Tag Archives: TV

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.18 “Vote For Me”

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 the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and Peacock!

This week, Howard goes for a higher office!

Episode 3.18 “Vote For Me”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on January 16th, 1988)

The local Business Owners Association asks Howard to run for city council because …. well, I’m not sure why they would ask Howard.  Howard refuses but then he sees his campaign assistant Lila (Heather Smith) and changes his mind.

Howard is shocked to discover that he will be running against a former baseball player and local celebrity named Patrick O’Malley (Bill Lake).  Everyone agrees that there is no way that Howard can win and that’s pretty much the entire episode.  Howard never has a chance, he screws up every opportunity that he’s given, and he ends up getting 400 votes and running behind a write-in campaign for Edna.  (Edna answered some questions in Howard’s place when the latter was late to a campaign forum.)  Howard is stunned by his loss.  Viker says that he was not one of the people who write in Edna’s name before mentioning, “I voted for O’Malley.”  Howard promises to take his employees to the best party in town, the O’Malley victory party.

This was a weird episode.  It’s unfortunate that it didn’t work because the idea of a bumbling egomaniac like Howard running for political office definitely had potential and I will admit I did laugh at Howard’s insane explanation of why getting rid of the police would get rid of crime.  (To be honest, it really wasn’t that different from the arguments I heard during the Defund protests.)  But the show wrote itself into a corner by making Howard such an idiot that there was never any chance of him actually winning.  The entire episode was essentially scene after scene of Howard saying something dumb while everyone else rolled their eyes.  It got predictable fairly quickly.

I think if Jack Christian had been the one who was recruited to run for city council, the episode could have worked.  Christian is as much of a jackass as Howard but Jeff Pustil always manages to give the character a hint of insecurity so you root for him despite your better instincts.  Howard, on the other hand, is often portrayed as being so incredibly dumb and clueless that it’s difficult really get involved in his attempts to be something more than just a grocery store manager.

Oh well.  I would have voted for O’Malley too.

Retro Television Review: The American Short Story 1.2 “Parker Adderson, Philosopher”

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 The American Short Story, which ran semi-regularly on PBS in 1974 to 1981.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime and found on YouTube and Tubi.

This week, we have an adaptation of an Ambrose Bierce short story.

Episode 1.2 “Parker Adderson, Philosopher”

(Dir by Arthur Barron, originally aired on January 8th, 1974)

This adaptation of an Ambrose Bierce short story takes place during the Civil War.  Parker Adderson (Harris Yulin) is a Union spy who is captured behind Confederate lines.  Brought into the ramshackle Confederate camp, he’s put into a small cabin.  He knows that, as a spy, he’s going to be executed in the morning and he seems to be at peace with that.  For the most part, his captors treat him humanely.  Though they may be at war, there doesn’t seem to be any real animosity between Adderson and the Confederate general (Douglass Watson) who is in charge of the camp.  They are two men who have a job to do and they both seem to respect each other.  At night, the General and Adderson have a conversation, talking about the war and mortality.  Adderson gets a last meal.  Everything seems to be strangely peaceful …. until Adderson discovers that he’s not going to be executed the way that he wants to be executed.  By the time the morning sun rises, three men are dead.  The formerly philosophical Adderson dies in a rage against his captors while the General dies with the peace and grace that Adderson originally envisioned for himself.

This was an effective and melancholy adaptation of Ambrose Bierce’s short story, one that captured both Bierce’s anti-war sentiments and his cynical view of the human condition.  For all of his efforts to put himself above the realities of war, Adderson falls apart once the reality of his impending death becomes obvious.  Meanwhile, the previously boorish general finds a certain redemption in his death, perhaps because the General, unlike Adderson, never tried to rationalize the violence of war or the cruelty of fate.

It’s a nicely-done episode, featuring good performances from both Watson and Yulin.  I’ve gotten so used to seeing Yulin cast as corporate and government villains that it was really eye-opening to see him playing a complicated character for once.  Clocking in at a little over 30 minutes, Parker Adderson, Philosopher is a thought-provoking look at war and the men who fight it.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 3.15 “The Long Road Home”

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 …. ugh.

