This tale of Suzanne Pleshette fighting corruption in the Pittsburgh police force — seven years before the murder by cops of Jonny Gammage, never forget — was something I’d hoped would be a Yinzer giallo, but instead it’s simply a by the book TV movie where she takes over a police station dahntahn and roots out the bad apples.

It does, however, have a great shot of her Mount Washington deck and Tony Shalhoub drinking at the Cricket Lounge during the day and one would assume that’s because his character knows that’s when the money-strapped students of Pitt University come to tryouts. I wouldn’t speak from experience.

This was also called Command In Hell and that better be a reference to Pittsburgh being called Hell with the Lid Off and not an insult. It’s bad enough that they call Liberty Avenue “The Sewer” and never even make it to Chez Kimberly.

Danny Aiello is the chief of police, long before he got famous, and nobody in this movie looks, sounds or acts like they are from Pittsburgh.

It’s directed by George Stafford Brown, who was Officer Terry Webster on the 70s cop drama The Rookies, and written by Mark Rogers (the Police Story TV movies) and Stephen Downing, who wrote for T.J. Hooker, Police Woman and Emergency.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Policewoman Gina Pulasky (Helen Hunt) gets accepted like you’d expect a rookie female cop to be accepted by a group of older and gruffer male officers, but then she proves that she can do more than get coffee and be harassed when she handles a domestic disturbance well and shows an affinity for undercover work. She’s also in a romance of sorts with already married cop Will McCaid (Jeff Fahey) and finds herself strangely attracted to the child killer suspect she’s interacting with, Kyle Timler (Steven Weber). A fry cook who is smarter than that job would indicate, she starts working as a waitress and uses her abusive past to connect with him. But soon, she finds herself losing her own identity and perhaps her morals as she gives in and becomes McCaid’s lover.

Directed by David Anspaugh (Hoosiers, Rudy) and written by John Leekley (the creator of Kindred: The Embraced and Wolf Lake, as well as The Omen TV movie), this film gives Hunt a great opportunity to play multiple characters within one role. It’s a solid TV movie and a reminder of a time when films of this quality would be on regular TV every week.

You can watch this on YouTube.

The second movie of The Master — it’s really episodes 3 and 4 of the show — is probably best known for airing on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Yet for those alive in 1984 who loved all things ninja, the idea that we could see Sho Kosugi on NBC once a week was a big deal.

The first part, taken from the episode called “State of the Union,” has McAllister (Lee Van Cleef) and Keller (Timothy Van Patten) dealing with union issues. This may point to my issues as a kid with this series. I had no interest in the human world of this show. I wanted ninja fights. If you read this site on any basis, you will realize this has not changed.

So if you want to see a ninja help Crystal Bernard from Wings then this would be the movie for you to watch.

This section is directed by Alan Meyerson, who also directed Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach and Private Lessons. The script was from staff writer Susan Woolen.

Woolen would also write the script for “Hostages,” directed by Ray Austin, which has our ninja master and his young student save a senator’s daughter. Randi Brooks (Cherry from TerrorVision), George Lazenby and David McCallum show up as this turns into an espionage film when again, all we want is ninja on ninja.

Of course, I wanted to be Sho Kosugi as a kid.

I still do as an old man.

There was no one more important in middle school than Sho Kosugi. In retrospect, we should have worshipped him even more, because without him bringing the weapons and skills to Cannon’s Enter the Ninja, we would not have the ninja elements that have been used in everything from G.I. Joe to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, video games and a million Godfrey Ho movies.

You can’t imagine the literal madness when the idea that Sho would be on TV every single week became common knowledge.

From January 20 to August 31, 1984, NBC aired thirteen episodes of the adventures of John Peter McAllister (Lee Van Cleef). Let me just quote the narration at the beginning of each episode: “John Peter McAllister, the only Occidental American to achieve the martial arts discipline of a ninja. Once part of a secret sect he wanted to leave, but was marked for death by his fellow ninjas. He’s searching for a daughter he didn’t know he had; pursued by Okasa, once the Master’s student, now sworn to kill him. That Master found a new student. That’s me, Max Keller. But we knew Okasa would be behind us, in the shadows, ready to strike again.”

Max Keller may have been the unexciting Timothy Van Patten but the evil Okasa? That’s Sho Kosugi. Actually, Sho also was Van Cleef’s fight double, the series’ fight choreographer, ninja technical advisor and stunt coordinator.

While the show was cancelled in less than a year, seven movies were made out of the episodes.  In the U.S., they had the simple title of The Master Ninja, but in Europe they got rad names like Ninja – The Shadows Kill and The Ninja Man.

The first film is episodes one and two of the series. In the first, Peter meets Max and together they help the Trumbulls (Claude Atkins and Demi Moore) save their airport from the sheer evil that is Clu Gullagher. And if you wondered, does Gene LeBell show up, you have seen more than enough American kung fu movies. This was directed by Robert Clouse, who certainly understood how to shoot martial arts thanks to being the director of Enter the Dragon, Game of Death, Golden Needles, Battle Creek Brawl, Gymkata and Deadly Eyes (actually, that was has chihuahuas dressed as killer rats). It was written by series creator Michael Sloan, who also created The Equalizer and wrote for the reboot of Kung Fu in the 90s.

The second part, “Out-of-Time-Step” finds the Master and Max helping a dance club as he searches for his daughter. Lori Lethin (Bloody Birthday), Brian Tochi (Takashi from Revenge of the Nerds; more to the point of ninjitsu the voice of Leonardo the ninja turtle) and Swamp Thing Dick Durock all are on hand. This portion was from director Ray Austin, who directed the 80s returns of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the Six Million Dollar Man and written by Susan Woolen, who acted in both of those reboots.

