Sarah 103

I had the exact same thought! There's a part of me that wonders what Esme Keating was up to this episode. I don't think there were deleted scenes left on the cutting room floor, but I did wonder what she was doing during the week they were there. It feels like she had her own weeklong adventure offscreen. She looked like she had a crush or at least an attraction to the piano player. I was surprised a place like Merries was playing so much rock and roll, and even had a rock and roll band as the house band. I would have thought the house band would have been more an old big band, or a jazz combo, and maybe occasionally the band would play a few rock and roll songs "for the youngsters." There is no way Leonard's storyline ends well. The only way out I can see is for Geordie to somehow convince the higher-ups that Leonard and Daniel are actually confidential informants/trusted sources. Shallow end of the pool: I loved seeing Will in tank tops, t-shirts and polo shirts for the the entire episode.

You are correct. The series is not constantly hitting the viewer over the head with 90s nostalgia. It is more about subtle passing references, like which show the kids want to watch on television.

I think this is where the show made a huge mistake setting the show in south, especially Alabama. Trying to portray the white characters in a historically accurate manner that will not anger many modern white viewers and cause a twitter storm of "white racism/reverse racism, this show hates white people" is impossible. I totally know what you mean about shows and movies from different eras having a differnt look to them. That being said the original Wonder Years was shot in the 1980s on tape, which despite all of the fantastic 1960s period detials, looks like something shot on tape. I totally agree with you the name of the series and the year it takes place in are part of a marketing strategy because ABC did not think they could sucessfully sell a show about a black family without connecting it to a proven hit.

There's a "chekhov's gun" in Witten's apartment for sure. Also, wasn't there a plotline earlier in this series about officers committing or attempting suicide and Frank was looking to changing the rules about treatment for the officer or benefits/pensions for the survivors? I am almost sure I remember a scene with Frank discussing the issue with variety of different clergy in a conference room, but I do not remember more than that.

These are sincere, serious, honest, no snark-questions: What do you think is the difference? What makes one feel authentic and the other one feel off? Is it the writing/language? Is it the mannerisms? I am genuinely curious. This may not be something you can put into words, which is totally okay. I have a question about regarding their friendship with Brad that I'm hoping someone can answer. Did they know Brad before the school-year started, or did they meet at the start of the school-year and become friends? We are starting the series halfway through the school-year, so they could have become friends with him. Covering a black family in 1960s suburbia was a great idea. It's a story that hasn't been told before. I am not sure the writers/creative team fully thought through all of the implications of setting in the south.

I know! The series blew what is probably the entire music budget for the season for less than 30 seconds! Rolling Stones songs are not cheap. It doesn't seem outrageous that someone could grow up in New York, attend a Historically Black College or University in the south, start a law career in Atlanta, then move back to New York. There are plenty of lawyers who take and pass the bar exam in multiple states. My biggest problem was that with all of the current cases, why were they trying to solve a 20 year old unsolved murder. I wished they had somehow found a way to tie into a current case. I have no idea how they would have done that, but it would have made more sense. Some random person who owned a gun, had a great deal of anger, and some kind of criminal record. The problem when they do four storylines is that there is always one storyline that gets rushed and solved mostly offscreen. I loved the boys on the bus talking basketball. When I saw they were Jewish, my first thought was, maybe we'll get to see Detective Wolf again because he was awesome and I want the character to appear on the show again. Maybe I'm old fashioned or watched way too much Scooby-Doo growing up, but I like the when the series actually spent more time with the case and showed the characters doing more investigating. It was fun to be able to follow along and try to figure it out as the show progressed. Danny is willing to use Maggie the medium when he is completely stuck and out of other ideas. He's not constantly consulting a psychic/medium and revealing information that should be kept within the department. She sensed "father energy" (for lack of a better way to put it) on the sock. It took Danny awhile to figure out that the man who was with the boy when he was shot was not the biological father. The boy had two fathers, his stepfather who raised him, and the biological father. I love seeing Jamie slowly turn into his father. He's always been Frank's mini-me, we're just starting to see it come out more.

You make an excellent point. It would have been both funny and historically accurate to have some white teachers not fall for it. It would have demonstrated the racism and prejudice of the era/location, and allowed for Dean's voiceover to have a line like "You can't win 'em all" when the guilt didn't work on a particular teacher.

I get its 2021 and they only have 30 seconds, but the editing didn't work. It felt like the images and the music didn't line up, if that makes sense. How old is Kim? We know she's studying for the SAT and they're talking about college, which would put her in her junior year, so she should be around 17, unless she's young for her grade based on when her birthday falls or if she skipped a grade.

