Category: Season 1

Season 1 Episode 13: The Love Song of M. Aaron Seaver

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This episode kicks off with the Seavers prepping Carol for what sounds like quite the cutthroat family bowling competition with the Seavers’ nemeses, the Koosmans. It’s perfectly clear within the first couple of minutes that a) the Seavers take their bowling very seriously b) for reasons unknown, they really hate the Koosmans and c) Mike is the only member of the family who can actually bowl.

Bear with me here because we’re about to do a major pivot from the bowling storyline to one about poetry. Somehow, from bowling practice, Mike segues into asking Carol for a neo-symbolist poem.  Naturally, the entire family wants to know why on earth Mike would want a neo-symbolist poem, and this question prompts a classic 80s sitcom moment—a flashback sequence!

Mike takes us back in time to his English class, into which walks the girl of his dreams. She is Juliet. And she is sophisticated, which we can deduce from her hair style and fashion choices alone. She speaks multiple languages. She has lived all around the world. And apparently she is super into neo-symbolist poetry. Mike is smitten. The only problem is: Mike has nothing in common with her, most notably her passion for poetry. But he sees a way around this, which is to lie to Juliet about own love for lyrical verse…and then to promptly cover his tracks by trying to buy a poem off his sister. Clearly, this is not the foundation for any type of healthy relationship.

The entire family can tell that this is going to blow up in Mike’s face. Jason gently urges Mike to consider that eventually he will have to be himself around Juliet, but Mike is not listening. Mike’s take on relationships is that you have to lure in the ladies with lies and, once you have them firmly ensnared in your love nest, only then can you unleash your true self. Maggie and Jason seem fine to let Mike play this out as a valuable learning lesson, which seems inconsistent with their usual parenting approach, but then again if they didn’t let Mike go through with this plan there would be no episode.

Flash forward to the next day in class, and Mike is volunteering to recite a poem to his entire class. I have to assume that this would be quite a departure from his usual classroom behaviour and yet no one seems phased by it. Maybe I don’t get neo-symbolist poetry, quite likely since I actually don’t know what it is, but I have a hard time imagining anyone being impressed by this poem. Judging by the rest of Mike’s classmate’s faces, they agree with me. But not Juliet. Juliet is deep so she gets this poem in a big way and she is loving it…and Mike. She thinks his poem is “incredible” and is so relieved that Mike isn’t just some “suburban dolt”. This is the point at which we get some real insights into Juliet’s true character, which is less sophisticated than downright snobby and ultra judgmental. My take is that Mike should steer clear of this lady, but he’s got to get there on his own.

Somehow the next step in Mike and Juliet’s burgeoning relationship involves inviting her over to meet the entire family. This seems like a rapid escalation, but it appears that Mike has talked up his family so greatly that perhaps Juliet just wants to meet them all. I can’t blame her because I’d also want to meet the family that included a Pulitzer prize winner and 27-time novelist (Maggie), a painter (Jason) and a wunderkind (Ben).  He’s woven quite the tale of a cultured and accomplished family, which the Seavers legitimately are even without all the lies, just not quite enough for the snobby likes of Juliet.

At first, Maggie and Jason are downright opposed to going along with Mike’s lies, but when Juliet shows up and proceeds to shower them with compliments, they change their tune. What I learn from this ‘date’ is that Juliet is a talker (like she never stops) and also takes many liberties with Mike’s names, calling him everything from Mikhail to Mishka, and I have to wonder if even a 15 year old boy wouldn’t tire of this pretty quickly. There’s other beautiful girls out there, Mike, ones that won’t call you Mishka.  Anyway, it’s not long before Juliet really puts her foot in her mouth by claiming all suburbanites are braindead and I really think this has to be the point at which Maggie and Jason say enough is enough and call her out. But they don’t! They just let it slide! This is not the Maggie and Jason that I know and love.

But it turns out that they’re really setting Mike up to be punished in a better way than being embarrassed by his parents. You see, Juliet’s invited him to a performance art showing and Maggie and Jason know that simply attending this event will be punishment enough for Mike, but it’s likely to have the added bonus of forcing his lies to bubble to the surface. The only catch is that performance art night actually falls on the same night as the Seaver/Koosman family bowl-off. And, though the entire family tries to hint at this really, really hard without letting Juliet in on the fact they dare do something as uncultured as bowl, Mike still picks the girl over his family.

Just when you think Jason and Maggie will do a hard sell on the “you made a commitment and you don’t back out on commitments” line, they let us down. Sure, they say it, but they don’t enforce it at all. Jason, of course, is far too liberal to force his kids to do anything. He wants Mike to learn the hard way just how important it is to be yourself. And that he does.

The art exhibit is the beginning of the end for Mike and Juliet, because Mike is not at all getting any of the art at this show whereas Juliet is finding all sorts of deep meaning in everything. The real kicker is the actual performance art piece, which totally perplexes Mike (because it makes no sense whatsoever) but which Juliet and her friends find to be the most brilliant commentary ever. Well, Juliet’s friends are no less snobby than Juliet and they back Mike into quite a corner until he finally snaps and admits that he is just a “suburban simpleton” who likes to bowl with his family. Juliet is aghast at this admission, as are her friends, and that’s pretty much the point at which they’re all done with Mike. Mike doesn’t seem super bummed at all by this, and I’m hoping it’s because he realizes that all Juliet’s posturing is likely a mask for her own deep feelings of inferiority and unhappiness. I’m probably giving Mike a bit more credit than is due.

The positive to this love story not working out is that Mike is able to make it to the family bowling night just in the nick of time to save the day. The Seavers are able to kick the Koosman’s asses, Mike has learned a very valuable lesson about being yourself, and Maggie and Jason didn’t have to lecture him at all to get him there. Now that’s a tidy ending.  


