Tag: sitcom

Season 4 Episode 2: Birth of a Seaver

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 4Leave a comment

Well, I think the episode title alone is a bit of a spoiler, but here we go anyway!

It’s Ben’s birthday and he has quite possibly the best birthday cake I’ve ever seen: a giant lifelike hamburger cake. And part of Ben’s birthday agreement seems to be not talking about the new baby, but that’s hard to do when Maggie is two weeks overdue and her baby bump is bursting at the seams. Ben’s birthday is being taken over and he is so not impressed with his soon-to-be sibling.

That’s unfortunate, because it seems there’s a chance he’ll have to share his birthday with his new brother or sister since Maggie starts going into labour. Here we go! The Growing Pains landscape is about to change in a big way.

Even though Maggie is apparently going into labour, the whole Seaver family (minus Ben) is hanging out in the living room? I’m not sure what they’re waiting for, but Mike is making his mom a cup of tea so it seems there’s zero urgency to this labour. Also, they all seem to have forgotten that Ben’s just hanging out in the kitchen staring at his cake like the sad sack that he is.  They also almost forget to take Ben to the hospital with them. Worst. Birthday. Ever.

At the hospital, they’re all getting briefed on protocol for the birthing room, which is the room in which all of them are going to watch Maggie give birth. Yes, the entire Seaver family. This makes perfect sense for the Seaver family, but I cannot see this being something any other family would want. I mean, the miracle of life is great and all but who really wants to watch their mom give birth?

Ben is still trapped in his downward spiral of self-pity, so he’s taken off wandering the halls of the hospital aimlessly, feeling like the forgotten child. He sort of is, because Maggie and Jason have bigger fish to fry right now, and Mike and Carol give up pretty quickly on trying to locate him.

That’s fine. Ben’s made himself a new friend. As he trolls the hospital halls, Ben befriends an older patient by helping him pick up a cigar that he plans to smoke…in the hospital. Only in the 80s, I guess? Anyway, they strike up a conversation and Ben ends up venting about how his whole family forgot about him on his birthday no less.  Ben’s new friend, Chris, tries to help help him get over himself by reminding him how great it is to be an older brother.  Ben’s still not buying that load of garbage, so instead he and Chris just play cards and tell dirty jokes. Ben thinks he’s made a new bestie, but then there’s this ultra-dark moment when it becomes very clear that Chris is never leaving the hospital. Growing Pains really is at peace with integrating death into its storylines. Yikes.

Just as Ben realizes he will never see Chris again, Carol and Mike finally find him and take him back to the birthing suite in the nick of time. Maggie’s already popped out the baby, which at least means the kids missed all the gory parts and can just capitalize on newborn baby snuggles with their new sister. All it takes is one second holding an angelic little baby, and Ben is sold on the awesomeness of being a big brother.  It’s a pretty sweet birthday present, especially since his sister was not actually born on Ben’s birthday but a solid three minutes into a fresh new day. Also, Ben gets the honour of naming his sister, and opts to honour his new friend Chris. Growing Pains fans, meet Chrissie Seaver.

And thank god Ben got to name her, because Maggie and Jason wanted to call her Irma. Good grief.

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

  • Where can I find myself that giant hamburger cake, stat?
  • How will a new character transform Growing Pains this season?
  • Why would anyone want to watch their mother give birth?

Season 4 Episode 1: Fools in Love

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 4Leave a comment

We’re back with a brand new season, but unfortunately it appears to be a Ben-centric episode. While I suppose it’s possible that a new season means Ben’s storylines get better, I’m still not holding my breath.

Here we go. As the episode title implies, today we get fools for love, as in plural. And our two fools are Ben and Jason.

In Ben’s world, Vito (his friend, who I believe is making his first appearance in this very episode) is throwing a boy/girl Halloween party for which Ben and Stinky must bring dates. This is stressing Ben out to the max. He calls about a million girls in his class and gets rejected by all of them, until Carol wisely points out that one of Ben’s other best friends, Jennie, is a girl, and perhaps it would be easiest to invite her.

Sidenote: You may remember Jennie, aka Candace Cameron Bure, already made an appearance back in the episode with Jimmy the beloved but blundering repairman.

So Ben figures Jennie is his best bet, but he has to assure her that it’s not a real date before she agrees to go with him. This is just fine by Ben because he wants nothing to do with Jennie in the romantic sense, because she’s “one of the guys”…and also, they’re like maybe 12 years old. But then Jennie shows up for the party dressed ultra girly in a princess outfit and Ben changes his tune. He’s smitten.