The opening credits need work. I understand they only have 30 seconds, but it didn't do it for me. It was amusing to see Dean torn between checking out his crush, and knowing a memorial service (I hope that's the right term for it) is a horrible place to be doing that. I knew Dean's sister would eventually bring him to Panther HQ, but I did not expect that. I like that Dean and his sister have a much better relationship than Kevin and his sister. Do we think this is the end of her involvement with the Panthers, or just her involvement with that particular guy?

Currently, Young Sheldon is set in the 1990s as well.

I think music is going to be one of the big things that seperates this series from the original. The original was wall to wall pop/rock hits, because the songs were not as expensive as they are now. Today, it would be incredibly expensive to license all of those songs, and you have to pay for more than just broadcast and reruns. You have to pay for broadcast, reruns, DVD/BluRay, and streaming. When The Wonder Years first aired, home video/DVD wasn't part of the deal to license the music, so they only had the rights for the original broadcast and reruns. Decades later, when they wanted to put the series on streaming/DVD, they had to go back and pay for the licenses all over again, and it was far more expensive than it had been originally.

I would love to see that happen. She is supposed to be watching him, and she is keeping on him, just at Black Panther headquarters instead of wherever thier parents expect them to be, like the library or the park/baseball field. It would be a great callback to "Brightwing" in the original series when Kevin starts spending time with Karen and some of her hippie friends. If he's 12, I don't think you can have that personal connection. He was born after the Bus Boycott, so he wouldn't have direct memories of that. He would have been 7 when the March on Washington happened, so unless his parents took him, it was an important thing happening on the news and something grown-ups were talking about, but I'm not sure how much of an impression it would have made on him. Unless at some point, his parents took him to hear King speak in person, I'm not sure the personal connection is going to exist for someone 12. I'm a younger person so maybe someone older can correct me on this. There's a huge difference between the death of a national civil rights figure/leader (MLK) and someone the character has known for thier entire life (Brian Cooper).

You are correct. I can't remember his job title without looking it up, but it was something confusing and complicated. Just from hearing the title, you would have no idea what he did. The older sister is already radicalized. Dean found a picture of her in the Black Panther uniform holding a gun. I figured one of the older siblings would be connected to the Black Panther party, because that would create the same intergenerational tension that existed in the original series between Karen (the hippie sister) and her/Kevin's parents.

I like that Lance knows that Brooke's first call when she wanted to celebrate was to Carey. Carey's day going wrong then working out in the end was fun to watch. My Season 3 Predictions Based on Pure Speculation: My guess is that we will skip over seeing the characters deal with lockdown. It will start off with Curtis in one of the many hosting gigs he has taken over from Carey recapping what everyone has been up to. We know Brooke is really good at social media when it comes to work. She will have convinced Carey to follow a bunch of nurses on Twitter and retweet them with the hashtag "RealNightNurses" and hashtags something like "Covid19" and "Heroes." This will keep Night Nurse trending/in the news, and it will make Carey look like someone who is spotlighting real people making a difference. I am not sure what else Carey will do during lockdown. Chase will spend lockdown taking voice/singing lessons. When season 3 starts he will about to launch an album where he duets with Alessia Cara. Alessia will be about to launch a perfume, a clothing line, or some other non-singing project. Pat will have spent lockdown taking time for herself. She will limit her social media use, especially posting. When she posts, it becomes a big deal. Her posts are about what she is doing to take care of herself and the importance of setting limits, saying no, and sticking to to the no. She accidently becomes a self-help and/or wellness influencer (I am not sure if influencer is the right word, but I couldn't come up with something better). When season three starts, she will be about to release a book with all of her advice/guidance. I hope the three siblings can connect with each other during lockdown. I like the idea of a siblings only virtual game night. Chase wants it to continue after the lockdown.

I think what's important is that it's a tragedy and the audience can connect with the idea of the devesting loss of the personal tragedy, but not nessesarily understand the nature of the tragedy itself (if that makes sense). When I first saw the original Wonder Years pilot, I did not know or understand that much about the Vietnam War, so that part didn't really connect with me. However, I did have an older brother so I could imagine how devestating it would be for my older brother to die young under any circumstances. The set up is, this horrible thing has happened and it's having an emotional impact on the characters, but I'm not sure the audience has to completly understand the event for the emotional impact to resonate.

You don't have to end the pilot with some big national event. As I pointed out earlier, the first episode of the original series ends with the death of Brian Cooper. It's a smaller more intimate tragedy. It's something all of the characters will remember but not the entire country. There are sudden and shocking deaths that happen all the time, like a fatal car accident.