At the end of this episode, I’m left wondering:

  • Who practices bowling on their living room floor with real bowling balls? That can’t be good for the floors.
  • Mike pays Carol $5 for a poem. Is it just me, or is Carol majorly undercharging?
  • Really, what is a neo-symbolist poem? Actually, the real question is what kind of high school student knows what a neo-symbolist poem is?
  • Why is Mike having a date with Juliet and his entire family…in his living room?

Season 1 Episode 12: A Christmas Story

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At first I was super excited because it’s Christmas in the Seaver household, and this coincides with my own Christmas season kickoff. I’m a Christmas fanatic, and the very moment we pay our respects to our veterans, I’m ready to deck the halls so this episode seemed quite perfectly timed to kickstart my holiday spirit. Except that this is not your usual holly-jolly Christmas episode. No, Growing Pains is taking us into the realm of the serious. I want to complain that it’s killing my seasonal buzz, and yet I will not because one cannot joke about suicide awareness and that’s precisely what this episode is about. Get ready, this one’s about to get serious.

We start off innocently enough, with Mike up to his usual antics. He’s taken the three wise men from the nativity scene and placed them in quite the precarious position—smack dab in the middle of the toy train tracks, with a speeding train racing towards them. That Mike, such an unwittingly sacrilegious little imp.  But Jason’s got a handle on it, unplugging the train just in the knick of time and saving the Seavers from what I’m sure is some form of cardinal sin.

But this is about the last moment of typical Seaver fare, because things are about to take a dark turn. One of Jason’s patients shows up at the house dressed as Santa. He’s volunteered to play Santa for some orphans and he’s seriously freaking out about whether these kids are going to hate him. He’s clearly well beyond normal levels of insecurity. Though, to be fair, he did fill Santa’s sack with ground meat and Tupperware, so there’s a good chance the kids aren’t going to be his biggest fans.  Still, Jason manages to calm his patient down, reassure him that he’s likeable, and send him on his merry (pun intended) way. 

For a moment, the crisis is averted and it’s back to Christmas cheer. You see, everyone in the Seaver household gets a very special Christmas Eve gift, and Ben has very astutely observed that his gift is not under the tree. Maggie and Jason have to head out to pick it up and it’s clear that Carol and Mike are in on the secret and super pumped about this gift, so now I’m intensely curious, and much like with poor Ben, the suspense is killing me. Alas, we all have to wait to find out.

Just after Maggie and Jason leave, Jason’s patient returns to the house. He now seems even more out of sorts, and becomes even more agitated when Mike tells him Jason isn’t there.  What happens next is a bit shocking for 80s sitcom fare: while Ben is messing around under the Christmas tree, he hears some noise up the chimney and, for a brief moment, thinks it’s Santa Clause. But of course it’s not Santa, it’s Jason’s patient, and he’s threatening to kill himself by jumping down the chimney.

Whoa. No kid should have to deal with this on any day, let alone on Christmas Eve.  It seems Jason has done a fine job creating incredibly unflappable and well-adjusted kids, because none of them freak out even a little bit. In fact, they’re quite industrious…and incredibly empathetic. Carol pulls out a psychiatric textbook, and Ben and Mike employ a combination of charm and humour.  I gotta say, there’s no way I would be that calm under the circumstances.

Thankfully, Maggie and Jason arrive back home in short order and Jason takes over trying to talk his patient off the roof.  He works a whole bunch of psychiatric skill to keep his patient from acting too rashly, but in the end it’s Ben who saves the day. This is the great thing about little kids; they act from such a place of genuine curiosity that they can get away with asking questions like “are you still going to kill yourself?”. Anyway, Ben proceeds to ask the guy all sorts of questions and gets him talking about his old dog and how his dog was the only thing that ever truly loved him….

[very important sidenote: I have to awkwardly interject with a plotline detail that I can’t see any other way to update you on. You see, while Ben’s been talking to Jason’s patient, his Christmas Eve gift has ‘escaped’ from its gift wrapped box, and it’s a puppy (!!!)]

…Well, hearing how much Jason’s patient loved his dog, and what a difference the dog made in his life, Ben immediately seizes an opportunity. He offers to give Jason’s patient his brand new puppy if he agrees to come down from the roof. This is quite possibly the most selfless thing a young child can do, and that meaning is not lost on Jason’s patient. Ben’s ploy works. 

With that, Jason’s patient is literally and figuratively back on solid ground, and the Seaver family Christmas is back on track. Jason seems a little too unconcerned with his patient’s long term well-being, but then again this is a half hour sitcom so I’m not sure what I’m expecting. Also, somehow Ben STILL GETS A PUPPY. I have no idea where this second puppy came from in this episode, but I also know that this puppy never appears again beyond this episode, so perhaps it was just a figment of my imagination.


At the end of this episode, I’m left wondering:  

  • Who actually wraps a puppy in a BOX?
  • Seriously, where did the second puppy come from?
  • Should Carol feel offended that for the very special Christmas eve present, Ben gets a puppy, Mike gets a shaving kit passed down from generation to generation, and she only gets a nightgown?

A sincere ending note: Look, I know that few of us watch sitcoms for the ‘very special episodes’, nor do you want to read a post that takes itself too seriously, but I cannot just lightly tackle a recap of anything involving suicide. While this episode didn’t dive deeply into the topic, I commend Growing Pains for attempting to address the fact that the holidays can be a deeply lonely and unhappy time for many people. I forget this myself sometimes amidst all my holiday excitement. It’s sometimes hard to remember that everyone’s experience of the holidays (or any time of year for that matter) is different. So if you are fortunate enough to spend the holiday with loved ones, I encourage you to take a moment to be grateful for that experience. And if you feel more alone, sad or depressed around the holidays, know that you are not alone in that experience either, and I hope that you find a listening ear with whom you can share that experience.       