Episode 3.15 “The Long Road Home”

(Dir by Allan Kroeker, originally aired on February 12th, 1990)

This week’s episode starts where most episodes end.  Micki and Johnny retrieve the cursed antique.  In this case, it’s a yin-yang charm that allows the owner to swap minds with a recently deceased person.  That sounds like a really cool antique and I have to admit that I’m kind of annoyed that this is one of those shows where the antique is recovered early.  I would have enjoyed seeing the entire search.

I certainly would have enjoyed it more than having to spend the next 40-something minutes listening to Micki and Johnny discuss whether or not to start a relationship while, at the same time, being pursued by an inbred redneck and his brother.  This episode goes off the rails as soon as Micki and Johnny step into a roadside diner that is owned by a family of homicidal hillbillies.  In order to save their lives, Johnny had to use the cursed antique himself so that he could enter the body of one of the brothers.  That went against everything that the show previously established about the cursed antiques.  You’re not supposed to use a cursed antique, not even once.  Johnny uses it and everything works out fine for him.  It feels like cheating and it was something that Ryan would never have done.  God, I miss Ryan.

But I want to get back to this relationship nonsense.  Since when is Micki attracted to Johnny?  Johnny’s been hitting on Micki since his first appearance and she’s never been interested in the past.  Now, suddenly, they’re having a relationship talk?  It comes out of nowhere.  In the end, Micki and Johnny agree not to have a relationship as long as there are still cursed antiques that need to be found and that’s a good idea.  Still, the whole thing just felt tacked on.

This episode was dull.  Chris Wiggins wasn’t in it and that’s a shame because this episode needed his steady, no-nonsense presence.

Oh well.  Not every Friday can be a great one!

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.2 “Lust Et Veritas”

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. Eligius gets a new plastic surgeon.

Episode 2.2 “Lust Et Veritas”

(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on November 2nd, 1982)

This episode sees the addition of two new doctors to the hospital’s staff and they’re both played by familiar actors.  Elliott Axlerod is played by Stephen Furst.  He’s a new resident and obviously terrified of screwing up in the ER.  He asks Ehrlich and Fiscus for advice.  When told that he’s required to perform a rectal exam on every patient, he asks, “Is it too late to go to law school?”  Ehrlich assures him that it is.

(It’s never too late!)

Secondly, Mark Harmon joins the cast as plastic surgeon Bobby Caldwell and not even a porn star mustache can obscure the fact that young Mark Harmon was amazingly hot.  (Actually, old Mark Harmon isn’t that bad either.  He aged well.)  Bobby, we learn, was brought to St. Eligius by Dr.  Craig.  He’s cocky and confident and it’s obvious that he loves being lusted after by Dr. Armstrong and Nurse Daniels.  However, he already has a secret lover as this episode finds him showering with Joan Halloran, the city hall bureaucrat who spends most of her time arguing with Dr. Craig about whether or not to shut down one of the hospital’s non-profit programs.

Dr. Craig is nervous because he’s waiting for a heart to become available so he can perform his first transplant on Eve Leighton (Marian Mercer), a teacher who wants to get back into her classroom as soon as possible.  Ehrlich is nervous because Craig is taking all of his frustrations. and his nervousness out on him.

Meanwhile, Jerry Singleton (Alan Arkin), the demanding husband of stroke-victim Fran (Piper Laurie), continued to push his wife to recover until finally, at the end of the episode, she yelled that he was pushing her too hard.  It was a heart-breaking moment.  Jerry thinks that he’s helping his wife but, as this episode showed, he’s actually been torturing her with his overbearing demands that she hurry up and get better.

Finally, a former resident named Barry Dorn (Peter Horton) returns to the hospital to try to convince Dr. Cavanero to change her negative evaluation of his job performance.  Everyone acts as if Barry was a character on the show during the previous season, even though he wasn’t.  It’s even revealed that he is Wendy Armstrong’s former boyfriend.  When Cavanero refuses to change her evaluation, Armstrong accuses her of not having any feelings.  (Seriously, Armstrong is the worst!)  Even worse, when Cavanero heads to the doctor’s lounge, she finds Barry waiting for her.  Barry punches her, busting open her lower lip.  Armstrong stitches up the cut and then says that Cavanero is lucky because now, she’ll have an excuse to meet Dr. Caldwell!  Armstrong then offers a half-hearted apology for previously accusing Cavanero of being heartless.  (Again, Armstrong is the worst!!!!)