Unfortunately, Jennie is still not smitten with Ben and he’s having to pretend he’s not interested in her even though he is.  Ben seems intent on wearing Jennie down, but then she totally bursts his bubble when she asks Ben to ask Vito if he likes her. Not only is Ben losing his shot with the girl that, just one hour ago, he decided he actually does like, but he’s losing her to one of his best friends. Ouch.

So now Ben is sitting on the sideline of a party like a chump while Jennie dances with Vito. When Mike shows up at the party to give Ben a ride home, he finds him sad and dejected and has to pick him up by the bootstraps because Ben is still young and has years more rejection ahead of him. Mike shares that he too has been known to experience rejection. Apparently, all Ben needed to hear was that even his older brother isn’t infallible when it comes to girls. Plus, Mike notices some other girl at the party is eyeing up Ben, and so Ben at least gets a slow dance at the party. And we all get to hear a sweet Tiffany tune.

But what about our other fool in love? Well, that happens to be poor Jason, who is dealing with Maggie’s pregnancy hormones, which are causing her to act like a deranged monster. And I suspect Growing Pains writers are either not married, or have wives with the understanding of saints, because they’re really presenting pregnant women as insane in a way that would never fly today.

Regardless, Maggie and her hormones are dragging Jason to lamaze class, where the lamaze instructor thinks that doctors don’t really do anything during a delivery. Jason, being a medical professional, is just dying to jump in and correct her. But crazy hormonal Maggie wants nothing to do with rocking the boat so she cuts him off just as he’s about to say he’s actually a doctor, and announces to the group that Jason is a mechanic.

This makes for an awkward moment because it’s not at all related to what the lamaze instructor was talking about, but also makes it awkward when one of the other women in the group goes into labour. Jason jumps in to help but because the woman’s husband thinks he’s a mechanic, Jason gets punched out for being a “pervert”. Good thing it was just false labour. But also, this is the second time Jason has either helped a woman give birth or almost had to help a woman give birth, and that seems like a lot of random delivery support for an average man, doesn’t it?

Somewhere in this hot mess of a storyline, Maggie realizes she’s been a monster and apologizes to Jason, but then freaks out all over again when he mentions something about hormones. I know this doesn’t make sense, and trust me that you’re just lucky you didn’t have to watch it.

So far, my verdict is: season 4 is not off to the greatest start.

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

Season 3 Episode 26: Graduation Day

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 3Leave a comment

The time has come. We have reached two endings today: the end of Season 3 and the end of Mike’s time at Dewey High. That’s right, today is Mike’s graduation ceremony and the Seavers are out in full force to celebrate the momentous occasion.

As a brief aside, it appears that Mike’s graduating class is maybe 60 students, which seems unlikely. I’m guessing Long Island, with its proximity to Manhattan, is chock full of nuclear families and its public school system is likely bursting at the seams.  Alas, that’s really not pertinent here.

What is pertinent is that Boner is making a commencement speech because he is class president, a plot detail which I had completely forgotten. My knack for remembering ultra obscure 80s sitcom plot details is clearly slipping. In the audience, Mike’s parents are realizing how far Mike has come through a series of flashbacks, the only saving grace of which is that we get to see Jason circa the 70s, sporting a serious beard and moustache combo as well as a very low cut shirt revealing an equally hairy chest.

  • Maggie’s trip down memory lane is a pleasant, but substance-less, vignette of Mike through the years.
  • Jason’s reflections focus on Mike wanting nothing to do with books nor school, while Jason constantly urges him to care deeply about both. I think we can all agree Jason was largely unsuccessful on that front.
  • Carol’s flashback is driven by a note from Mike that she finds in her pocket while at the graduation, in which Mike tells her that she owes him $50. Apparently as mere toddlers, Carol bet Mike would never graduate and, based on the fact that Mike didn’t know what the word graduate meant at the time, it sort of seemed she might be right.
  • Ben’s daydreaming about other things entirely, apparently being a war hero of some sort in a brief but painful clip that reminds me of the Friends episode where Phoebe is recalling a past Thanksgiving (as in a past life Thanksgiving) where she was an army medic. I have always hated that scene and I hated this scene too.