Season 1 Episode 11: Standardized Test

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We kick off this episode with a rare display of sibling bonding between Mike and Carol. Normally they fight like cats and dogs, but today they are playing Trivial Pursuit and lip syncing to “Midnight Train in Georgia” and it’s all very unusual. But we’ll see later that this is setting the stage for some important sibling conversations.  For now, the fun is about to grind to a halt because the report cards have arrived in the mail. 

To clarify, for Carol this doesn’t impact the fun at all because she’s positively giddy over her straight As. Mike, on the other hand, is staring at a mixed bag of Cs and Ds with one little B thrown in the mix, which is just enough to prove to his parents that he’s capable of more. Well, Mike needs to get out of dodge fast to avoid the inevitable and disparaging comparisons between his and Carol’s grades. He’s out the door in 2.2 seconds. 

When Mike returns from his cooling off period, we get to experience one of my favourite Growing Pains dialogue tools yet again: the deep-philosophical-questions-masquerading-as-humour tactic. It goes a little something like this: Maggie and Jason ask Mike where he’s been and Mike claims he’s been out looking for Duke, who you might remember as the dog who went missing in episode 5.  Jason is quick to point out that not only did Duke go missing 6 months ago, but he also wasn’t their dog.  Mike is quick to reply with this gem: “What do we mean by ‘our dog’? I mean, can one person ever really own another thing?” Kudos, Mike. Except that you’ve just proven that anyone who can whip out that line of thinking at the drop of a hat should not be getting Cs and Ds.

Maggie and Jason couldn’t agree more, and they are quick to let Mike know that they are not upset with his grades inasmuch as the fact that he’s not living up to his potential. This is about as classic a line as you’ll ever get from any parents, and I feel for Mike because few things are worse for a kid than believing his parents are disappointed in him. They try to dig into what’s at the heart of Mike’s low grades but Mike is highly adept at deflection and wants nothing to do with this whole conversation.

Instead, Mike projects all of his insecurities against Carol. He and Carol end up in a debate about who’s smarter, which from a grades perspective is pretty clear but we all know that grades aren’t necessarily a sign of intelligence. Mike is quick to declare that he could just as easily get straight As if he weren’t so busy, you know, having friends and a social life. That one stings a little, but then Carol goes and throws down the gauntlet by reminding Mike that Monday is the big standardized aptitude test and it’s going to show once and for all that she’s the smartest. Way to go, Carol. You really took the wind out of Mike’s sails. 

Sidenote: It’s taking everything in my power not to drag myself into a raging tangent on the complete uselessness of aptitude testing right now. Suffice it to say, I feel for Mike at this point because I believe these tests are total shams.  

Well, Monday rolls around and Mike’s friend Richie, who is the same Richie we saw smitten with Carol in Episode 9, goes on at length about just how dumb they’re both going to look because they both have siblings who are practically genius status. And Mike, apparently not wanting to lose any more face, picks this moment to decide he’s going to completely botch his test. Instead of answering the actual questions, he’s just going to draw pretty pictures in the dots and call it a day.

Nowadays, I feel like this would be seen as a reasonable sign of protest against antiquated practices, but back in the 80s this was totally unacceptable.  The school is quick to call Maggie and Jason in because Mike’s tactics scored him a paltry 27 on a test where 100 is considered average.  Thankfully the principal noticed that Mike’s test paper looked more like a sketch pad than a typical scoring sheet, so they know that Mike’s not an actual “idiot” but he has really disrespected the sanctity of this aptitude test. .

Now it’s time for Mike to face the music (aka his parents), who want to know why he would do such a thing. It seems like Jason should be able to read between the lines here and see Mike’s insecurities and sibling jealousy at play, but maybe he just wants Mike to reflect on this and articulate it for himself. But he’s not going to get that, because Mike shuts down the conversation completely.

But don’t worry, because this is where Carol and Mike’s earlier sibling bonding sets Carol up to save the day. She swoops in to cheer up Mike. First, she owns up to her own insecurities, and the fact that she teases Mike about his intelligence because she’s jealous of his coolness.  She then sets out to prove how many “stupid facts” Mike actually knows to try to show him he’s smart too. I have to say I don’t love this as a strategy because, in reality, Mike is no different than most of us. He simply learns and retains what’s of interest to him.  And I think we all know that the education system most definitely didn’t cater to different learning styles in the 80s (and, really, still doesn’t). But again, I’ll spare you a lengthy tangent on this and get back to the episode.

Carol’s made things right, and now Mike can see he’s smart in his way. Not only that but, now that he’s unburdened by his feelings of inferiority, he’s ready to take the aptitude test all over again, and this time properly. And thank god, because how else will they all know if he’s really smart or not?

At the end of this episode, I’m left wondering:  

  • Where do report cards get mailed to students? Mine were handed to me at school. Is this an American thing?  
  • Do kids still get subjected to ridiculous standardized testing in schools? How has no one figured out these things are a sham?
  • In episode 9 it seemed that Richie was one of Carol’s brainy friends but here he’s presented as “dumb” like Mike. Has no one else noticed this plot inconsistency?
  • How quickly do these tests get scored? Mike and Carol get their results back same day, which seems unlikely even if the school had a whole fleet of Scantron scanning machines.  
  • Don’t you think that even with totally random answers, Mike probably would’ve scored higher than 27?
  • What was Carol’s score on the aptitude test? Even though I think aptitude tests are a sham, ultimately I was dying to know how the show’s writers categorized her intelligence in relation to Mike’s.

Season 1 Episode 10: Dirt Bike

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We’re starting to get into episodes that I remember surprisingly well for not having watched this show in years. Although, to be fair, detailed recall of television storylines and dialogue is one of my greatest talents.

In this episode we’re back to a Mike-centric storyline. Within minutes, Mike is really working some sort of angle by pretending to be into ornithology, which we know can only be to manipulate his parents because no 15 year-old boy is that into birds. It’s quickly revealed that Mike is trying to sell his parents on a boys camping weekend, which wouldn’t be that big a deal if he hadn’t mentioned that it would involve dirt biking. In the Seaver household, it appears that dirt biking is tantamount to the world’s most dangerous activity. Okay, let’s call a spade a spade: in Maggie’s mind, dirt biking is the world’s most dangerous activity.

