll get to season 7 in a few weeks.

Anyway, clip shows are pretty much impossible to review.  Let’s just be happy that Tattoo pulls through.  That accident looked serious!

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 4.1 “Go-Cart Terror”

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!

It’s time for the fourth season!  Ponch and Baker — but especially Ponch — continue to keep Los Angeles safe for pedestrians and motorists.

Episode 4.1 “Go-Cart Terror”

(Dir by John Florea, originally aired on September 21st, 1980)

It’s time for season 4 of CHiPs, a.k.a The Ponch Show!

Seriously, if there’s anything that really stuck out about the fourth season premiere, it’s that Baker’s character was pretty much superfluous.  Yes, Baker was out there on his motorcycle and helped Ponch catch this week’s bad guys, two thieves played by Larry Storch and Sonny Bono.  But, ultimately, it was Ponch who did the important things.

Who coached the CHP-sponsored go-cart team to victory over the fire department’s?  Ponch!

Who rescued a woman from a van after she crashed into a lake?  Ponch!

Who always knew the right thing to say?  Ponch!

Who did everyone talk to when they had a problem?  Ponch!

This episode established that Frank ‘Ponch” Poncherello is the greatest human being who ever lived.  Baker …. well, he tries.  Baker’s nice and dedicated to the job but, in the end, he can only watch with amazement as Ponch solves all of the world’s problems.

I read over on the imdb that Larry Wilcox did not enjoy working with Erik Estrada and he felt that Estrada was the producer’s pet.  Watching this episode, I can see why Wilcox would have felt like that.  It’s hard to believe that, when this show first started, Baker was the competent one while Ponch was the nervous screw-up who kept making mistakes and who always seemed to be on the verge of getting written up.  The fourth season premiere celebrates Ponch as being the supercop who the rest of Los Angeles looked up to.  Sorry, Mr. Wilcox …. you may be the better actor but it’s hard to compete with the Estrada of it all.

As for the episode itself, it was typical CHiPs.  The criminals were captured after being chased on the freeway and a bunch of kids learned an important lesson about proper go-cart safety.  When the go-cart team had to raise money to compete in the next race, Ponch told all the adults that the kids had to come up with a plan because it was their team and the whole point of the go-cart experience was to learn responsibility.  You tell ’em, Ponch!  I mean, goddamn, Ponch is the man!  Anyway, the kids held a car wash and I think the only reason they did that was so the show could have an excuse to have Randi Oakes show up in short shorts and get sprayed by a hose.  I hope Ponch talked to the producers about treating Randi Oakes with respect.

I liked this episode, even though I did feel bad for Larry Wilcox.  It was silly and fun.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.9 “The Rising Sun of Death”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, the Yakuza invades Miami.

Episode 4.9 “The Rising Sun of Death”

(Dir by Leon Ichaso, originally aired on May 27th, 1988)

Castillo is concerned.  The murder of an American businessman leads him to suspect that the Yakuza has come to Miami and it turns out that he’s right.  Riochi Tanaka (James Hong), a World War II war criminal-turned-mobster, is trying to take over the Miami underworld.  While corrupt Homicide Detective Haskell (R. Lee Ermey) tries to convince everyone that the Yakuza is just a myth, Castillo teams up with Japanese detective Kenji Fujitsu (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) to takes down Tanaka and his right-hand man, Agawa (Danny Kamekoa).  Needless to say, this leads to a fight with samurai swords, a lot of talk of honor, and a seppuku to close the case.

This episode hit every Yakuza cliche and the plot itself felt as if it had been put together at the last minute.  (This is one of those episodes where every plot hole is dismissed as being a cultural difference.)  We’re expected to believe that Tanaka could outsmart the Allies during World War II but he couldn’t outsmart the Miami Vice Squad.  As well, of the major Japanese characters, only one was played by Japanese actor.  Danny Kamekoa is a Hawaiian while James Hong is of Chinese descent.

That said, this episode was shot and filmed with a lot of style and it found an excuse to play Billy Idol’s Flesh For Fantasy during one of the early scenes.  There’s something to be said for that.  Neither Crockett nor Tubbs really did much in this episode but we did get to see Crockett house hunting with Cailtin.  It’s mentioned that everyone thinks that Caitlin’s new husband is named Sonny Burnett instead of Sonny Cockett.  That’s fine …. except for the fact that Sonny Crockett has previously been established as a bit of a minor celebrity, a college football star who would have gone on to the NFL if he hadn’t injured his knee.  Every time this show tries to convince me that Crockett has fooled everyone into thinking he’s Sonny Burnett, it just further convinces me that there’s no way Crockett and Tubbs should still be doing undercover assignments.

This episode was stylish but empty but, considering some of the other episodes that have aired during this season, at least it was entertaining.