Basically, what you need to know is everyone’s super proud of Mike for making it this far.  Although, I have to admit that the entire Seaver family also looks mildly concerned that Mike isn’t actually going to graduate, even though we all know you don’t actually find out if you graduated at the graduation ceremony. That would be a terribly cruel exercise. Of course, Growing Pains creates some good drama by having Principal Dewitt accidentally standing on Mike’s diploma so it looks like he just might not be graduating after all. But that’s all sorted out quickly enough and we move on with the big moment in which Mike gets his diploma, all with the accompaniment of a cheesy BJ Thomas song and even more flashback sequences.

By my account, by far the best part of this episode is Principal Dewitt’s wry attitude, which is back with a vengeance and which has allowed me to forget his jerky behaviour in the Coach Lubbock termination affair.  Dewitt spends the entire graduation ceremony making it perfectly clear he would rather be anywhere else, and loathing that his role as high school administrator necessitate his lowering himself to lead such a ceremony. Ah, Principal Dewitt, what a gift to Dewey High you are.

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

  • Could a graduating class on Long Island really be that small?
  • Was BJ Thomas best friends with someone on this show? This episode features a BJ Thomas song and you might recall he was one of the singers on the original theme song.
  • How could I have forgotten that Boner was class president?

Season 3 Episode 25: How the West Was Won (Part II)

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 3Leave a comment

It’s a new week and we are picking up right where we left off, with the aftermath of the Dewey High sit-in to save Coach Lubbock’s job.

Naturally the high school protest makes it on the local news, reported on by none other than Maggie. I mean, she did have the inside scoop on the story, what with it being her own kids who came up withe the idea. She’s even keeping her cool on camera even while the majority of her immediate family are being carted off by the cops. While that seems unfortunate, what’s even more unfortunate is that Coach Lubbock’s children happen to be watching the news, and this is how they find out that their dad’s been fired. That’s going to make for an awkward evening in the Lubbock household.

Back at the Seaver household, Maggie is “humiliated” that two thirds of her family has been arrested, although it seems like there was no real consequence for their arrests. No one’s talking court dates or anything, so I’m not sure Maggie has cause to be so worked up. The worst of the consequences seems to be that Mike and Carol were both suspended and, by virtue of this suspension, Carol will not be getting her coveted perfect attendance award.

For Mike, being arrested is not enough to keep him from trying to think of ways to save Coach Lubbock’s job.  In fact, he’s in the midst of wracking his brain for new ideas when Coach Lubbock shows up at the Seavers house to thank him…for helping him get fired faster. You see, when the school superintendent saw the whole situation on the news, he decided to fire Coach Lubbock right away instead of at the end of the term. Mike feels awful. Coach Lubbock feels even more awful. I think we can all agree, despite good intentions, this protest has been a giant fail on all fronts.

We then get a whole bunch of time with the Lubbock family dealing with the fallout of his immediate termination, which is all for the crossover series and of no interest to one Growing Pains fan in particular, namely me. The long and the short of it is, Coach Lubbock feels understandably jilted and unappreciated after 12 years at Dewey High.

But Coach Lubbock’s wife sees an opportunity to help him recognize that he has had an impact on his students. She’s called the Seavers and now the Seavers are hosting the Lubbocks for dinner. Coach Lubbock refuses to join the party, but his wife tells a little white lie to get Coach Lubbock in the Seaver house: she claims the whole dinner is a chance for Mike to apologize. But when he gets inside, Coach Lubbock quickly realizes Mike had no intention of apologizing. So instead, he gives Mike a piece of his mind about the dire consequence of his actions, and what it’s like to realize your whole career’s been for nothing because no one appreciates you.

This is our TSN turning point, because it’s this moment when Mike shares the impact Coach Lubbock has had on him and that’s really all Coach Lubbock needed to hear from anyone at this point.  Coach Lubbock is like the Grinch when his heart grows three sizes. He’s suddenly full of love and feeling like his career has meaning, and he makes a big speech about it before announcing that the Lubbocks are moving to California, because that’s where his new job is.

Which leads me to wonder, if Coach Lubbock already knew he had a job lined up, what was he so mad at Mike for? Alas, sometimes we have to accept that television won’t make perfect sense and ABC just needed a convenient vehicle to get Just the Ten of Us officially on its way. Mission accomplished, ABC, mission accomplished.

