Friday the 13th: The Series - A Cup of Time

This is one of my favorite episodes!

A homeless kid asleep on a bench in a park is given some tea by a 'nice' old lady in a black cloak...and faster then they can say 'thanks for the cuppa' the leaves on the tea cup sprout and wind their way up the kid's arm and strangles them. (cool special effects by the way. no cgi here)
Cut to a recording studio and the most 80's singer ever! Lady Die! Huge crimped hair! Latex outfit! Synths on the backing track...which she hates by the way. She's a nightmare, of course, total rock bitch. She storms off to her dressing room and can't stop checking for wrinkles in the mirror. She wants to do a benefit concert for the homeless...coincidence? Probably not.
Back at 'Curious Goods...a little old lady neighbor, Bertie, drops by with their curtains. She's got a crush on Jack...who is developing a protein drink that's 'healthy and organic'...way ahead of his time there Jack. Bertie is a social worker and had to identify the body of the homeless teen that died in the opening scene. They also mention an old homeless woman had disappeared earlier that year...coincidence? Probably not.
Ryan and Micki head off to the morturary to talk to the police about the homeless deaths...and they totally just walk in on the autopsy, Ryan looks a bit peaky. The pathologist discovers some 'greenish' paint on the dead girls neck, as him and the detective go in for a better look an ivy leaf falls on the floor, which Ryan quickly picks up for a clue. Sneaky.
Apparently, it's 'swapper's' ivy, which in Ireland was considered to be evil...and of course there's a cursed tea cup in the book! Ryan and Micki go to see the guy who bought it, 'Fat' Eddie Burell. Whose skeleton they find in his creepy apartment...Ryan makes a joke about not calling him 'Fat' Eddie anymore.
Sound check at the homeless charity concert. Lady Die is freaking out again over looking old. A homeless girl is partaking of the craft services table and even pick pokets Lady Die's agent's wallet. She runs off and hides in a bush.

Not to be confused with Princess Diana

The not so nice lady in a black cloak with the tea cup is trying to give it to a homeless guy when the little girl runs up. She gives the girl a bracelet to split...the 'swapper's' ivy kills the guy and we see the lady in the cloak is Lady Die...OMG! Yeah, we kinda guessed that.
It turns out that the old lady that's missing, Sarah, is 'Fat' Eddie's sister...coincidence? Probably not.
The Scooby gang figure out that Sarah Burell and Lady Die are the same person after hearing one of her songs on the radio which is about 'I'm a little tea pot..." Subtle.
Ryan and Micki confront her at the local radio station and she runs off but not before getting pick pocketed by the little homeless girl and running into Bertie, her old social worker. Aging quite quickly Lady Die/Sarah tries to swap lives with a homeless person but discovers that the tea cup is missing.

Ryan and Micki go looking for her in the park where all the murders have happened, Bertie is following them for some reason. They find the homeless girl's camp in the park...they get it back from her by promising her a hot meal and a warm bed. As per usual, they take the homeless girl, Kristen, back to 'Curious Goods'. As they look for potato chips for young Kristen, someone break into the shop and steals the tea cup. Turns out the thief is Bertie, no Bertie no, what are you doing!?! She goes to the park to use the tea cup on someone...it's very sad cuz Bertie is kinda awesome. Yay, she can't go through with it and gets comforted by a homeless guy.
Ryan, Micki and Jack think it was Lady Die/Sarah not Bertie who stole the tea cup. We see Bertie in the park with the tea cup...and so does Lady Die/Sarah! Oh No! The Scooby gang rush to the park as Bertie gets chased by Lady Die/Sarah and falls down a hill and then killed by her. The police, for some reason, think Ryan and Micki have tried to kill Bertie, she's actually alive after all.
Lady Die/Sarah is on the look out for another victim...psych! It's Jack in a wig! He grabs the tea from her and runs off. Weirdly, Lady Die turns up for her benefit concert and dies as she falls out of her dressing room/RV.
Kristen ends up going to live with Bertie in the end and everyone lives happily ever after.
Note: Jakc's protein drink is made from bugs...gross.
Cursed Object: Tea Cup decorated with 'Swapper's' Ivy
Number of Deaths: 7?

