Not every episode can be a gem. We’ve seen this before in the land of Growing Pains, and we find ourselves here again with an episode aptly titled “Fish Bait.”
The gist—Mike is excited about class for perhaps the first time in his life because it’s acting class! He’s so excited he’s up at 6:30am, he’s made coffee and breakfast, AND he’s happy. Naturally, this doesn’t compute for Maggie and Jason, who’ve never seen Mike up early nor excited about school. Ever. The expression ‘there’s a first time for everything’ is clearly lost on them. Instead, they assume he must have a girl in his apartment, whom he’s presumably cooking for. Or that he’s been out all night and is just coming home. Ye of little faith!
At any rate, even Maggie & Jason’s suspicion can’t dampen his enthusiasm for Drama 102. But the excitement is short-lived. You see, his fellow classmates are, like, really into acting. They know stuff about acting. They take notes about acting. They know who Ibsen is, for goodness sakes! I mean, who doesn’t? (Sidenote: I certainly don’t, but hey, I’m not an actor.)
At any rate, Mike quickly sees he is out of his element. He’s gotta study up, and he wastes no time getting right to it. But a pile of books in hand makes Maggie and Jason even more concerned about Mike. What is all this new behaviour? Up early? Excited for class? Books? Despite this quite literally being all they’ve wanted to see for the last FIVE SEASONS, they are both perplexed and highly suspicious. Just goes to show, even when you get exactly what you’ve been asking for, it just won’t make you happy.
In fact, Maggie is so concerned about Mike’s studiousness that she wants to intervene to find out “what’s really wrong” with Mike. Wow. This episode is positively rife with judgment. Take, for example, this little back-and-forth between Jason and Maggie when Maggie says she wants to go fix whatever’s wrong with Mike:
Jason: “Come on, we’ve got to give him a chance to work out whatever’s bothering him on his own. We gotta have a little faith in him.”
Maggie: “Jason, this is Mike we’re talking about”
Jason: “I said a little faith”
Ouch.
Back in class the next day, we see that not only did the studying fail to impress Mike’s parents, but it also earned him zero cred with his classmates and acting teacher, who continue to mercilessly mock him for his lack of acting knowledge. He only adds insult to injury when he has the audacity to mention that he’s going to audition for a lowly television commercial. Mike’s teacher goes so far as to say that being in commercials isn’t even acting. Such snobbery for someone who teaches an intro to drama class at Alf Landon Community College!
Sadly, Mike can only take so much dream-dashing, mocking and criticism. Suddenly, he’s experiencing a crisis of faith reminiscent of what we saw Carol experience in the last episode. How will Mike tackle this self-doubt? Will he feel like he’s enough by the end of the episode? Conventional sitcom wisdom suggests the answer is yes, but let’s make sure…
Well, Mike is beaten down, but not so much so that he ditches the commercial audition. He’s determined to prove he can be an actor, in a fish n’ chips ad no less! I’m not judging. I think that’d be great, especially if part of the compensation came in the form of free fish n’ chips, perhaps even for life!
The audition room is where we get a couple of real TSN turning points. First, who should walk in but two of his classmates*? Yes, the very same classmates who so boldly mocked Mike for even considering acting in commercials. Hypocrisy! But then there’s even MORE hypocrisy, with a side of questionable ethics to boot. It’s announced that the role has been filled, by none other than Mike’s acting teacher. Something’s fishy here! (You had to know a bad pun was coming your way with this episode title!)
Mike isn’t caught up in the morality of it all, though No, he’s learned the lesson he needed to learn: some people talk a big game with nothing to back it up. He’s no worse an actor than the rest of his classmates. Truly, he’s no worse than the person employed to teach him how to act!!!! Confidence restored! These Seaver kids really luck out with well-timed lessons/instant self-esteem boosters!
There we have it. Mike’s commitment to acting is firmly reestablished and all is well in the world. Well, except his parents still don’t have any faith in him. But who needs their parents to have faith in them when they have faith in themselves?
You might even say that’s a better lesson to learn than the one Mike actually learned, but 80s sitcoms rarely offer deeper lessons. We get what we get.
*This episode may be a dud, but it does mark the first appearance of Kirk Cameron’s future real-life wife and (spoiler alert) future on-screen girlfriend, Chelsea Noble who, unlike poor Julie McCullough, was deemed noble enough (pun intended) to stay on the show!