This wasn’t a bad episode.  Mark Harmon and Stephen Furst seem like they’ll be good additions to the show’s ensemble.  The Barry story felt a bit odd, just because Barry was apparently present but 0ff-camera during the entire first season.  It sounds like Barry went through a lot of the same things that Peter White went through during the first season and Peter was not present in this episode.  There’s a part of me that suspects that Barry was originally meant to be Peter but the show’s producers obviously decided they wanted to keep Peter around for a bit longer.

Next week …. well, I have no idea how things are going to develop.  There’s a lot going on in this hospital.  We’ll see what happens.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.25 “The Gift of 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, the third season comes to a close.

Episode 3.25 “The Gift Of Life”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on May 6th,1987)

Jonathan and Mark’s new assignment finds them working as bodyguards for a businessman named Richard Benson (Leslie Nielsen).  Richard is in charge of a company that pollutes the ocean.  He owns an apartment building were people people are forced to live with rats.  He makes no apologies for being greedy.  He has Jonathan and Mark accompany him to a parking garage so he can offer someone a bribe.

Eventually, Jonathan just comes straight out and says, “I’m angel.”  Jonathan did that a lot over the course of season 3 and it always kind of bothered me.  It was as if Jonathan decided he couldn’t be bothered to maintain his cover story.  Richard doesn’t believe in angels, though he does accept the Bible that Jonathan gives him.  Jonathan instructs him to read it before going to sleep.

That night, someone shoots Richard while he’s reading his Bible.  Jonathan and Mark appear to him and give Richard a tour of all the misery that he’s caused by being greedy and selfish.  Jonathan forces Richard to look at a dead seagull.  Richard is then allowed to relive the past seven days of his life so that he can do some good and have a chance to get into heaven.

Wow, that sounds intense, right?

And I guess it would be, except for the fact that it’s now impossible to watch Leslie Nielsen without laughing.  Before everyone rushes off to comment, I am fully aware that Nielsen spent decades as a dramatic actor before emerging as a comedy superstar.  I’ve reviewed a few of his serious films here on the site.  But the fact of the matter is that Nielsen’s comedy was so built around his deadpan delivery of absurd lines that even his serious performances leave you feeling as if everything’s building up to a punchline.  That’s the case here.  Jonathan, Mark, and Richard might be talking about environmental pollution and poverty but every scene leaves you wondering when Nielsen is going to say, “And don’t call me Shirley.”

Would the episode have worked better with someone else in the role of Richard?  Yes and no.  Another actor would not have left us waiting for punch lines that were destined to never come but the episode’s script would have still been incredibly heavy-handed.  Richard Benson has just died and Jonathan and Mark immediately show up and start yelling at him.  They make it clear that they don’t care if he goes to Hell or not.  That’s not a very good attitude for an angel to have.

Fortunately, Richard gets his second chance and he manages to survive a redo of the assassination attempt.  (Fortunately, he falls asleep with his Bible over his heart.  The Bible is thick and strong enough to stop the bullet so I’m going to guess that Richard was given a Catholic Bible as opposed to a wimpy Protestant one.)  And so, Richard goes on to be a better person and I imagine his company will end up going bankrupt as a result.

That’s it for Season 3!  Season 3 had some good episodes, like Codename: Freak.  It also had the worst episode of the show so far, Ghost Rider.  Next week, we’ll start Season 4!

Retro Television Review: Malibu CA 2.14 “Retiring Dad”

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, Peter tries to enjoy retirement but his dumbass sons screw it all up.

Episode 2.14 “Retiring Dad”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on February 5th, 2000)

This may be the worst episode of Malibu CA that I’ve ever seen and that’s saying something as every episode of this show that I watch is the worst until I watch the next one.  Most bad shows will still occasionally have a good episode.  Somehow, Malibu CA continues to get worse and worse.  I say this despite the fact that Edward Blatchford, Brandon Brooks and Priscilla Inga Taylor have consistently managed to give performance that are far better than the material.  I say this despite the fact that Trevor Merszie, in the role of Scott, is nowhere near as annoying during the second season than he was during the first.  Despite those improvements, the show continues to decline with each passing week.