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

  • Would this whole scenario have turned out differently in today’s social media obsessed culture? For instance, with enough support and public outcries, would the superintendent have caved and let Coach Lubbock keep his job?
  • Do you have any kind of a record when you’re arrested at a protest? Carol says that she had her fingerprints taken and Boner said he was deloused and that all sounds like serious business but, again, there is no talk of any legal ramifications once they’re home. Something tells me you don’t get fingerprinted or deloused unless there’s bigger consequences.

Season 3 Episode 24: How the West Was Won (Part I)

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 32 Comments

Back to back two-parters? Growing Pains was really pulling out all the stops in Season 3. And also, this is a cross-over episode. Sadly, cross-over episodes still exist today despite the fact that even in the 80s we could tell they were a bad idea. Cross-over episodes inevitably meant a bad episode for the original show, leading into a new show that was almost always not that good and short-lived.  In this two-parter, we have the set up for Just the Ten of Us, a show which featured Coach Lubbock and his eight children. Yes, eight children. On a teacher’s salary? Yikes.

We get right into the thick of it, with Maggie and Jason receiving a call that Mike and Carol are about to be arrested for protesting at the school. Mike? Activism? That doesn’t sound right! What could have possibly inspired Mike to take this kind of a stand? Whatever it is, Principal Dewitt is not happy about it, and he’s making that clear over a loudspeaker. Moderately riled up Principal Dewitt is amazing and  I am positively giddy that we might see more than a passing glance of him in this episode.

So Maggie and Jason show up at the school where a bunch of kids are staging a sit-in for reasons we don’t yet know, but they do seem to be passionate about whatever it is. Maggie’s freaking out because the police are on the way and just wants the kids to up and go, but Jason wants to hear them out because back in the day he was totally into activism. Of course you were, Jason Seaver.

But back to the protest. We’re about to find out what it’s all about. Unfortunately, we have to learn this through a prolonged flashback, in which Mike and Boner are forced to stay behind in Coach Lubbock’s class until they finish the homework they were supposed to do the night before. In the process of Mike trying to find the answers among other students’ homework, he finds a copy of Coach Lubbock’s resume which apparently includes his marital status and his age. Was that common practice in the 80s? Mike can’t believe that Coach Lubbock is 38 and married. Why this is so shocking to Mike is completely unclear.

As Mike and Boner are coming to terms with the fact that Coach Lubbock is more than just Coach, a couple of teenaged girls in private school uniforms come bounding into the classroom looking for Coach Lubbock. It turns out they’re his daughters. Well, the fact that Coach Lubbock has teenaged daughters, and ones Mike has deemed ‘hot’, in addition to being married and 38 just blows Mike and Boner’s minds completely.  They cannot believe he has a full life outside of school.  This is where Mike and Boner get the creepiest of ideas, which is to stalk Coach Lubbock and spy on him in his own home.

Mike and Boner don’t just spy, they spy from the fire escape directly outside Coach Lubbock’s apartment window. To me, this goes beyond casual curiosity.  But from this vantage point they discover that Coach Lubbock actually has seven kids (and another one on the way!), and that all of them (except the baby) are private school kids. Again, how would Coach Lubbock afford this? Maybe because all of them live in what looks like an impossibly small apartment.

This isn’t the juicy gossip they glean from their spying, though. No, as they sit there completely violating Coach Lubbock’s privacy, they also learn that as of the end of the semester Coach Lubbock will be out of a job. Naturally, Coach Lubbock is freaking out about this, and with eight kids to feed I can see why.  Only at this point do Mike and Boner seem to realize that maybe it’s totally inappropriate that they’re still hanging out on the fire escape spying, so at long last they leave the man in peace.

But Mike is really struck by what he’s overheard. Coach Lubbock, you may recall, is the one who believed in Mike and got him into acting. Mike’s got a soft spot for him, and he wants to help. He enlists Carol’s support in fighting ‘the man’ (which, I suppose in this case, is Principal Dewitt). Mike and Carol start with a peaceful attempt to bring about change, gathering 300 signatures on a petition to save Coach Lubbock’s job.

But when they present this petition to Principal Dewitt, things go south really fast.  Mr. Dewitt is a total jerk with zero compassion. I might have to rethink my love for him. I’ve gone from being super pumped at the amount of Principal Dewitt screen time in this episode to really questioning his character. Being a disillusioned high school administrator is one thing, but being so cavalier about firing someone is quite another. Principal Dewitt, I am disappointed in you. Mike is similarly appalled and this is how the full-blown sit-in comes to be.

