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Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.15 “The Mobius”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, Mitch and Ryan go to the future!

Episode 2.15 “The Mobius”

(Dir by David Livingston, originally aired on March 2nd, 1997)

Mitch and Ryan’s plans to attend the opening of a hot new club on the beach are interrupted by the arrival of Ashley (Laura Interval), who is an old college friend of Ryan’s.  Ashley explains that her husband and colleague, John (Neil Roberts), has managed to open a portal to an unknown world and now he spends all of his time obsessing on it.

(Well, who wouldn’t?)

Accompanied by Teague, Mitch and Ryan go with Ashley to the laboratory.  John is busy tossing a football into the portal.  Something or someone on the other side throws the football back.  Teague and Ryan are really impressed with the portal.  Ashley and Mitch both think that the portal is something that shouldn’t be messed with.  When Ashley accidentally stumbles into the portal and vanishes, Mitch and Ryan follow.

They find themselves in what appears to be the ruins of Los Angeles.  Ryan speculates that they’re in a parallel universe while Mitch thinks that they might be in the future.  (Technically, they’re both right.  It is the future but it’s the future of a parallel universe.)  Mitch finds a newspaper announcing that the world had caught on fire due to pollution burning a hole in the Earth’s atmosphere.  In an amazing coincidence, they also stumble across one of Ryan’s professors.  Professor Arnold (Kay E. Kuter) is old and dying but he still has his notes that detail what should have been done to prevent the end of the world.

Mitch, Ryan, and Ashley want to get those notes back to the present but it won’t be easy.  Not only do they have to find the portal before it closes but they also have to avoid a bunch of mutated humans who now spend their time dressed like monks and chasing people around the ruins.  Even when Ryan, Ashley, and Mitch do find the portal back, the professor’s notes burn up as they pass through.

“I guess we’ll have to figure it out for ourselves,” Mitch says, looking at the charred binder.

Yes, this episode has a message!  Don’t pollute or Los Angeles will end up looking like a messy studio backlot and all your friends will join the Holy Order of Cannibal Mutations.  One has to wonder whether or not this episode influenced Cormac McCarthy when he wrote The Road.  Hmmm …. probably not.

Heavy-handed messaging aside, it’s not a bad episode.  If there’s any actor who born to run through a messy backlot while fighting mutant monks, it’s David Hasselhoff.  Especially when compared to the previous two episodes, The Mobius is fast-paced and it actually has a plot that the viewer can follow.  It’s silly but it’s fun, in the way that a show like Baywatch Nights should be.

As the episode ends, the Hoff suggests that maybe, if the future’s bad, we should be sure to enjoy the present.  That sounds like good advice to me!  That’s the wisdom of the Hoff.

A Blast From The Past: One Step Beyond 3.15 “The Last Round” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this episode from 1961, Charles Bronson stars as Yank Dawson, an aging boxer who finds himself in haunted auditorium in England during World War II. Bronson was 39 years old when he starred as Yank Dawson and he gives a good performance. The role makes good use of both Bronson’s imposing physicality and also the smoldering anger that would eventually make Bronson a star in both Europe and, later, the United States.

The episode below first aired on January 10th, 1961.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.14 “Daddy’s Little Girl/The Whistle”

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, the stars align and John Carradine shows up on Fantasy Island.

Episode 5.14 “Daddy’s Little Girl/The Whistle”

(Dir by Don Chaffey and Don Weis, originally aired on January 30th, 1982)

The plane is landing and Mr. Roarke and Julie are getting ready to meet their guests for the weekend.  But wait a minute — where’s Tattoo!?  Roarke explains that Tattoo has volunteered to spend the weekend learning how to do CPR.  When a voluptuous nurse walks by, Julie rolls her eyes and says that Tattoo only cares about learning “mouth-to-mouth.”

“Julie!” Mr. Roarke snaps, even though Julie is probably correct.

Anyway, any episode without Tattoo feels strange and that’s certainly true of this episode.  There are two fantasies, one of which was dramatically better than the other.  The lesser of the two fantasies involves Christa Ackland (Genie Francis) and her efforts to find out the identity of her father.  All she knows is that her mother (Carolyn Jones) knew her father in the Philippines during World War II.  Christa is going to be married on Fantasy Island and she wants her real father to give her away.

