bobstevens-16810 Reviews

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Very entertaining but also very plot-hole ridden

[8/10 · 25 November 2023]

This movie is slickly handled and has a very attractive female lead in Brooke Adams. It escapes me how people found it boring. Almost every minute had tension.

Now to the plot holes. How did the pods even know about Earth? How did they manage to alter into flowers? What happens to a human soul after the take over is complete? Is everything really encoded in DNA that the pod clone will even have, say, a scratch that the original woman obtained a month before being cloned? More questions abound.

As for comparisons to the original. I will say this. The original had the same problems and left even slightly more unanswered!

Space: 1999: The Immunity Syndrome (1977) Season 2, Episode 23

Very good except for the climax

[9/10 · 8 November 2023]

The premise is an interesting one of a planet that becomes more toxic the longer people stay. And it corrodes ship metals very quickly making escape especially tough for Koenig and crew. The planet also makes some psychotic.

I also like the beauty Catherine Schell's part ( as Maya) in this. Her concern for her lover Tony ( the latter stranded on the planet) is a superb element and handled well indeed.

As to the problem. The climax just does not make enough sense. And if the truth could really be told--it is because it is way too vague. This is where they tried to explain the mysterious nature of the planet. A being is deliberately causing this or at least causing it for sure? A purely natural explanation of all this that it was the atmosphere of the planet growing increasing poisonous and corrosive and making psychos would have been just fine considering all the drama John and Maya and co. Have merely attempting survival and escape!

In short the scenes play better individually than the ep ultimately does as a whole!

Dark Shadows (1991)

Fine enough first ep lousy when it has an 18th century setting

[7/10 · 27 October 2023]

The first ep started where about episode 209 was in the original. Willie Loomis had a very, very whittled down version of the character here when the original series Willie pulled a knife on people and all this new Willie can do is talk tough (a little). A mega-massive letdown is his character.

When they show Willie trying to find jewels and discovering Barn's coffin and you can see some camera shadows or whatever. Outside of those two weaknesses and seeing Willie aggravatingly cry this is a good ep. The women are beautiful in it too matching the beauty of the original series ladies except for the lady playing Vicki and Alexandra Moltke had a regal beauty ( she came from nobility in real life) and this very comely lady is just one percent less beautiful.

When the show gets to the 18th century it just stinks. The entire show looks like horrible PBS type production though this was made by Dan Curtis--who also made the superior original that had a far more appealing 18th century look. I choose most the original over this in every way but one.

Lara Parker was a very bad left-winger in real life --she was radical Jane Fonda's roommate in college ( see the PS below). New show had a much better Angelique.

PS Ho Cho Minh was a mass-murderer in the 1950s in North Vietnam. Even Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker himself, showed this of Ho. You can see how wrong Fonda was in her supporting North Vietnam. Lara Parker was a leftist and all wrong too. The new Angelique here in this show had an advantage of not being quite in that terrible league of misguided humans!

Star Trek: Where No Man Has Gone Before (1966) Season 1, Episode 3

Very good pilot

[10/10 · 18 October 2023]

No two ends about it. It was done on the sets of the original shot pilot The Cage. Talos 4 and Delta Vega are the same sets.

As for the superb characters Kirk and Spock they have enough camaraderie to seem like the Captain and second-in-command of the series. In the regularly produced ep "Return of the Archons" they were less humorous than here.

The character of Garry Mitchell is also superb. Gary Lockwood endows him with increasingly larger than life qualities. Mitchell was a good guy before the electric shock. Do not take to heart too much the scripted bit about him outlining that blonde lab assistant's every move to Kirk back at the Academy. With Kirk any lady he dated more than twice he could have thought he was real close to marriage to!

As for Andrea Dromm as Yoeman Smith (no first name given) she is very, very beautiful and wonderful in her role. Is she ever! She was to have been a regular in the show. Why did they not keep her!?!

On to one other important point. Mitchell increasingly believed himself a God. He reads fast going through half the ship's computer library in hardly a day. He probably read the Bible and science. Important. Science in real life shows the Bible is amazingly accurate on many hundreds of facts ( round Earth, jet streams and the hydrologic cycle being just a mere three!). If mutated Mitchell had indeed read the Bible and a great deal of science he would have realized and not let his powers go to his head. Of course the fact that this is scripted means the writer( Samuel Peeples) may not have known that and thus neither did Mitchell!

Gunsmoke: The Hostage (1965) Season 11, Episode 12

Dream of one of the characters?

[7/10 · 15 October 2023]

I admit this ep does have problems. No, not that there are is no sheriff of the county Dodge be located in. He could have been sick and no deputy was taking the leader job at the time. Or the job be largely honorary with a federal marshall patrolling Dodge. But much superior question is what about the Army guys at Fort Dodge? Where were all they in all this?

Another problem with the story is this. When Festus and Thad were trying to stop that Sheriff from pulling a rifle young Thad could have ran and grabbed the elderly Sheriff's arms to stop him from getting the rifle off the rack. No other real problems with this ep.

The Twilight Zone: King Nine Will Not Return (1960) Season 2, Episode 1

Mandatory correction

[8/10 · 13 October 2023]

Too many reviews comment on the quality of Robert Cummings' performance. This is a big, big mistake. He was directed by a director (Buzz Kulik). Directors matter far more than actors.

You like it credit the director far more than him. Directors have most of the power over any and all performances in a film, play or TV show.

On to another point. This was the one and only TZ ep very loosely based on a genuine real life incident.

The names were all changed including the plane's ( it was really the Lady Be Good). And there was some mystery as to how the plane was found in such good shape. This also would have made a real good One Step Beyond episode.