Right at the end of the episode, the cops show up to break up the protest.  At first sight of cops, most of  the would-be student activists start scattering like leaves in the wind. But then Mike of all people implores them to take a stand and do what’s right for Coach Lubbock. And it works! The students sit right back down and Maggie freaks out all over again about the kids being arrested. But Jason is so proud that his kids are taking a stand for something that he decides to join the sit-in right along with them! Yowza.

Just as things are getting good, we have to wait until the next episode to find out what happens. Join me next week to find out.

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

  • What kind of salaries do Long Island public school teacher’s make?
  • Is Principal Dewitt not as likeable a character as I remember from my youth?
  • Would you actually get arrested for a harmless sit-in?
  • Would anyone be so curious about their teacher’s lives that they actually drive to their teacher’s house, climb up the fire escape and listen to an intensely personal conversation with their spouse? Wait, maybe I don’t want to know the answer to that question…

Season 3 Episode 23: The Obscure Objects of our Desire (Part II)

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 31 Comment

Yesterday, I somehow failed to notice that this was a dreaded two-parter, even more dreaded because it’s a two-part flashback episode. That is the worst kind of a two-parter and I am not excited.

In case you missed it, yesterday the Seaver kids were setting up for a garage sale and their throwaway items started talking to each other and sharing their pasts in a series of flashbacks.

Today we get two prolonged flashbacks (that I don’t want to relive) that feature:

In the end, the kids decide they cannot cope with letting go of their old stuff, and they’re onto the fact that Jason really just wanted them to clear out the basement. But then Jason picks up the ashtray Ben made him, and he gets all sentimental and understands why the kids don’t want to part with their things.

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

  • What was the point of this episode?

Season 3 Episode 22: The Obscure Objects of our Desire

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 31 Comment

Brace yourselves. On the tails of a few bad-to-mediocre-at-best episodes, we’ve got ourselves a flashback episode. I have never been one for the flashback episode and they’re particularly painful when you’re condensing your series viewing into a daily process. It’s probably my own fault for watching episodes in such rapid succession, but it feels like I just watched all these episodes. So I’m not going to lie. I’m not going to watch this episode carefully because I don’t need to recap what I’ve already recapped, and you certainly don’t need to read it.

So here’s the quick and dirty: the Seavers are having a garage sale and clearing out a whole bunch of old stuff, including:

Yes, that was the entire episode. I have to say, skipping through this was rather refreshing. It might just become my new strategy when episodes get really dire!

What I’ve learned in this episode is:

  • Many Growing Pains episodes could have told the same story in 10 minutes
  • Season 3 is really struggling for content

 

 

Season 3 Episode 20: Dance Fever Part II

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 32 Comments

I’m sure you’ve been waiting eagerly to find out what happens next after Friday’s riveting post! No? Me neither! But let’s do it anyway. Here we go.

We pick up right where we left off: Mike is dancing silently with the girl with the annoying voice (Lydia). Carol is having no fun because her friends don’t want her to dance with anyone they don’t pre-approve. Boner is having no fun because no one will dance with him now that Carol’s friends are pre-approving her dance partners. Maggie is still DJing the dance. Ben and Stinky are still trying to find their way to whatever place they’re trying to find their way to.

Here’s what we get to wrap up these storylines:

Jason is jealous of Maggie playing DJ because, wouldn’t you know, he was a DJ in college. Also, he says that “men are traditionally the best to be DJs”. Jason Seaver, I feel like you’re really slipping in your perfection this season. This is a very un-Jason Seaver thing to say in that it’s highly sexist and insensitive.

In Mike’s world, Lydia has started singing along with the songs they’re dancing to and he’s struggling to tolerate it. He tries to take her outside so they don’t have to talk, and that works for a brief second while they kiss but as soon as they stop kissing she starts talking and that’s the end of Lydia.

Mike wants to go home but Eddie doesn’t because he’s been hitting it off with a girl named Rita. But when he hears Mike’s ditched Lydia, he decides to go for Lydia instead because Eddie is fickle and also sort of a jerk. He tells Mike to let Rita down gently for him. But here’s the catch: Rita’s actually been into Mike the whole time and was just using Eddie to get closer to him. So Mike ends up with a dancing partner that he can talk to, and Eddie ends up with the girl with the annoying voice, and that seems about right.