Three men, all of whom served in the Air Force together, step forward and claim, one after the other, to be Christa’s father.  When Christa finally confronts her mother, she learns that her father is not Gene (John Ericson), Al (Alan Hale, Jr.), or Bert (Gene Nelson).  Instead, he was a guy named …. well, Guy.  Guy was shot down while on a mission.  Gene, Al, and Bert all explain that the stepped forward and claimed to be her father out of loyalty to Guy and because they didn’t want Christa to learn on her wedding say that her father was dead.  (Apparently, they felt that information would be better received after the honeymoon.)  Christa is surprisingly forgiving.  She realizes that her stepfather (William Windom) has more than earned the right to give her away.  Christa marries George Stickney (James Daughton, the head of the evil frat in Animal House) and Julie cries at the wedding.  Awwww!

The main problem with this storyline was that Genie Francis gave a surprisingly bad performance as Christa.  Instead of coming across as someone who truly wanted to know about her real father, she instead came across as being petulant and more than a little self-righteous.  Carolyn Jones, William Windom, and the three potential fathers were all likable but none could make up for the unsympathetic lead character.

The other fantasy was a bit more fun, even if was impossible to follow the story.  Iconologist Adrian Brilles (Edward Winters) dreams of making a great discovery that will bring him fame and prove his theories about ancient hieroglyphics to be correct.  Mr. Roarke sends him to a ghost town that is also the home of a museum of ancient artifacts.  Working with curator Leila Proctor (Ann Turkel), Adrian discovers what he describes as being “the Rosetta Stone of hieroglyphics.”  He also discovers an ancient whistle that will grant him three wishes.

There are a few townspeople, all of whom take a lot of interest in Adrian’s work.  Their leader is the town’s mortician and he’s played by — YES! — JOHN CARRADINE!  And though Carradine doesn’t get to do much and was obviously physically frail when he filmed this episode, his famous voice and his piercing stare combine to make the Mortician a memorable character.  There’s also a fairly ridiculous scene where the townspeople reveal their true selves, which means dancing around while wearing rubber demon masks.  It’s silly but it’s effective.

It’s never quite clear what’s happening at the ghost town, beyond the three wishes being a set up to bring the demonic townspeople into the world and to cost Adrian his soul.  Fortunately, Mr. Roarke pops up and gives Adrian some cryptic advice about the third wish being the most important.  For his first wish, Adrian wishes for the townspeople to be their true selves.  (Cue the demon dance.)  For his second wish, he goes for fame and adulation.  For his third wish, he cancels the first two wishes and this somehow set free not only his soul but Leila’s as well.

Yep, it doesn’t make much sense but it’s got John Carradine and a bunch of horror imagery so it’s fun.  That’s all I really ask for when it comes to Fantasy Island.  The whistle fantasy makes up for the wedding fantasy and the lack of Tattoo.  This was a worthwhile trip to the Island.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 2.17 “The Matchmakers”

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 Freevee!

This week, Jon and Ponch play matchmaker!

Episode 2.17 “The Matchmakers”

(Dir by Harvey S. Landman, originally aired on January 27th, 1979)

Cora (Jenny O’Hara) is an eccentric woman who lives in an old farmhouse with a bunch of animals.  Her landlord is evicting her and the county is planning to not only bulldoze her home but also take and possibly destroy all of her animals unless she can find a new place for them.  Twice, she tries to commit suicide by driving her truck recklessly.  Both times, she is saved by Ponch and Baker.

Dirk Hutchins (Gregory Walcott) is a crotchety old man who has served with the Highway Patrol for 30 years and is now on the verge of forced retirement.  He doesn’t know what he’s going to do with himself once he’s no longer on the job.  Hutchins spends his last work week taking outrageous risks, leading Ponch and Baker to worry that he’s trying to go out in a blaze of suicidal glory.

What solution do Ponch and Baker come up with for Cora and Dirk?  They decide to play matchmaker!  Cora ends up moving onto Dirk’s property (and brings along all of her animals) and maybe Dirk will end up falling in love with Cora.  And then, they’ll both have a reason to live!