It all comes down to the writing, which is uninspired even by the standards of the typical 90s teen sitcom.  Peter Engel’s shows were never known for their strong scripts but California Dreams (especially during its final season) showed that it was possible to make a good show while remaining true to Engel’s “vision” of what a teen sitcom should be.  The writing on Malibu CA just feels lazy and, for whatever reason, storylines seem to consistently focus on the two weakest members of the cast, Jason Hayes and Marquita Terry.

(I should say that, in fairness to Terry, her character usually got stuck with the worst lines in each episode and the writers never came up with much of a personality beyond, “Girl Who Complains Nonstop.”  As for Jason Hayes, he was still looking straight at the camera halfway through the second season.)

As for this episode, it features Peter finally retiring from running The Lighthouse so that he can fish and travel.  He leaves his two idiot sons in charge.  In this episode, we learn that Scott is apparently in college while Jason is still pursuing his — *snicker* — music career.  Why Peter would leave his sons in  charge (especially when you consider that, whenever he’s done so in the past, it’s always led to disaster) is a question that show never really explains.  Seriously, is there no one else that works at the restaurant?  It’s a big restaurant.  Surely, there is someone else who is capable of running the restaurant.  Considering the amount of time that Marquita Terry’s Lisa spends complaining about every little decision that Peter makes, maybe she should have been put in charge.  She certainly seems more emotionally invested in the place than either Jason or Scott.

Jason and Scott’s attempt to turn the restaurant into a nightclub leads to a brawl between two customers who proceed to totally trash the place.  Again, the restaurant gets trashed in every other episode so you would think Jason and Scott would be used to this.  (You would also think that the restaurant would have gone out of business a long time ago as I can’t imagine it’s cost efficient to have to rebuild the damn place twice a month.)  Peter ends his retirement because both of his sons are idiots.  I’d feel bad for Peter but he was stupid for trusting them in the first place.

Meanwhile, Murray’s cousin — Alecia — is visiting from Alabama.  Murray is overprotective but then, at the end of the episode, Alecia sings a song and everything is magically fixed.  Alecia was played by Alecia Elliott, who was a cast member of another Peter Engel-produced sitcom, All About Us.  Elliott had just released her first country album when she appeared on Malibu CA.  I have to admit that I did laugh out loud when, from out of nowhere, she suddenly started singing.  Of course, her song took up the last four minutes of the show, which spared us from having to deal with anymore scenes involving the restaurant.  That was a good thing.

There’s only a handful of episodes left.  Soon, I will never have to write or think about this show again.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.20 “Werewolf of Hollywood”

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, Monsters satirizes the film business.  Well, it’s about time someone did!

Episode 3.20 “Werewolf of Hollywood”

(Dir by Thomas J. Whelan, originally aired on February 10th, 1991)

Screenwriter Buzz Hunkle (Richard Belzer) has been instructed to rewrite a script that was originally written by Leo Tandoski (Shelley Berman).  Leo’s script is about a studio head who is actually a werewolf.  Buzz and his assistant Vicki (Geraldine Leer) read the script and immediately deduce that Leo is attacking executive Billy Mariner (David Leary).  At first, Buzz just assumes that the werewolf angle is a bit of heavy-handed satire but, when Leo turns up dead, Buzz comes to suspect that Billy might actually be a werewolf!  Vicki gives Buzz a gun full of what she claims are silver bullets and she sends him off to investigate.  Of course, it turns out that everyone in this show business tale has a secret or two.

This episode …. well, I liked the idea behind it.  It had potential, I’ll give it that.  And the werewolf effects were certainly effective.  Monsters was a show that almost always featured effective makeup and costuming.  That said, I have to admit that I wanted to like this episode more than I actually did.  Whenever Monsters tries to be intentionally funny, it almost always comes across as if it’s trying too hard and that was certainly the case with this episode.  As an actor, Richard Belzer was always inconsistent.  He did good work as Detective Munch.  In this episode of Monsters, he sleepwalks through the role.  I really wanted this episode to work but it just feel flat for me.