Isn’t it strange that in order for western audiences to accept ninjas that we needed Italian western heroes to ease the transition, with Franco Nero battling Kosugi in Enter the Ninja and Lee Van Cleef here? Did no one want to see Jack Palance wear those cool ninja shoes?

So what if we invented an airplane that can fly itself?

Instantly, I see the worst case scenario here.

You know who didn’t? The genius who plans an investor flight and installs new software that lets some viruses in so that the plane starts flying like a maniac.

So the military says, “Let’s shoot it down.”

And the inventor says, “My wife is on that plane.”

Hijinks ensue.

At least this time Fred Olen Ray has a cast with Casper Van Dien, Nicole Eggert, Brad Douriff and Patrick Muldoon, all of whom are in here for name value and occasionally hang back and allow the other cast members to shine.

The strange thing is that the computer malfunctions yet is not evil nor is it out to really kill anyone. So the conflict that you expect in these movies isn’t here. There is a scene where Casper flies in some stealth stock footage and appears inside the refuelling part of the plane, ready to save every one of us.

Anyways, you can kind of consider this a Starship Troopers mini-reunion with Casper and Muldoon in the cast. Unlike the convention that would have them, you don’t need to pay $110 for a photo op.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Jennifer Clarke (Jamie Luner, All My Children, Melrose Place) already thinks that she’s finished her Lifetime movie, one in which she went overboard after being gaslit for decades by her horrible husband Richard (Jason-Shane Scott) and turned her life around, becoming an in-demand corporate exec while he’s married to a woman the same age as their daughter Katey (Audrey Whitby) and dealing with diapers. Yet she made the biggest mistake anyone in a movie can make. She grabbed the wrong suitcase, which brings the maniac named Conner (Steven Brand) into her life.

Also called An Accidental Switch and Killer Switch, this movie works because Steven Brand actually feels menacing and gets off some really sinister dialogue that makes this veer toward the weirdness that this needs more of. I realize it’s a Lifetime movie, but that doesn’t mean that a little bit of sleaze can’t come on down.

Next time you’re in the airport and they ask if you’ve had your bag the whole time, make sure you did. You don’t want a killing machine stealing your child and killing your ex-husband who you hate — maybe you might — and making you confess over the phone that you’re a bad girl. Actually, maybe you do want all of that. So you know, set that bag down and see what kind of adventure creeps into your life.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Known as Killer Close-Up in the UK, Witness Unprotected, this Fred Olen Ray film is all about Sam (Daphne Zuniga), a divorced freelance photographer who is doing dangerous detective work to put her daughter Laurie (Gianna DiDonato) through college.

Now, however, the person she’s staking out gets killed and Sam looks like she’s the killer. Arrested by the police and locked up, it turns out that this case has so many more twists and turns than it first appeared.

Most of the reviews for this on IMDB are 1/10 and one of the two positive ones spoiled the main villain in its one-sentence review. That’s what you get for doing research on a movie before you watch it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

That Tubi exclusive box is like some kind of drug and here I am at 5 AM when the world sleeps soundly and I’m watching a Lifetime-style movie in which former Beverly Hills 90210 star Jennie Garth plays Joan Miller, a mom whose daughter Lily (Devin Cecchetto)  is acting up and then that acting up goes too far, far enough to be in one of these movies.

That acting up brings her into the orbit of Violet Lawrence (Kayleigh Shikanai) who lives with maybe her mom but probably not, has a bad girl rep and who also is way into this not NXVIM thought process called Zenith that’s definitely all about screwing over anyone that gets in your way.

This is the first film for director William Corcoran, who worked in visual effects for the movie Hot Pursuit and the series Fargo and Cleverman. It’s not the first time around for writer Adam Rockoff, who was the screenwriter for the 2010 I Spit On Your Grave, as well as movies like The Sinister Surrogate and multiple The Wrong… movies — Friend, Boy Next Door, Cheerleader, Tutor, House Sitter, Wedding Planner, Stepfather, Cheerleader Coach, Real Estate Agent, Fiancé, Prince Charmiong, Cheer Captain — which are pretty much made for cable giallo when you think about it. He also wrote the book Going To Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 1978-1986. He often uses the name Stuart Morse, which is a reference to The Redeemer: Son of Satan and proof that I want to be his friend.

This movie also has a threeway scene that’s made for basic cable where no one gets nude and everyone wakes up with their clothes on, interrupted with Garth continually calling her daughter. Wild stuff happens — teachers get screwed over, kids drink too much, people get branded like they’re playing volleyball with Keith Raniere with a creme brulee mini-torch, cops show up and shoot people in the back with no due process (well…) and you know, if you think your teenage daughter is dealing with a new town and the loss of her dad bad, you know, she totally is. She’s living up a pinky violence movie made for Tubi. This is torn from the headlines, people.

You can watch this on Tubi. I mean obviously. It’s a Tubi exclusive. Where else would you watch it? You know, Netflix is laying people off and demanding you stop giving your password out and Tubi is like, “You want to run five screens on your account? Do it. We have Jess Franco movies and lots of softcore porn in addition to all the stuff that we show in our ads and try and look classy” and I think they’re the evil mom Harper in this movie — but in the best of ways, I love you Tubi — giving you top shelf booze and letting you drink it in your house.