Jason, ever the voice of reason, encourages Maggie to be a little less extreme in her views on dirt biking, but what we’ve learned about Maggie in these early episodes is that she is not one to moderate her extreme reactions to anything. The best Mike can get from his parents under these circumstances is a compromise: he can go camping, but he can’t go dirt biking.  Who else can already tell that Mike is 100% going to crumble in the face of dirt biking temptation and peer pressure? Apparently not Maggie and Jason. Their unwavering trust in Mike, despite his track record, is such a beautiful testament to the absolute power of parental love.  

It’s off to the woods for Mike where I’m excited to add that Boner makes another appearance, but sadly not Eddie. Sidenote: Eddie doesn’t strike me as much of a camper, so this omission makes perfect sense to me. The great outdoors adventure is off to a hot start with the boys taking turns on the one dirt bike they’ve brought with them. Mike starts off admirably holding up his end of the bargain by doing everything in his power to avoid dirt biking. That is, until his friends really start in on the mama’s boy talk, against which Mike’s will power is no match, so he sets off on the dirt bike to prove them wrong.

Which he doesn’t.

Instead, he ‘dazzles’ his friends by hanging from the tailpipe before eventually falling off the dirt bike completely. Mike tries to act like all of this was on purpose, but his friends aren’t so sure when they see that Mike’s run his backside across the meat grinder that is nature. In other words, he’s got some seriously bad abrasions on his ass. Growing Pains consistently surprises me with examples of young people showing genuine responsibility and this moment is no exception. Mike’s friends immediately have the good sense to know that his injury is not one to be ignored. Mike is in need of medical attention and, with that, the camping/dirt biking weekend is officially over. 

Mike also knows he needs to go to the doctor, but he also desperately hopes it’s not his regular doctor because he really, really wants to keep this whole injury from his parents. He thinks he has good chances because his doctor usually doesn’t work on weekends. But wouldn’t you know it, Mike’s regular doctor is working this weekend. Uh oh. Still, Mike holds onto hope that he can keep this from his parents.  This scene at the doctor’s office also provides my favourite moment of the entire episode.  Mike’s doctor makes such an obvious wise crack (pun intended) that I couldn’t help but LOL: taking one glance at Mike’s butt injury, the doctor exclaims ‘Mike, this looks really bad! It’s broken in half!’. I mean, come on, a good ass joke never goes out of style.

My second favourite moment of the episode happens when Mike comes home early from the camping trip and Maggie asks ‘what are you doing here?’ to which Mike replies “what are any of us doing here?”. I do love when a deep, philosophical question is used for light hearted humour. Is that just me? Okay, moving along.  

Jason is quick to show Mike what he’s been up to while Mike was away, which was renting a dirt bike so Mike can learn properly. It’s a little late for that, Jason, but of course he doesn’t know that yet.  Well, this makes things awkward for Mike because his ass is still in a world of pain so sitting on a dirt bike, let alone riding it, is really just about the last thing for which he can feign enthusiasm. Jason is a bit perplexed as to why Mike isn’t more enthused about dirt biking with dad, but a phone call from Mike’s doctor really helps to clarify the matter.  Not only does Mike have to admit that he lied to his parents, but also that they are always right. It’s a tough lesson most of us learn about our parents at some point: they are usually right.  

Maggie and Jason are surprisingly understanding, although Mike is, of course, grounded. But really, being grounded isn’t that big a deal when your ass is in excruciating pain. What was Mike really going to do instead?

Before concluding this episode recap, I feel it’s only fair to acknowledge that there was a Ben and Carol storyline, but that it was so terribly dull and minor that I have chosen to disregard it, as is my right as this blog’s owner. If you’re a die-hard Carol and Ben storyline fanatic, you can watch the episode yourself, but I’m sure you’ll ultimately agree that I made the right call here.

At the end of this episode, I’m left wondering:  

  • Is it consistent with the Seavers’ parenting philosophy to tell their kid he can’t dirt bike because it’s not safe, but then to rent a dirt bike for him?
  • Would three dudes really go dirt biking in the woods with only one dirt bike?
  • Where can I find a doctor who employs really good puns? I have not seen a doctor who showed any signs of humour since I was 11 (aside from my physiotherapists, who I believe are a completely different category of medical professional).

Season 1 Episode 9: Carol’s Crush

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Brace yourself for another Carol storyline! This time around, Jeff’s in town for law school interviews, and he’s staying with the Seavers. Who’s Jeff? Jeff is the son of old family friends, and the Seavers haven’t seen him in years, so they’re all pretty excited. And then when he shows up, well, there are some fireworks for Carol. It’s a puppy-love-at-first-sight moment, wherein she opens the door for Jeff and he opens the door to her heart.

Carol’s crush is obvious to Maggie and Jason, and they think it’s simply adorable. Neither seems to appreciate the tenderness of a young girl’s heart and, thus, the ripe opportunity for some serious heartbreak by episode’s end. The Seavers spend the evening playing trivial pursuit, and Carol is thrilled when Jeff selects her as his partner, interpreting it as a sign of his growing love for her. Oh, Carol. Can’t you see it’s only because you know the answers to everything? It’s too late. Carol is smitten.

The next day, the whole family is getting ready to go to Ben’s football game. That is, everyone except for Carol, who has an airtight excuse for staying home which is to “watch her banana bread cool”. For a smart girl, I expect better white lies.  Carol’s real plan is to stay back hoping for some quality one-on-one time with Jeff.  This works out beyond perfectly when Jeff’s friend calls to bail on going to a Gershwin review in Manhattan, and Jeff invites Carol to go with him instead. Carol cannot see that Jeff is simply being polite. The puppy-love plot thickens.