Guess what?  We’ve only got four more episodes of Monsters left!  Overall, I have enjoyed reviewing this show, even if it has been a bit uneven overall.  I’ll miss it when I’m done.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 6.1 and 6.2 The Italian Cruise: Venetian Love Song/Down for the Count/Arrividerci, Gopher/The Arrangement”

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, season 6 begins!

Episode 6.1 and 6.2 “The Italian Cruise: Venetian Love Song/Down for the Count/Arrividerci, Gopher/The Arrangement”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on October 2nd, 1982)

The Love Boat crew goes to Italy!

The sixth season of The Love Boat did indeed start with a cruise to Italy.  It was a special two-hour episode, shot on location at sea and in Italy!  Our crew visits Monaco, Rome, Capri, and Venice and really, that’s the main appeal of this episode.  It’s certainly not the stories, which are pretty superficial even by the standards of the Love Boat.

Ernest Borgnine and Shelley Winters play an old Italian couple who bicker through the whole cruise but who also truly love each other.  Awwww!  Ernest and Shelley were veteran actors and they both appear to be having fun devouring the scenery in their scenes.  Their cruise goes better here than it did in The Poseidon Adventure.

Meredith Baxter falls for a man (David Birney, the annoying Dr. Samuels from the first season of St. Elsewhere) who turns out to be a gigolo.  However, he abandons being a manwhore so that he can pursue a relationship with Meredith.  I understand that Baxter and Birney were married at the time.  They have absolutely zero chemistry when they’re acting opposite each other.

Marie Osmond is angry over being expected to take part in an arranged marriage.  Yeah, that is kind of messed up.  She’d rather marry the totally handsome John James.

Finally, an Italian handyman who looks just like Gopher (and who is also played by Fred Grandy) abducts the real Gopher and takes his place on the ship so that he can try to win the love of a wealthy passenger named Angelica Francini (Christopher Norris) and…. well, actually, this storyline is kind of interesting.

Actually, maybe “interesting” the wrong word.

Goofy!  That’s the word I’m looking for.

This storyline is so goofy — so damn goofy — that it’s actually kind of fun.  I mean, it’s The Love Boat.  The Love Boat should be silly.  Fred Grandy playing two characters is silly and fun.  To give credit where credit is due, Grandy did a pretty good job playing the imposter imitating Gopher.  His attempts to speak in a stereotypical American accent made me laugh.  In the end, the real Gopher makes it back to the boat.  Confronted with two Gophers, the Captain realizes that the fake Gopher is the one who has actually been doing a good job and kicks him off the boat.  He’d rather have the real, incompetent Gopher and I don’t blame him.  What’s odd is that no one’s really upset or even that surprised by the kidnapping.  I don’t think anyone even bothers to callsthe police.

Anyway, Italy is the main attraction here.  I love Italy (which I visited the summer after I graduated high school) and I loved this episode!  At one point, Marie Osmond wore a red dress that looked a lot like the one that I wore to Pompeii on that windy day when I accidentally flashed a thousand tourists.  Marie was struggling with the wind too and I was like, “I share your struggle, Marie!”

I enjoyed this cruise.  I want to go back to Italy.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.6 “The Enemy Within”

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.

Okay, let’s do this again.

Episode 2.6 “The Enemy Within”

(Dir by Stephen L. Posey, originally aired on September 28th, 1996)

A group of masked men are breaking into the homes of wealthy Vietnamese immigrants and stealing their money and jewelry.  We are told that the men are specifically targeting the Vietnamese because Vietnamese people do not trust banks or the police.  I have no idea if that’s true or not.  I just know that the show insisted that this is true with a bizarre vehemence.  To be honest, I’m Irish-Italian-Spanish in descent and I don’t trust banks or the police either.  That said, I would be kind of offended if something bad happened to me and the cops responded by going, “Eh.  It’s because she’s Irish-Italian-Spanish, what can you do?”

Kelly Hu, who is not Vietnamese, plays Wendy Trang, the granddaughter of a Vietnamese couple of have been robbed.  Her grandfather does not want to talk to the police so Wendy instead talks to her grandfather and then meets with TC to tell him what her grandfather told her.  From what Wendy tells him (which I think would be considered hearsay in a court of law), TC decides that only one of the thieves is Vietnamese and that the head of the robbery crew is probably an American who served in Vietnam and who harbors resentment towards immigrants.  Seriously, he figures that out from just having one conversation.