Friday the 13th: The Series - Episode 3 Cupid's Quiver

This episode of Friday the 13th: The Series was directed by award winning and Oscar nominated Canadian Atom Egoyan, though it is not listed on his Wikipedia page.
It's about a 'Nice Guy'...one of those men who expect women to date them because they aren't assholes but get pissed off when they get turned down...and on this show that means people die.
A creepy 'Nice Guy' asks a woman, who is sitting and chatting with another guy to dance...she turns him down and he goes back to the bar where he has a Cupid's statue in a burlap bag, because of course you do. The Cupid 'shoots' the girl who turned him down and now she can't get enough of 'Nice Guy'. It's like a supernatural roofie. They go to a motel and get it on whilst the Cupid watches...gross. The 'Nice Guy' starts tho strangle the girl but the police bust in and stop him.

You can tell it's evil just looking at it.

When Micki and Ryan interview the motel manager it turns out some Frat-bros helped break down the door to the room when the police raided it...one of them must have taken it! Off to the university!
Ryan, Micki and Jack want to search the Frat for the Cupid, so they end up at a Frat party. Somehow Jack bartends and makes a 'Scottish truth potion' cocktail to try and get the where abouts of the Cupid out of the Frat-bros. The frat had it but new creepy 'Nice Guy' Eddie, Frat-bro wannabe, gets a hold of the Cupid of Malek. He's in love with some girl, Laurie, that tutored him once and thinks it was a date...uh-oh. He uses it on one of the girls at the party and they end up 'parking' in the woods...and then she dies of bee stings. WTH?
Eddie returns to the party and tries to give Laurie the Cupid. They try and explain to Laurie that Eddie is obsessed with her and that she's in danger. Ryan gets the Cupid back from Eddie but it gets taken by Uni security because the Frat-bros have said it was stolen. Eddie gets it back from the security guard, cuz they're buddies. Laurie ends up going back to the antique shop for her safety. Unforunately, it turns out Laurie was 'stung' by the Cupid and is now in love with Eddie. She sneaks out and goes to Eddie in his creepy basement home...no wait...it's Micki in a bad wig! They know everything! Dammit! Micki gets shot bu the Cupid. Eddie grabs Micki and threatens her and Ryan with a fire axe. Ryan chases him through the creepy basement and then Eddie falls to his death.
In the end Jack lectures Ryan about not taking what they're doing seriously enough.

Cursed Object: Cupid of Malek
Number of Deaths: 3

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Friday the 13th: The Series - The Poisoned Pen

Yeah, that's not very convincing,

Episode two takes place inside a monastery where people keep dying after a monk 'predicts' their deaths. Jack realises that it is actually a 'poisoned' pen that makes whatever is written come true. But the only way for them to get the 'poisoned' pen back is for Ryan and Micki to disguise themselves as monks to enter the monastery. Jack forges the paperwork that allows them to join the monastery. The monks must all be blind because there's no way that Micki looks like a man in anyway whatsoever!
So it turns out that the 'psychic' monk is a puppet for an evil monk who just wants to sell the monastery for millions of dollars to a property developer, who will turn it into luxury flats...somethings never change. Ryan and Micki are a bit out of their depth and Jack turns up as an Irish monk to help them out. He also made a copy of the poison pen so they can switch it out with the real one.

The Poisoned Pen

The evil monk kills the 'psychic' monk and also tries to kill Ryan and Micki but as they are not actually brothers the real ones in England die instead.
They finally confront the evil monk and defeat him with his own poison pen...he gets killed by an axe.
Cursed Object: A Quill
Number of Deaths: 7?

Friday The 13th: The Series - Episode 1: The Inheritance

One of my favorite 80's TV shows was the the American/Canadian horror classic 'Friday the 13th: The Series'. It has no real connection the movie series, though producer Frank Mancuso Jr. also produced a seven of the films from number two to number eight.

Evil Doll. Perfect Eyebrows.