Hawaii Five-O: Sign of the Ram (1979) Season 12, Episode 4

Boxing ep still packs a pretty powerful punch

[6/10 · 7 October 2023]

It is true that Meadows was somewhat miscast in this. Thankfully they only gave her an actually marginal guest role. Also, this maybe the first funny H-FO ep since the way better Joyce Van Patten/ Andy Griffith of season 5. As a funny or at least attempted funny ep it really mostly missed.

But there was still some good boxing action. One person does get killed so it seems eventful.

Also, the tough Kimo and the beautiful Lori have a good moment when they figure out from what floor of a nearby building an assassin struck from. About just their characters. Admit it! They had some potential to be a permanent part of the show. All right. The grim but great powerful first Danno Williams years of the show were long, long gone by now but the show was still very serviceable! And more!

Hawaii Five-O: Woe to Wo Fat (1980) Season 12, Episode 19

Final ep

[7/10 · 30 September 2023]

Comic book like to say the least. Has some points. Pat Crowley is extremely attractive in her role as Nobel Prize winning scientist. One big plus there.

The ep concludes with I think choppy editing in the last couple of scenes. Wo Fat's old fashioned prison outfit taxes one's imagination to the limit. Is this whole ep just a dream of one of the characters? Like Steve himself? It certainly seems dream-like enough in it's subject matter. I will list it as probably indeed a dream. Pat Crowley keeps it from being any kind of nightmare however. She is fantastic on this! Enjoy her scenes a lot. Aloha!

Gunsmoke: The Magician (1963) Season 9, Episode 12

Beautiful Brooke Bundy saves an overly grim episode

[5/10 · 29 September 2023]

This ep has far more glum feeling than they usually do. It is about a traveling showman and his daughter who come to Dodge. Matt, minus any deputy here, seems full of misses as a character in this one.

Brooke Bundy is wonderful and very beautiful as his daughter. She singlehandedly raises this episode up by at least 2 stars in rating it. She would return on season 10 to play a girl that Festus' nephew(?) wants to marry. She is way better used in that way more cheerful ep than this far more grim one. If you just see one of her Gunsmoke eps make it the other one. You will be much happier than with this one!

Three's Company: Diamond Jack (1982) Season 7, Episode 3

One of the best eps due to beautiful Tori Lysdahl

[9/10 · 22 September 2023]

She was outstanding in her second appearance on this show. She is playing a sexy lady who is also a jewel thief. Jack goes to meet her at a roller skating rink thinking she is the blind date his friend Larry set him up with. Old TV ploy where two unconnected people who are both supposed to meet someone wrongly think the other stranger is their expected party.

Lysdahl is so very great to watch in this it is just a shame she was not in more eps of this show and put to good use like this and in her first ep ( Mighty Mouth). She exhibits sex appeal and intelligence perfectly as the beautiful but ( in a rare case) dangerous woman.

Hawaii Five-O: One Big Happy Family (1973) Season 6, Episode 4

Fascinating but flawed ep

[8/10 · 20 September 2023]

Popular one by all good reviews. Story told on here. I will point out the weaknesses. How did the dead count exactly go from 125 to 150? We saw them kill six people after arriving in Hawaii. Should have been 130 or 131 death count by the end.

Two. The writers did not have enough story and thus it was obviously stretched out to make room for 52 or 51 minutes.

Three. Also, writers lacked imagination and it shows with plot twists. That is why the pimp in the hair salon scene is so long and the bar scene is short. The writers could not think of how the daughter-in-law got into the hooker scene in the latter scene so she is doing so with no explanation how.

About the comely lady playing the daughter. She was also on "The Partridge Family" and in real life she used to date singing idol/TV actor David Cassidy. This means she herself was anti-society in real life as such people were the only kind he ever romanced. Sad fact about her as she is so attractive to watch in this.

Back to this ep itself. Hawaii Five-O Homepage says this was based on a real life family who committed like 24 murders. No where near the very100+ the fictional family murders. This is not taken that much from real life at all.

Mannix: The Gang's All Here (1973) Season 7, Episode 5

Proof what complete, total tripe this episode is!!

[1/10 · 15 September 2023]

The ep has already been reviewed. My point. It ( the proof)is in the performance of series star Mike Connors himself. Once he gets shot he turns in a strange, bizarre and detached performance from absolutely everyone else in the episode. It is like he is practically in a different show.

What must have happened was this. Connors could simply not believe how inhumanly and non-thinking the script was about street kids hunting Mannix on the streets of LA. He obviously did not want to do this one but had to as it was in his demanded series contract. He probably said he would spend the rest of his career disowning this episode. It looks like a five year old wrote it. Why on Earth did this terrible episode get a network go-ahead!?! Why!?!

To the above poster who rated it as high three stats when it was lower than ant's belly. Mannix was filmed on the Paramount not Universal backlot! Get facts straight!

The Outer Limits: The Invisible Enemy (1964) Season 2, Episode 7

Decent but slightly idiotic episode

[6/10 · 21 March 2023]

The premise is an interesting one. The idea that a series of creatures of predatory nature exists in the sand on another planet ( Mars) much like sharks on Earth.

The acting is sincere and the monsters are surprisingly eerie and dangerous killing four crew members of two ships. The crew goes by the rank of like the air force. Adam West plays Major Merit. Rudy Solari plays a Captain not of the whole ship but a rank lower than that of Meritt's. When the two are trying to get back to the ship and this away from the creatures you do feel some drama.

Look. The now defunct Twilight Zone magazine covered the original Outer Limits series back in the 1980s in the form of episode. Even that magazine review of this ep claimed it was badly done. For one thing it looks really idiotic the way the captain left the ship minus his walkie talkie device and the major has to go in search of him.

Also, why can you see Earth so clearly from Mars?

This ep also had an all male cast. Not good. What, a pretty female as a secretary back in the general's office back on Earth would not have helped?