Carol and Boner suffer for a while with no one to dance with, until they finally decide their friends’ advice sucks and they should dance with someone they can have fun with: each other. Finally they are having fun again, and Carol’s friends get what seems an appropriate karmic response from the universe, which is that they are the only two girls at the dance who aren’t dancing with anyone.

Finally, Ben and Stinky have finally made it to their destination, a somewhat skuzzy diner, only special because it apparently has a pinball machine on which they can gamble and make real money. This is what all the sneaking around cloaked in mystery has been for? Ugh.

Anyway, they’re supposed to ask for some guy named “Blackey” when they get to the diner, because he’s the one who controls the pinball machine gambling, but it turns out that Blackey is dead. It’s taken them an episode and a quarter to find this place and it’s all been for nothing. They have a brief moment of hope when  an elderly customer in the diner tells them how they can play, but they’ve blown all their money on pie and don’t even have the quarter it takes to buy in. Also, it turns out the old guy is a janitor at Dewey High, and he recognizes them, so they’re sort of busted. He takes the kids back to Dewey High to face their punishment.  Or, you know, Ben ends up DJing the dance which makes no sense.

As if all of this hasn’t been bad enough, the episode ends with a solid minute of watching all the kids dancing with their partners, while Maggie and Jason are making out outside instead of actually chaperoning. Growing Pains, these episodes were solid fails.

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

  • What was the point of Ben’s storyline? They never got to play the magical gambling pinball machine and he never got a heart-to-heart punishment/talking to from Jason?
  • Why did this episode need to be two parts when nothing of substance happened?

Season 3 Episode 19: Dance Fever Part I

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 32 Comments

Maggie and Jason are chaperoning another school dance. Wait? Didn’t this episode happen already? Yes, yes it did, back in season one. Recycling storylines already? Come on, Growing Pains.

So there’s a high school dance tonight and Maggie and Jason, as we’ve already established, are chaperoning. Mike, Eddie and Boner are going even though they expect it to be lame, and even though Mike is bummed his parents are chaperoning. Basically, Mike has FOMO and is convinced if they don’t go it’ll be the one time something actually happens. Carol and her friends are also going, because apparently Carol needs to move on after her breakup with Bobby. Poor Ben is the only one not going, but he’s got his own mystery plans with Stinky Sullivan, who is the same kid who played Ben’s bully back in season two. Growing Pains loves to recycle its guest stars.

I’m going to give you a heads up that all of these storylines are completely uninteresting, and this turns out to be a two-parter, which is doubly discouraging when the storylines aren’t interesting enough for one episode let alone two.

Here’s the lowdown:

Mike and Maggie really have nothing going on the majority of this episode, until near the end when they have to step in for the world’s worst DJ when he throws his back out.

Mike, Eddie and Boner are having zero fun until Mike sees a pretty girl. He ends up dancing up a storm with her and is super into it until she starts talking. Her voice is…something else. Mike’s not sure if he can actually deal her speaking voice, even though he thinks she’s super hot. This is the Mike cliffhanger. Will he or won’t he end up with her by the end of the dance? Are you also not at all waiting with baited breath? That’s what I thought.

Carol and her friends are also having no fun. When a nice but slightly nerdy boy asks Carol to dance, her friends are total jerks and reject him because they think that it’s social suicide for Carol to dance with him. But they also seem to not understand their own rank in the high school social system, because when they try to approach guys they think are in their echelon, they get a karmic response. The guys blow them off just like they blew off the poor sort-of-nerdy guy.

Carol and Boner, both having no fun, end up dancing together and having fun for the first time. But they both have to put up with all the haters who think they shouldn’t be dancing with each other, and it’s seriously ruining their good times. Will they cave to peer pressure or keep dancing the night away together? We’ll find out next time.

Meanwhile, Ben’s big adventure is getting nowhere. All we know is that he is supposed to be sleeping over at Stinky’s but Stinky has told his parents that he’s sleeping over at Ben’s. They’re both on their way to some sort of magical place that isn’t even revealed in this episode, which makes me wonder how anyone is supposed to care if they ever get there.

Sadly, you’ll have to wait until next week to see how what happens with all these storylines. But if you ask me, what this episode needed was a good dose of Annette Funicello’s sassy season one attitude.

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

  • Do I really have to watch the second part of this episode?