Listen, this episode’s heart is in the right place.  I’m certainly not going to fault the intentions of any episode that features Ponch and Baker trying to help two suicidal people.  But, seriously, Cora was such an annoying character!  The show portrayed her as being so unhinged and so emotionally unstable that you couldn’t help but wonder if having her move in with grumpy old Dirk was really the best way to go about things.  Cora really did seem like she needed professional help, the type that went way beyond having a place to keep her animals.

As for Dirk, I was happy to see that he was played by Gregory Walcott.  As many of you already know, Walcott’s greatest claim to fame was starring in Ed Wood’s Plan Nine From Outer Space.  Walcott survived Plan Nine and went on to become a durable character actor, appearing in westerns and war films.  Walcott gives a believably ruggedly performance as Dirk, even if the character himself is not exactly someone you would want to get stuck on an elevator with.

There is a subplot involving a private investigator (Danny Wells) who had been hired to kidnap a kid and bring him back to his no-good father.  And there’s a fairly well-done scene where Dirk and Getraer work to keep a truck from turning over on top of a car.  There is a little action but still, this episode didn’t quite work.

Horror on TV: One Step Beyond 3.6 “Moment of Hate” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond, fashion designer Karen Wadsworth (Joanne Linville) believes that she has the power to cause people to die just by wishing death upon them.  Her psychiatrist tells her that this simply isn’t possible and then dares her to try one little test of her supposed powers.

This episode features a good performance by Joanne Linville and, if nothing else, it perhaps makes the case that we should be a little bit less quick to wish the worst upon other people.  Just imagine all of the damage that Karen could have caused if she had ever set up a twitter account.

This episode originally aired on October 25th, 1960.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 3.4 “Walk-Alone”

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, it’s a rare Tubbs episode!

Episode 3.4 “Walk-Alone”

(Dir by David Jackson, originally aired October 17th, 1986)

As Switek puts it, Tubbs has been walking on air for two weeks.  He’s got a new girlfriend, a waitress at a hot Miami restaurant.  Unfortunately, a shoot-out at that restaurant leaves her dead.  Though Crockett thinks that Tubbs is still too close to the case to be trusted to investigate, Tubbs insists on being involved and Castillo agrees.  (Castillo, at times, just seem to automatically do the opposite of whatever Crockett suggests.)

The shoot-out happened as a result of a drug deal that went down in the state prison.  Using the name Cubero, Tubbs goes undercover as a recently transferred prisoner.  He enters the prison as his usual cool and collected self.  He’s promptly beaten up by the Aryan Nations.  Fortunately, since this is a television show and not The Shawshank Redemption, beating him up is the only thing the Aryans do to Tubbs.

Tubbs is being targeted by all the prisoners, from the Aryans to the Muslims.  But when words get out that he’s a big-time drug dealer, Commander Fox (Keven Conway) makes a deal with him.  If Tubbs keeps Fox and his men supplied with drugs, Tubbs (or Cubero) will be kept safe.

Unfortunately, when Switek, Zito, and Trudy go the prison to see Tubbs, a prisoner recognizes them.  Tubbs’s cover is blown.  Crockett wants to go into the prison to save him but Castillo points out that everyone in the prison knows that Crockett is a cop.  (Tubbs has been Crockett’s partner for three years now so why did Castillo assume no one in the prison would be able to make him?)  Castillo goes into the prison to save Tubbs from both the guards and the prisoners.  The episode ends with Castillo gunning down a few guards and saving Tubbs’s life.  Way to go, Castillo!  The main lesson here seems to be that Castillo would rather risk of his own life than depend on Crockett for anything.

This was …. well, this episode was okay.  The plot was nothing special.  For all the talk about how Florida’s state prison was the most dangerous place in the world, it actually came across as being a rather mild place.  Tubbs got beaten up and he got threatened but he didn’t get shanked and or any of the other things that one tends to associate with prison.  The prison guards were not the most intimidating or interesting villains to appear on Miami Vice, even though one of them is played by a young Laurence Fishburne.

(This episode all features a youngish Ron Perlman, playing a good guy who I kept expecting to turn out to be a bad guy because he was being played by Ron Perlman.)

In the end, this episode was a bit forgettable, though it did allow the often-underused Philip Michael Thomas a chance to have the spotlight for once.  He does a good job, even if he doesn’t get to bust out his fake Caribbean accent.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi Junior High 3.13 “Making Whopee”

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 Junior High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1987 to 1989!  The series can be streamed on YouTube!

