"The Rookies" Nightmare (TV Episode 1975) Poster

(TV Series)

(1975)

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6/10
The asylum escapee isn't the only one who's insane
pkfloydmh25 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
This one is about a demented lunatic who escapes from an asylum and rescues Jill from a car accident while pretending to be a doctor and takes her to a house belonging to a real doctor.

This is a horror-themed and tension-filled episode that focuses mostly on Jill and Milland, her crackpot captor, who is truly frightening and disturbed and is well-played by Edward Albert. Milland rescues Jill from a car accident and takes her to a doctor's house to recover, and while there she comes to the realization that Milland isn't who he says he is.

The problem is Jill's actions are so dumb it's beyond comprehension. Once she realized the nutjob is not a doctor and knew he was in the basement, she could have easily escaped at any time by simply walking out the front door and the guy would have never known, but instead she did the absolutely stupidest and worst thing she could have possibly done and went down into the basement to see what he was doing. Are you kidding me?? This is just maddening, and it's hard to believe anybody could be that stupid, especially Jill, who's a nurse! She's as insane as her captor.

There are some other problems too. There's no way Jill could have been injured in the accident since she was going so slowly, and how did she fail to notice the doctor's hand on the floor when she was walking around in the basement? She walked right by it!! There's no way she could have missed it. Then when she's running in the woods towards the end, she runs straight into a tree even though she could clearly see it well ahead of time. Just about everything Jill does in this episode defies logic.

The action scenes consist of Jill's two escape attempts and then a brief shootout in the final scene.

So a mixed review on this one. Edward Albert's performance as the deranged psycho is excellent, but Jill's actions are boneheaded throughout. The performances from the rest of the cast are fine, and as mentioned, there are a few action scenes, all of which adds up to a slightly better than average episode but certainly not great.

So this concludes season three and it ends on an average note, which is certainly much better than if it had ended with the horrendous Cliffy episode, which would have been a horrific way to close out the season. Overall, there were twelve episodes that were excellent, three that were good, two that were poor, and five that were dreadful, so it was a solid season and a big improvement over the first two seasons. And now on to season four.
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10/10
A Real Life Nightmare
amylovestv10 December 2021
I have to say this episode lives up to its title. It really felt like a few bad nightmares I've had in the past. I've seen many of Edward Albert's roles where he played bad guys, but this is the first time he ever really scared me. Very well-played, as a fellow reviewer stated. It's been a while since I've seen the episode, but I also remember being bewildered at Jill (Kate Jackson) who seemed to make one bad choice after the other. Guess they wouldn't have had an episode then, if she'd been smart.

Very intense and a truly enjoyable episode. Of course, I wouldn't expect any less from Mr. Albert.
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