 

Season 3 Episode 18: Great Expectations

On By InMyBackyardIn Season 3Leave a comment

Mike is in for some adventure. You see, Malia, the girl from the two-part Aloha episodes has sent him 8 pounds of pineapples and a letter explaining how she’s going to be in California. Now, what Malia says in her letter is that it’s too bad that she’ll still be 3000 miles from Mike, but what Mike hears is an opportunity to go see her. In fact, he recalls promising that if she ever came to the mainland USA, no matter where, he’d meet her. So come hell or high water, he’s going to find his way to California.

Sidenote: As far as we viewers can tell, this is the first contact Mike’s had with Malia in 17 episodes, and they only knew each other for 10 days in Maui, so this seems like the kind of overly-extravagant, borderline creepy move that is only successful in Hallmark movies. But hey, that’s me being judgmental and I suppose young love is blind to such practicalities.

Mike’s travel plans seem doomed at first because he’s broke, but Carol is a sucker for romance and is willing to lend him several hundred dollars to buy a ticket. Now he just has to convince Jason and Maggie to let him go. At first, Maggie is the sympathetic one and she comes super close to agreeing to let Mike go, but then when she contemplates Mike all the way across the country and alone with a girl he really, really likes, she sides with Jason and poor Mike is outta luck. He’s going nowhere.

Except that this is Mike we’re talking about, so he decides he’s going anyway, but sneaking across the country is a big undertaking even for Mike. Thankfully Ben and Carol are both in his court.  They’ve come up with a plan that basically involves a lot of pre-recorded audio of Mike saying stuff Mike would say. That way, any time Maggie and Jason need to talk to Mike, they can just hit play on the tape recorder…so long as they can pretend that Mike is closed off in some other room.

What’s really implausible about this is that they’ve apparently predicted not only the exact questions Maggie and Jason will ask Mike, but also the order in which they’ll ask them. Because they’ve got audio clips queued up, in order, to play one after the other that, for the most part, make perfect sense.  Also, the audio quality of their recordings is way too good to have been done on the old-school tape recorder that they’re using. Or maybe, maybe the Seaver kids are actually incredibly ingenious (and Maggie and Jason are totally predictable) and I’m just expecting too much from a sitcom.

You’re probably wondering, but what happens when Maggie and Jason expect to actually see Mike? Indeed, things do get really dicey when Jason expects Mike to report outside in five minutes to shovel snow. How will they get out of that pickle? The answer: Boner. The great thing about winter is that it requires layers. And layers legitimately make it impossible to tell your teenager from any other teenager of roughly the same size. Well done, Seaver kids.

Meanwhile, Mike has finally made it across the country. He’s been imagining how wonderful his reunion with Malia will be, the two of them like long lost lovers finally reunited. It will be magical…or, you know, not. Because when Malia arrives she is (rightfully) shocked to see Mike standing there. I mean, she’s there for a work convention so she has no time to go galavanting with Mike.

You can tell Malia feels bad that he flew all away across the country to see her, so she offers to get him a ticket to the convention dinner the next next, but Mike says he has to catch his flight home right away. As in, he says he has to leave in 10 minutes. Honestly, I’m not clear on whether this is true or he’s just trying to save face because why would he fly across the country if he’d only be able to hang for a few minutes at the airport?!?!? Regardless, they have an awkward hug and Mike’s just learned that if you’re going to fly across the country to meet a girl, maybe give her a heads up to see if she even has time to spend with you.

So Mike arrives home that night with a broken heart, which leads me to believe he really did leave himself a tiny window of time to see Malia at the airport, which also means this entire episode makes no sense to me. The only positive in all of this is that the kids have somehow managed to hide Mike’s trip from Maggie and Jason, that is until Carol asks Mike if he ate on the plane.

Way to go, Carol.

Now Mike has had the worst day ever, and he’s in trouble. Jason isn’t entirely without a heart, though. He shares with Mike a similar story of flying to an entirely different continent to surprise a girl, who then said she just wanted to be friends. But that maybe it’s still better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. And just when I think that I will escape this episode with only mild annoyance at its illogical plot, they start playing Swept Away again and now this episode is a front-runner for worst episode of the season in my Season 3 recap.

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

  • Did Mike really fly across the country to spend a half hour with Malia?
  • How did he buy a ticket over the phone without a credit card?
  • Seriously, what kind of equipment were these Seaver kids using to record Mike’s voice?