Carol gets herself ready for a night on the town, channelling her finest lady of the 80s look (i.e. thick belt and shoulder pads).  It’s a bold look for Carol and, finally, Maggie and Jason start to see potential for heartbreak because Carol is clearly in date mode and Jeff is clearly not and maybe they shouldn’t have been so “look-how-cute-Carol’s-crush is” about this situation. Still, neither parent intervenes nor attempts to moderate Carol’s expectations for the evening, and so she and Jeff are left to their own devices.

At first, it seems the evening is off to a fantastic start. The Gershwin review was just as thrilling as anticipated, and Carol is in heaven because now they are having a fancy dinner together. This is all working out perfectly.

Until Leslie walks in. Ugh. Leslie.

Who’s Leslie, you might ask? Well, we know very little of Leslie, except that she is clearly Jeff’s age, which is already several legs up on Carol, and she also has obviously been romantically involved with Jeff in the past and whatever flame existed is not yet dead. We also know that Leslie is a little bit condescending because she talks to Carol like she’s a five year old.  But the real soul-crushing moment occurs when Jeff introduces Carol as the sister he’s never had. Whomp. Jeff, come on. Carol is crestfallen and she certainly doesn’t hide it, which really puts a damper on the rest of the evening.  The only positive outcome here is that Jeff finally realizes that Carol has a crush on him.

The next day, Carol tries to do some damage control by showing Jeff she don’t need him…or perhaps she is merely trying to make Jeff jealous. Regardless of motive, she drags her poor friend Richie into the mix, parading him around the living room as the one and only boy in her life. If Carol’s plan is, in fact, to spark jealousy in Jeff, the problem with this plan is threefold:

  1. Richie is not someone who’s likely to incite jealousy in anyone.
  2. Jeff is 23 and Carol is 14 so no matter how jealous Jeff might actually get, any romantic relationship between the two of them would actually be illegal in the state of New York.
  3. Poor Richie actually loves Carol so this plan is simultaneously his dream and nightmare, and poor Carol is exploiting this love intentionally which just strikes me as a million times worse than Jeff’s completely unintentional exploitation of Carol’s crush on him.

Maggie and Jason can see that things have really gone off the rails so they try to smooth out all the hard feelings before Jeff leaves town.  They (finally) remind Carol that Jeff is considerably older and that they’re just not the right age for each other. Then they really work the empathy/’we’ve-all-been-there’ angle hard, sharing their own experiences of making fools of themselves in the name of love.  This boosts Carol’s mood enough that she wants to make things right with Jeff, which really does prove Carol is the most mature 14 year-old ever because I would have been far too mortified by my behaviour to ever have looked Jeff in the face again.

Enough about me, Carol and Jeff have a nice heart to heart on the front porch and leave on good terms, but not before they have an awkward exchange in which Jeff says if they were both fourteen he’d be a lovesick puppy, and then Carol says “imagine the fun we’d have if we were both 23.” Is that…appropriate?

At the end of today’s episode, I’m left wondering:

  • Would two 23-year old dudes reuniting in New York really go see a Gershwin review together as their big night out on the town?  
  • Jeff was in town for two nights and brought one large suitcase, a smaller carry on and a tennis racket. Does this seem excessive to anyone else?
  • Do people really climb in/out of second story windows in real life as much as they do in TV? This extends beyond this episode, where Carol makes Richie exit the Seaver house out her window, to a plethora of other television shows in which bedroom windows are used to enter/exit a house. Is this a case of art imitating life or television writers inventing a creative plot device?

Season 1 Episode 8: Slice of Life

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 11 Comment

This episode is what I like to call a little bit of a hot mess. In trying to give everyone a storyline, none of the stories fit together in any meaningful way. The Seavers didn’t feel like a family in this episode, as much as a collection of people doing their own thing but in the same general vicinity. Perhaps this is what the episode’s title (‘slice of life’) is meant to capture. Maybe this whole episode is meant to be a commentary on the fact a slice of life is increasingly becoming disconnected, a caution against the separateness that is infringing on the American family? Then again, perhaps I’m reaching for thematic depth that doesn’t exist in 80s sitcoms and this episode really is just a bit of a dog’s breakfast in the plot department.

Let’s get to it. I’m organizing this episode review by characters because none of the storylines were connected anyway.

Ben and Carol

Ben is hell-bent on getting into the world record book due to some sort of existential crisis that has him concerned with establishing his immortality. That kid sure vacillates between acting his age and showing a depth of thinking that terrifies me as an adult. At any rate, Carol is fascinated by his desire for immortality and so she’s fiercely committed to helping him find obscure ways to break world records, all of which I find extremely annoying but none of which work. However, Ben and Carol’s efforts aren’t entirely for naught because trying all these different things in one day was enough to break the world record for most attempts to break world records in a day. Also, I did not enjoy this storyline.

Mike

Mike is hell bent on taking karate lessons, which he does not currently take but for which he seems to already own a uniform (which I just learned from Google is called a karategi. Look how Growing Pains is helping me learn!). Jason and Maggie are pretty quick to recognize Mike has zero desire for the spiritual and disciplinary aspects of karate, and 100 percent desire for a girl in the class.

In typical Mike fashion, he’s taken the liberty of assuming his parents will say agree to pay for classes, so he’s already made plans to walk to karate class with the girl with whom he’s so smitten. But when she shows up at the door to meet him, Mike’s afraid it will undo all his (ineffective) efforts to convince his parents he’s truly into karate for the love of the practice. So he tosses the girl in the closet and proceeds to ramble on to his dad about how of course he’s not really into karate just for the girl because she’s really just an “elephant woman” and other similarly offensive labels. Well, karate class girl is not taking any of that, plus she’s been actually taking karate classes, so she busts out of the closet and proceeds to karate chop Mike’s ass. Mike definitely had this coming, and thankfully this ass-kicking is the end of this storyline.