This week, it’s an Arthur episode! …. really?

Episode 3.13 “Making Whopee”

(Dir by Eleanore Lindo, originally aired on February 27th, 1989)

With all of the season three drama surrounding Wheels, Shane, Spike, Joey, and Caitlin, it can be easy to forget that Degrassi Junior High started out as a show about a nerdy but well-meaning kid named Arthur trying to navigate his way through a brand new world.  Indeed, almost the entire first season revolved around Arthur and his friend, Yick.  By the time the third season rolled around, neither character was particularly prominent in the show’s ensemble.  I think one reason why Arthur and Yick went from being the main characters just being in the background is because their storylines never presented as much potential for excitement as the stuff going on with everyone else.  While Spike dealt with being a mother at 14 and Caitlin dealt with epilepsy and Wheels struggled with depression, Arthur and Yick were just average kids with average kid problems.

That’s why its a little bit jarring — after all of last week’s drama — to suddenly be presented with an Arthur episode.  In this episode, Arthur struggles to accept the fact that his dad has a girlfriend and that he would rather hang out with her than watch Space Cadets with his son.  When Arthur wakes up one morning to discover that his father’s new girlfriend has slept over, Arthur is stunned.  Later, when Arthur’s Dad comes to the Degrassi open house with his girlfriend, Arthur loses it and says that he’s sick of her coming between him and his father.  The end result is that Arthur’s father ends up single and depressed.  Arthur begs his Dad to watch television with him.  Arthur’s Dad sobs on the couch.

Damn, what a sad ending!  Of course, sad endings are a bit of a Degrassi trademark.  I’ve lost track of how many episodes of this show ended with someone in tears.

As for the B-plots, Luke continues to feel guilty over giving Shane that hit of LSD and the fact that everyone in school blames him for Shane’s accident certainly doesn’t help matters.  (Shane, for his part, is still in a coma.)  Meanwhile, Melanie finds herself competing for Snake’s attention with a snooty ninth-grader named Allison (Sara Holmes).  Melanie has nothing to worry about.  Allison may be older but Melanie is still the one who Snake asks to the graduation dance.  In fact, not only does Melanie get a date but she also gets her best friend back.  Kathleen forgives Melanie for reading her diary and also announces that she is now in therapy for her eating disorder!

Yay!  A happy ending for some….

And a totally tragic ending for others!

That’s Degrassi for you.

As for this episode, I’m a child of divorce so I could relate to a certain extent to what Arthur was going through.  I always hated it whenever my Mom dated anyone new and I will admit that I could be a bit of a brat about it.  That said, I never reduced her to crying on the couch.  I mean …. seriously, Arthur, what the Hell?  I preferred Melanie’s story because it had a happy ending and it was another storyline to which I could relate.  Talking to your crush and not realizing you have lipstick on your teeth?  Hey, we’ve all been there!

Horror On TV: One Step Beyond 3.5 “If You See Sally” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s epiosde of One Step Beyond, we visit the legend of the ghostly hitchhiker.

Will Sally ever make it home?

This episode originally aired on October 18th, 1960!

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life on Street 1.3 “Night of the Dead Living”

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, the Homicide Squad works the night shift on the hottest night of the year.

Episode 1.3 “Night of the Dead Living”

(Dir by Michael Lehmann, originally aired on March 31st, 1993)

On the hottest night of the year, Giardello’s homicide squad works the night shift.  Everyone comes in grumpy.  Munch has just broken up with his girlfriend.  Bolander is trying to work up the courage to call Dr. Blythe.  Bayliss is still obsessing on the Adeena Watson case and he and Pembleton are still trying to figure out how to work together.  Kay’s sister is having trouble at home.  Felton’s wife hates him.  Crosetti worries about his teenage daughter and her boyfriend.  Giardello tries to figure out why the air conditioner is only blowing out hot air on what Lewis claims is the hottest night in history.

Despite the heat and the statistics that show that most homicide occur at night, no calls come in.  Bayliss is convinced he’s cracked the Watson case when he discovers that the fingerprints on Adeena’s library book belongs to someone named James.   He sends Thorson out to arrest James.  James turns out to be a seventh grader who thinks he’s being arrested by not paying a library fine.  (James did check out the book, when he was in the fifth grade.)