I originally watched it when it was first on between 1987 to 1990, I mostly watched it when I was babysitting, I was a bad babysitter. I've rewatched it a couple times since then and have recently started to watch it again, as it's geting close to Halloween. After watching the first episode again I realized I had to blog about this awesomely cheesy show, and I mean that in all the best ways!
The first episode does not pull any punches...creepy old man - check, Satan - check, evil doll - check, evil child - check.
Uncle Lewis has made a deal with the Devil but gets dragged into hell by him for breaking the deal. Cousins Micki, (Robey) and Ryan end up inheriting his antique shop, not knowing that all the items are cursed, they sell some off so they can sell the shop and part ways. They accidently sell an evil doll to a father, don't know how they could accidently sell it as it's creepy as hell.

Very young Sarah Polley.
She was also Ramona Quimby.

The evil child is Sarah Polley, who has gone on to be a successful actress and director. She is a unhappy, spoiled daughter of a hen pecked man and his second wife. The evil doll basically seduces Mary telling her they can get rid of her 'evil step-mother'. The doll pushes the stepmother down the stairs when she tries to take her away from Mary...luckily(?) she doesn't die but ends up in hospital where the evil doll finishes the job.
Mary is left at home with a babysitter, whom she tries to kill with her evil animated toys. Ryan and

Give me that doll!

Micki rush to the house to retrieve the doll and end up fighting them on one of those playground merry-go-round things...yes, two adults fight a child for a doll.
Micki and Ryan realize that they need to search for and retrieve all the cursed items...with the help of Jack Marshak, who was a friend of Lewis, a world traveller and an occultist, he collected many of the antiques for Lewis before they were cursed.
Mode of death: Doll
Death count: 4?

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L is for Law & Order...all of them

Law & Order (franchise) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If someone told me I could only watch one t.v. show for the rest of my life, I would choose Law & Order...well, all of the different series, though a friend says that's cheating. "Together, the original series, its various spin-offs, the TV film, and crossover episodes from other shows constitute over 900 hours of programming." (Wikipedia), though I think that number is larger now, more like 1,500. I have spent twelve hours watching a Law & Order marathon on American television. (some might say that this was a waste of time but I was on vacation don't judge me!) There is; Law and Order (20 seasons, 456 episodes) (September 13, 1990 – May 24, 2010), Law and Ordr: Special Victims Unit (16 seasons, 362 episodes) (September 20, 1999 – present), Law and Order: Criminal Intent (10 seasons, 195 episodes) (September 30, 2001 – June 26, 2011), Law and Order: Trial By Jury (1 season, 13 episodes) (March 3, 2005 – January 21, 2006), Law and Order: LA (1 season, 22 episodes) (September 29, 2010 – July 11, 2011), so I have alot of Law & Order to catch up on.
Law & Order started in 1990 on NBC, I remember watching the first season, it blew me away from the start. In the 80's the cop shows were less serious and gritty, Chips, T. J. Hooker...etc, though Hill Street Blues was a series cop show but that was more about their relationships...Law & Order was about the crimes, you rarely knew what happened in their private lives.
There have been many detectives on the show but the best has always beenLennie Briscoe as played by Jerry Orbach, also known as Baby's dad in Dirty Dancing and the candlestick in Beauty and the Beast. He always had the best comebacks and one liners.
I think one of the reasons it's been popular for so long, though SVU is the only version of it currently broadcast, is the 'ripped from the headlines' storylines. Half the fun is guessing who the people really are...and that we sometimes see them get the justice they deserve, even if it's only on the show and not in real life. One of the other reasons it's so popular is the guest stars, there have been enough Oscar, Tony, Grammy award winners on this show to fill a Broadway theatre...Julia Roberts, Angela Lansbury, Carol Burnett, Jeremy Irons, John Ritter, Neil Patrick Harris, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Williams, Jerry Lewis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joan Jett, Martha Stewart, Sharon Stone, Bradley Cooper, Sam Rockwell, James Earl Jones, Harry Connick Jr., Patti Smith and a personal favourite...Chris Sarandon...though the list goes on and on.
Taylor Swift is also a huge Law & Order fan...one of her cats is even named Olivia Benson.
One of the other things I love about Law and Order is that it crossed over several times with one of my other favorite t.v. shows, Homicide: Life On The Street...Det. Munch from SVU even started out on Homicide.

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