Maggie and Jason

This is the real storyline of the episode, if you ask me, because it deals with legitimate questions of how we view honesty in relationships.  You see, Jason is experimenting with a compatibility test that he might use with clients in his practice and Maggie is super keen for the two of them to take it. I don’t know about you, but this seems fraught with disaster.  

Soon, the test results are in and Jason and Maggie are, in fact, compatible! But just when you think they’ve dodged a relationship landmine, they start digging into where they disagreed on different questions. Well, this is where things get interesting because Jason has answered that he might keep things from his spouse, and Maggie is not at all even remotely cool with this. She is pro “total honesty” and cannot believe that Jason isn’t.

 This kicks off one of those conversations that you know isn’t a good idea in a relationship, the kind where each person starts to share examples of things they’ve kept from the other person but only to protect that person from being hurt. Well, Jason shares that he ran into an ex recently and Maggie proves exactly why Jason might want to keep things from her because she completely overreacts to what sounded like a total chance meeting in a public space that lasted for minutes. Yikes.

Jason then has to work his psychiatry magic to rectify this situation, which basically involves tricking Maggie into admitting that she, too, has kept things from Jason (which she has). So now we’ve established that neither of them really have been walking the “total honesty” road, and perhaps that road is best left un-travelled.  At the end of the day, they clearly know they love each other and only want to avoid unnecessarily hurting each other and, really, isn’t that all any of us want?  I love Maggie and Jason. Sigh.

At the end of this episode, I’m left wondering:

  • Is Ben’s vocabulary off the charts strong? He uses the word ‘indisposed’. How does a kid that young know what indisposed means?
  • Does a record actually exist for most attempt in a day to break a world record? Also, surely even in the 80s this would have required some form of independent verification?
  • Is Jason a math savant? One of Ben’s early world record attempts was to stay in the shower for 374 hours. Jason immediately calculates that would be two weeks. I mean, he didn’t even take a few seconds to come up with that. I am pretty good at mental math, but that was some seriously fast computing.
  • Why did I want Ben to get a storyline so badly? So far any storylines he’s had are not at all interesting to me, although I know that 40-year old women were certainly not the show’s primary demographic.

Season 1 Episode 7: Weekend Fantasy

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 12 Comments

In this episode, we quickly see that Jason and Maggie are overwhelmed. How will they ever get it all done? More importantly, when will they ever have time for just the two of them, minus the kids and work and cooking dinner, etc. etc?  The answer: a getaway weekend, just the two of them and STAT.  The only problem is, who’s going to take care of the kids on such short notice?

Jason suggests that Mike is up for the challenge and Maggie is a bit uncertain as to whether Mike can hold down the fort for a whole weekend without the entire house imploding.  To be honest, based on what I’ve seen so far, it’s a fair concern and raises a question I’ve asked before which is why poor Carol is constantly overlooked for positions requiring responsibility. I suspect it’s a combination of ageism and stereotypical gender roles, but I’m likely overthinking things.

No matter, Maggie finally acquiesces, but not before lining the kids up and quizzing them on safety protocol, including what to do if someone swallows poison, which seems unlikely at their ages. However, since I don’t have children, sometimes these moments are lost on me and since kids in recent years seem to be keen to snack on things like Tide pods, I suppose safety first is always the appropriate call. As it turns out, Maggie was probably on to something because within minutes of the safety quiz, a door to door salesman arrives at the house and Mike makes the grave mistake of telling him that his parents are just about to leave town for the weekend. Strike one, Mike.

Maggie and Jason still hit the road, though, but no sooner have Maggie and Jason settled into their ski lodge then Maggie decides maybe they should check in with the kids. Jason tries to talk her out of it but there’s no talking the Maggie freight train out of anything. Maggie’s panic only escalates when no one answers the phone. She even lets it ring fifty times just for good measure!

Now, a brief aside, because this is such a fascinating 80s phenomenon. Nowadays you would just text your kids and call it a day, but back then if no one answered the phone there was no other way to reach them. Can you imagine this world anymore? I grew up in that environment, and I still cannot truly remember what that was like.

Anyway, Maggie starts to imagine all the things that could be going wrong at home, like Ben building a tower with her finest china and crystal or Mike attempting to light a barbecue inside the house. In terms of worrying, Maggie’s fears seem on the mild end of the spectrum of possibilities. I’ve watched enough Dateline murder mysteries to know far worse can happen.

In a bit of a shocking role reversal, normally calm and reasonable Jason is the one to leap to the extreme end of the what-could-be-happening-with-our-children spectrum. He dreams up a storyline in which the door to door salesmen returns to the house to enact revenge on the family who wouldn’t even take the time to hear his sales pitch. In this nightmare fantasy sequence, the irate salesmen holds the kids at gunpoint and even blows the telephone to smithereens so that no one can call for help. Welp. That’s a dramatic storyline, Jason.

Now they’re both in a bit of a panic and Maggie is just about ready to head home. Hell bent on still enjoying some semblance of a romantic getaway, Jason suggests the easier route: calling their neighbour to go check on the kids. Just when you think this should resolve matters, the neighbour calls back to say the kids aren’t there. What could they possibly be doing out this late???? Now Maggie and Jason are really in a tizzy, but once again their worries are so mild. I mean, their worst nightmare seems to be that Mike has dragged his pajama-clad siblings to some sort of goth night club, which really doesn’t seem like a big deal at all.

Apparently this last ‘nightmarish’ possibility is enough to cause Jason and Maggie to call the Long Island Police to report that their kids have been missing for 7 minutes. Well, the Long Island local police must be the most responsive police force on the planet because they actually agree to go check on the kids, but it’s really no matter at this point because Jason and Maggie are done with their romantic getaway. Not only that, but they are going to FLY HOME (and leave their car behind in the process) because the five hour drive is just too much to contemplate when their kids could be at risk.