A drunk man dressed as Santa Claus is brought in and later falls through the ceiling when he attempts to escape custody.  A baby is found in the station’s basement but it turns out to the cleaning lady’s baby.  She brings him to work with her to protect him from the rats that live in their apartment building.  Eventually, Bolander works up the courage to call Blythe and Bayliss and Pembleton figure out that Adeena’s body was found where it was because her killer brought the body down a fire escape.  At the end of the shift, Giardello assembles his detectives on the roof and joyfully sprays them with the water hose.

It’s an episode that feels like a play, taking place in one location and featuring a lot of monologuing.  Each member of the squad gets a their chance in the spotlight, with the episode revealing that every one of them is a bit more complex than they initially seem.  Even Munch, the misanthrope, is shown to light a candle in memory of “all those who have been killed.”  It’s one of those episodes that makes you understand why Homicide is considered to be classic while also showing you why it struggled in the ratings.  In this episode, Homicide revealed itself to be not a cop show but instead a show about people who happened to be cops.  Most shows about detectives end with an arrest.  This episode ends with Giardello showing his love for the people who work for him.  After spending an hour with everyone sweating and complaining, it’s nice to see them happy on the roof of the station house.  Yaphet Kotto’s joy in the final scene is a wonder to behold.  And yet, it’s easy to imagine how confused audiences, whose expectations had been set by more traditional crime show, would have been.

This episode was meant to be the third episode of the series.  NBC decided that it worked better as the finale of the first season and instead made it the ninth episode.  Peacock has this episode placed where it originally belonged and, with this review, that’s what I’m going with as well.

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 2.16 “The Oddest Couple”

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!

This week, Viker needs help!

Episode 2.16 “The Oddest Couple”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on February 8th, 1987)

Viker has been kicked out by his wife, Mrs. Viker (Laura Henry).  Mrs. Viker apparently doesn’t have a first name.  Even Viker calls her “Mrs. Viker” whenever he talks to her.  Because he has been kicked out of his house, Viker has started sleeping on Howard’s couch.

Howard tells Viker that he can’t sleep on his couch, which just leaves Viker with one other option.  He moves in with Howard!  Normally, I’d wonder how Edna would feel about this but Edna is not in this episode.  In fact, there’s no mention of Howard being involved and his apartment suddenly looks like a tacky bachelor pad.  He even has a round bed in the living room.

As you can guess by the episode’s title, Howard and Viker make for an odd couple.  It’s not a case of one of them being a neat freak and one of them being a slob.  In fact, they’re both pretty neat.  It’s just that Viker can be a little weird.  He gargles extremely loudly.  He takes everything that he hears literally.  He spends a lot of time talking about his bunions.

Howard attempts to bring Viker and Mrs. Viker together but, when Mrs. Viker catches Viker teaching Marlene how to dance (more about that in a minute) in the store’s aisles, she declares that she can’t trust Viker.  But then Howard invites Mrs. Viker to his apartment, where he has prepared a romantic dinner for the Vikers.  That’s all it takes for the Vikers to fall back in love and apparently have sex in Howard’s living room bed while Howard waits in the hallway outside.

Why is Viker teaching Marlene how to dance?  Because a good-looking customer named Philip (Richard Hardacre) has asked Marlene to come to his country club!  Marlene gets all dressed up, does her hair nicely, and looks forward to her date.  But then Richard shows up looking like he’s the bassist in Sex Pistols cover band.  Richard says that it’s “punk night” at the country club and he wanted to impress his friends by bringing “an actual punk.”  Realizing that she was being used, Marlene tells Richard to get lost and then she, Murray, and Christian go out for pizza.  Awww!  Since this show usually features those three characters at odds, it’s kind of nice to see them all going out as friends in this episode.

(In real life, Kathleen Laskey, who plays Marlene, is married to Jeff Pustil, who played Christian.  Even though their characters are usually rivals, the chemistry between the two performers is obvious.)

This was an okay episode.  It made me chuckle a few times.  It’s obvious that, after the first half of the second season, the showrunners realized that Don Adams and Gordon Clapp made a great comic team.  Check It Out is a show that works best when it embraces absurdity and few characters are more absurd than Gordon Clapp’s Viker.