Maybe. This series starts in April of 1968. The original series started in late summer of 1968. Brian Cooper goes off to Vietnam sometime in the summer of 1968 (we see him before the start of the school year). The Coopers and the rest of the neighborhood find out that Brian has died the first day of school. If they want to link the two series, it's the easist way to do to given the difference in geography. Do we know how old Dean's older brother is? I have so many questions that I hope we get answers to as the series progresses. Did the older brother enlist? Was he drafted? Has he done/will he do multiple tours? Also, in the original series the father fought in Korea. I have a feeling that Bill, Dean's father, did not serve in the military, but I could be totally wrong. Anything that I see on screen is the work of hair and make-up until I see him being interviewed between seasons or well after filming has wrapped. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I saw the most recent Psych movie and I don't think he had gray hair in that. Also, I think it's worth noting that the series is set in 1968 because people married younger than they do today, and people also started families earlier than they do today. I think of it as being sort of like dog years. 30 today is very different from 30 in the 1960s.

My prediction was that we were going to find out the older brother had died at the end of the episode as a callback to the original. I liked that they took it in a different direction and went with a national tragedy as opposed to a personal tragedy. If I were writing this new modern series, I would have the older brother come back alive, because it opens up so many interesting storylines about a black Vietnam Veteran readjusting to civilian life. I correctly predicted that one of the older siblings would be involved in with the Black Panthers. I am now going to predict there's an episode where the older sister (for some reason) ends up taking Dean to a Black Panther meeting or at least the local headquarters. Both series start in 1968 suburbia. This version is set in Alabama, the orginal version was set most likely in California, but it was never explicitly stated. Both families have the same number of siblings, but the birth order is different. In the modern version, it's oldest brother, middle child daughter, youngest son. In the original, it was older sister, middle brother, younger brother. In the original, the mother did not work outside the home at the start of the series and the father was middle management in an aerospace and/or military related company. The biggest difference between the parents relationship is that they are more openly affectionate towards each other in this series and have a more loving relationship.

I don't think it's diminishing writing skills. Writing a screenplay and writing a novel are two different skill sets. Not everyone can both. Some painters are fantastic at landscapes, but could not be able to paint a wonderful portrait. It's two different types of art.

Here is an article about how they had to rethink the entire season 2. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/united-states-al-season-2-premiere-afghanistan-1235017765/

In the original series, you had Vinny as the comedic character, but most of the other characters were more serious. In this series, you have her father, her younger, brother, and her best friend as more comedic relief characters. For the modern series, they leaned more towards the comedy, which makes sense because it's Disney and they are aiming at tweens/teens. The older series was more of a dramedy aimed at slightly more adult audience. If you haven't seen it, the episode of the original series on the 1992 L.A riot is a fantastic episode.

Is Dr. Kamealoha more advanced in her medical career than the young Dr. Howser was at the start of the older series? Something about the new series I do not like is the blending of family life and work life. When Doogie was at the hospital, he was on his own. His father had his own medical practice outside of the hospital for most of the series. I liked that it allowed for a clear seperation of work life and family life. Observation-not a Criticism: This show is very defintely aimed at a younger audience and feels more like a Disney tween sitcom. The original show was aimed more at adults although teenagers probably watched it too.

There was a nano-second when I thought it might happen, but I knew it probably wouldn't it. I found this a highly statisfying series finale. Ending on a heist was great. It was wild and enjoyable. It felt like everyone trying to do an over-the-top goodbye was a way of Jake and Holt dealing with loss. It was eaiser for them to plan something big and crazy instead of dealing of the loss of day to day contact with people they were all close to.

I agree. To me, this proves that Brooke was completely honest when she said she was happy that Lance had a serious girlfriend. I'm glad that they all get along. I would love to see more of them. Maybe Leah and Lance will try to set Brooke up with someone. Brooke and Lance having the same bad experience on different panels was fantastic. The running gag of every other person in the hospital shadowing someone for a role was great. I liked that as bad as Carey's day was going, he was willing to let a friend live out a strange but harmless fantasy. It's great that Carey still has Curtis as a friend. Sometimes you need someone to give you a much needed reality check. Dean Brennan was a total jerk. I beleive that Carey had no deeper motive than picking the hotest guy. He would make the decision based on looks. I'm hoping Carey will eventually get the kind of role he wants.

I totally agree with this. He can still do other things to keep his name out there/stay in the public eye, but he really wants to sing. I think he'd be willing to work with a vocal coach.