Of course, because Mike isn’t expecting his parents to come home that night, when he awakes to the sound of someone coming through the front door he freaks out and ushers his brother and sister out an upstairs window to escape the would-be robber/murderer. Well of course then Maggie and Jason find the house empty and really freak out. Chaos ensues because Mike has called the police, who discover his parents in the house and assume they are the intruders. What a mess! Thankfully, all is cleared up quickly and the cops thank the Seavers for keeping things fun, which proves that the Long Island police aren’t ultra responsive so much as extremely bored.

What a doozy of an episode. Maggie and Jason never got their romantic getaway, and they realized that they are more like their own parents than they want to admit, but the kids are safe and that’s all that matters.

At the end of this episode, I’m left wondering:

  • Seriously, why isn’t Carol the one trusted to be in charge when the parents are out?
  • Were the 80s that much more of an innocent time because Maggie and Jason seem incapable of imagining anything really bad happening to their kids? As a child of the 80s, I remember stranger danger and kidnapping being pretty big deals back then so I’m a bit surprised by their relatively innocent worries.
  • In the middle of the night, would it really be any faster to try to catch a last minute flight from rural Vermont to Long Island than to just drive the five hours? Air travel must’ve been a lot more efficient in the 80s.
  • Plus, how are Maggie and Jason going to get their car back from Vermont?
  • Why don’t the Seavers at least have an answering machine? I believe they were pretty mainstream by the mid- to late 80s, and it seems the entire plot of this episode could’ve been avoided if they had been able to leave the kids a message…(update: Google just confirmed answering machines became mainstream in 1984, so the Seavers really had no excuse here.)

Season 1 Episode 6: Mike’s Madonna Story

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 11 Comment

It’s another week which means another daily dose of Growing Pains.

Hang on tight because today’s episode deals with a doozy of a theme: teenage sexuality. Also in today’s episode, Carol and Ben are once again relegated to an entirely secondary storyline. Let’s get to it.

Carol is running an experiment on plants, testing whether talking lovingly to a plant will make it grow faster. Ben is seriously interfering with its scientific integrity by talking trash to Carol’s love plant. No sooner has he unleashed a torrent of negativity towards the plant than one of its leaves falls right off. Man, that kid is powerful! This causes him to freak out because he didn’t really think he’d hurt the plant, and he didn’t really want to ruin Carol’s experiment. He tries to reverse the damage, which for Ben means dumping what appears to be a two-gallon bottle of plant food on one tiny plant. Of course, this does kill the plant and ruin Carol’s experiment in the process. Oh, Ben.

In our more important storyline, Mike’s new friend, Lisa, is really turning the Seaver household upside down with her attitude, racy clothing and “major league yabbos” (i.e. her big breasts). Fun fact: Lisa is played by Dana Plato, who you might remember from another 80s classic sitcom, Diff’rent Strokes. At any rate, Lisa seems to think she is Madonna circa ‘I’m a virgin’, and no one seems to know what to think of her.

Actually, that’s not true. Maggie seems to know exactly what to think of her, which is that she’s a “tramp”. Those are Maggie’s words, not mine, and I can’t recall a time I’ve heard the word tramp used so frequently in a 2-minute time span on network television. Maggie is super reluctant about her and Jason’s plans to go out that evening. She does not want to leave Mike and Lisa alone in the house, even though they’re not really alone because they’re supposed to be baby-sitting Ben and Carol.

Jason is at least able to take a step back from Maggie’s excessive stereotyping, reminding her that just because she dresses a little racy doesn’t mean she’s bad to the bone and, you know, that neither of them actually know a darn thing about the poor girl.  Still, to be safe, before he and Maggie go out for the night, he gives Mike a good talking-to about taking it slow with girls. Jason’s confident that Mike’s values will carry him through the evening unsupervised. Maggie is still not at all convinced.

Well, it turns out that Maggie’s motherly intuition is in check because minutes into Mike and Lisa’s time alone not only are they most definitely not paying any attention to their babysitting duties, but they’ve also found their way to the guest bedroom. Lisa wastes no time in unbuttoning Mike’s shirt, and launching right into a conversation about–gasp!–sex! My goodness things escalated quickly!

Lisa is ready to go but Mike isn’t so sure. Like most boys his age, he’s already lied to Lisa about his experience and now he’s really in a pickle because, other than being a virgin, how else could he possibly explain his reluctance to take advantage of a perfectly willing lady? I mean, Lisa’s not going to buy some line about values or morals. But then the show goes to commercial and when it comes back, we’re left hanging. What did Mike do? Did he take advantage of Lisa’s forwardness, or did his values lead him to make the more mature choice? It’s a real nail-biter for a couple of minutes.

Don’t worry, because Maggie is now home and she wastes no time not-so-subtly trying to get Mike to dish the goods on his evening.  He finally caves to her incessant questioning and admits that nothing happened, and how that probably means he’s gay (once again, his words, not mine). Aside from the fact that only in the 80s would that type of dialogue fly, let’s focus on the underlying emotions that we can actually identify with: Mike clearly feels torn because he made what he thought was the right decision, but also feels like less of a man for not capitalizing on a sure thing. It’s not only very human of him, but also really a thoughtful reflection for a young man.

Thankfully, Maggie is able to help him see the virtues of his choice, and to reinforce the importance of waiting for the right person to lose your virginity to. All of this is done without any awkwardness on either person’s part, which seems highly unlikely to me, but kudos to the Seavers for consistently being able to tackle any difficult topic with aplomb.

At the end of this episode, I’m left wondering:

  • Did Carol and Ben really need a babysitter? Carol is 14 at this point, which is only one year younger than Mike, not to mention she’s clearly the more responsible one. Wouldn’t it make more sense to put her in charge of the whole damn household?
  • Is no one else wondering how two gallons of plant food would even fit in a plant pot that is maybe pint-size at best?
  • Would mother and son really have a heart to heart about losing their virginity that openly?
  • Even in the 80s, was it actually appropriate to refer to a woman’s breasts as ‘major league yabbos’ multiple times in one episode?