(Actually, maybe it was Palermo who figured it out.  Once they get on their bikes and put on their helmets, Palermo and TC are pretty much indistinguishable.)

TC recruits a psychic named Leslie Quint (Ken Weiler) to handle a knife that was left behind at the scene and to pick up on whatever psychic residue has been left behind.  Chris smirks and calls the guy a fraud because, two seasons is, the writers still haven’t bothered to give Chris a personality beyond being bitchy.  The psychic not only reveals that the leader of the gang is a big white guy but he also tells Chris that she needs to go to the dentist because she has a cavity.  (Ewwww!  Brush your teeth, weirdo!)  He also tells Cory that her never-before mentioned brother is involved in some trouble.

The psychic’s right!  Peter McNamara (William Bumiller), Cory’s brother, is a corrupt narcotics cop!

Anyway, things worked out.  The bag guys were captured.  Cory realized her brother wasn’t perfect.  Chris learned a lesson about dismissing secret powers.  TC smirked in that oddly humorless way of his.  As Palermo, Rick Rossovich seemed to be begging someone to remember that he had been in both Top Gun and The Terminator before allowing himself to get sucked into the world of Pacific Blue.

Along with Kelly Hu, this episode featured Cronenberg favorite Robert A. Silverman, playing an eccentric on the beach.  It’s always nice to see Silverman!

Otherwise, this was another stupid episode.  At some point, these characters are going to have to develop personalities beyond riding bikes and getting annoyed, right?

 

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 6.18 “The Devil Stick/Touch and Go”

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.

It’s time to go back to the Island.  Smiles, everyone, smiles!

Episode 6.18 “The Devil Stick/Touch and Go”

(Dir by George McCowan, originally aired on March 19th, 1983)

I had mixed feelings about this episode.

On the one hand, we do learn a little bit about Tattoo’s past in this episode.  We discover that he lived in Paris before coming to Fantasy Island and becoming Roarke’s assistant and we learn that he may have been a taxi driver.  At one point, his life was saved by a woman named Susan Henderson (Georgia Engel).  To repay her, Tattoo arranges for Susan to come to the Island so that she can pursue her fantasy of getting concert pianist Carter Ransome (Bernie Kopell — who I love on The Love Boat but who is just plain miscast here) to fall in love with her.  Even though Roarke says it will only be for the weekend, Susan is okay with that.  Of course, things get complicated.  Roarke also asks Tattoo how he plans to pay for the fantasy.  Since when does Roarke care about money?  Seriously, after all of the free fantasies that he’s handed out!?  Give Tattoo a break, Roarke!

On the other hand, this fantasy featured Georgia Engel.  Georgia Engel was an actress who specialized in playing very nice women who rarely spoke above a whisper.  Ever since I’ve started doing these retro television reviews, I’ve watched countless episodes featuring Georgia Engel as quirky women who refuse to speak above a whisper.  At first, it didn’t bother me.  Then I watched Jennifer Slept Here, a short-lived sitcom co-starring Georgia Engel.  It was while watching Jennifer Slept Here that I found myself yelling, “SPEAK UP!” whenever Georgia Engel appeared onscreen.

I feel bad because Georgia Engel, in every role that I’ve seen her play, came across as being a genuinely kind soul but the whispering thing …. oh my God, it just annoys the Hell out of me.  And that was certainly the case with this episode.  It was nice to learn more about Tattoo’s life and I’m glad that everyone found love but I’m sick of having to strain to understand or even hear the dialogue whenever Georgia Engel guest stars on one of these shows.

The other fantasy, I liked a bit more.  Carl Peters (Dean Butler) comes to Fantasy Island to meet a woman who has loved for afar, Hallie Miller (Crystal Bernard).  It turns out that Hallie lives on a village on the other side of the Island.  Roarke warns that it’s a weird village that’s never gotten over the execution of a witch several centuries earlier.  At first, I was like, “Since when is there a town on the other side of the Island?” but then I remembered that, during the first season, there was a whole fantasy that took place in fishing village that happened to be on the Island.  Anyway, this fantasy is supernatural-themed and I always like it when Fantasy Island embraces its supernatural origins.

It was an uneven trip to the Island this week but what can I say?  I like island trips!