Season 1 Episode 5: Superdad

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 12 Comments

Whoa, within the first minute of this episode Jason already has his hands full. Mike’s dog-sitting, and the dog is out of control (sidenote: Jason seems to hate dogs, which is completely inconsistent with his overall character), and Carol’s in a funk because she heard from an unreliable source that the boy she likes said she looked like a gummy bear. But their problems are no match for Jason—aka superdad—because he’s putting out fires right, left and centre.

Maggie, however, isn’t so sure Jason’s actually capable of sorting through the kids’ plethora of daily problems. Surely, Jason must’ve missed something in the process and the kids actually need their mom. Right? Wrong. It seems what we learn in this episode is that Maggie might be a) a bit of a control freak and b) a little bit jealous of Jason’s success on the home front.

Maggie really starts to feel unnecessary when Superdad single-handedly deals with the fallout from Mike’s dog sitting failure. You see, Mike lost the dog he was sitting, then tried to replace it with a different coloured dog that he dyed to match the colour of the original dog, which was fine until it rained and the owner realized it was a different dog. But in a shocking turn of events, this actually made the owner crazy happy because it turns out that, like Jason, she also hated her dog!

But then we get to the straw that really broke the camel’s back for Maggie: Carol blows right past her mom and goes straight to Jason with more boy troubles. Maggie finally unleashes a torrent of pent-up resentment and jealousy. I think her exact words were that he was ‘edging her out’ of her territory. Yikes.

Jason, being a psychiatrist, quickly get to the heart of the matter—that Maggie is actually upset because she feels a little bit guilty for going back to work and kind of wanted Jason to fail a little bit in the parental department. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but Maggie is able to see what Jason’s saying, they have their heart to heart, and all is good in Seaver land once again.  All felt particularly right in the world for me, as the Seavers were back to resolving issues in their kitchen, which just felt like a return to true Growing Pains formula.

At the end of this episode, I’m left wondering:   

  • Aren’t gummy bears kinda cute? I think I’d take it as a compliment someone thought I looked like a gummy bear. 
  • Would it be fantastic or completely awful to be married to a psychiatrist? One of my friend’s mom’s was a psychotherapist and I always thought she was trying to look into my soul, but that probably says more about me than her. 
  • Once again, at what point will Ben be involved in a legitimate storyline?

Season 1 Episode 4: Carol’s Article

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At long last, an episode with Carol’s name in the title! She finally gets a substantial storyline! Also we finally lost the backstory narration at the start of the episodes. I guess they decided America had finally caught up on the complexity of the Seaver household. 

In this episode, Carol wants to follow in Maggie’s journalistic footsteps by trying to get a job on the school newspaper. As part of her application, she has to submit a writing sample.  She has worked really, really hard on her story and asks Maggie to read it and be ‘savagely honest’. This puts Maggie in a pickle because Carol’s story is about clam diggers and is about as exciting as you’d expect an article about clam diggers to be.

Not only is the article dull as dirt, it’s also written like a doctoral dissertation. Not wanting to crush Carol’s dreams, Maggie struggles to dole out her feedback.  It’s wise she showed caution because, despite asking for honest feedback, Carol doesn’t really want it as evidenced by her petulant sulking and her tossing Maggie’s journalism book in the trash.

Despite Maggie’s critique, Carol opts to submit her article as is. Lo and behold, she still gets the newspaper job, but not before the supervising teacher takes the opportunity to tell her that her writing is “replete with stinkiosity”. Turns out Carol only got the job because no one else could even spell. That’s rough.  Carol doesn’t like this teacher’s feedback any better than Maggie’s, so she turns down the job and storms home to nurse her badly bruised ego.  

Sidenote: I felt for Carol in this moment because I had a vivid flashback to my university-level business communications course, where I was lambasted for my rambling, flowery language, the same writing style for which I had been praised in all my arts courses. I could feel the crippling blow to my own ego when Maggie and the teacher tore Carol’s writing to shreds. Evidently, Growing Pains is my own, personal form of therapy for working through unresolved issues…

Let’s get back on track.

It’s going to be okay for Carol. Maggie talks her down from the ledge (in Carol’s bedroom, not in the kitchen, so my theory of the kitchen being the only place heart-to-hearts happen has now been completely disproved). Carol recognizes that she has potential, and that she can just strip down the vocabulary and all will be right in the world.

In other storylines, Mike dabbles in betting on horse races, dragging Ben into the mix because Ben is the one with coin to contribute. Jason and Maggie encourage it, but only because they assume the boys will lose, which would have taught them a valuable lesson about why you shouldn’t gamble. Of course, in the very next race their horse actually wins, which wasn’t a part of the plan, but don’t worry because Ben and Mike get ultra greedy and put all their winnings on yet another horse. He also almost wins the race but then falls down in the final seconds of the race (which I couldn’t handle as a storyline—even though I know this show is fictional—because do you know if a horse goes down and breaks his leg they usually put it down?!?!?), and they lose all their winnings. Thank goodness that Maggie and Jason’s reverse psychology actually worked…and that they clarified that the injured horse was not put down, but rather put out to stud.

At the end of this episode, I’m left wondering:

  • Does anyone who asks for feedback really ever want feedback?
  • Is there a legal betting age for gambling on horse races?  Or is Mike engaged in some seriously illegal activities fully supported by his parents?
  • At the end of this episode, when we learn the horse that fell has been put out to stud (i.e. to impregnate other horses), Mike pretends to have a leg injury. Is he actually implying he wants to impregnate a bunch of women? Not only would this never fly in today’s climate but also…don’t 16 year-old boys live in mortal fear of impregnating a woman?