The Facts Of Life - General Discussion

[Snow Apple]

I'm watching the episode about Jo's cousin played by a young Megan Follows. It's terrible but I love it anyway. Her frilly dress looks like my junior high graduation dress except mine was pink. 😆

[GHScorpiosRule]

2 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

I'm watching the episode about Jo's cousin played by a young Megan Follows. It's terrible but I love it anyway. Her frilly dress looks like my junior high graduation dress except mine was pink. 😆

I find it amazing how the styles in the 80s ranged from cute/awesome to cringeworthy/horrible!😂😂😂😂

[CeeBeeGee]

On 5/5/2020 at 9:59 AM, psychoticstate said:

Anyhow, the Runaway episode made me angry not just because Mrs. Garrett and the girls totally ignored the fact that Kristy, the hooker who befriended Tootie, was probably all of 15

I know that episode very well (I even wrote a review of it for imdb 🙂) but Kristy's situation is never made clear to Mrs. Garrett or the other girls. When the other girls are at the diner, Jo immediately figures out that Mike is a pimp but Kristy isn't in that scene, I don't think. Yes, I would've loved it had Mrs. Garrett figured things out and put her foot down to get Kristy out of there but that's part of what gives that episode its bleak power--that last shot, Kristy and Tootie looking at each other through the window, knowing that nothing is going to change for Kristy. It's really a very strong episode, even though Tootie is prominently featured (I can't stand her either a lot of the time either).

[Snow Apple]

Today had the episode about South Pacific as the school musical. It doesn't make sense for Tootie to play Nellie. Doesn't that change the whole point of her character? Tootie is not even a good singer.

Edited June 24, 2020 by Snow Apple

[CeeBeeGee]

9 hours ago, Snow Apple said:

Today had the episode about South Pacific as the school musical. It doesn't make sense for Tootie to play Nellie. Doesn't that change the whole point of her character? Tootie is not even a good singer.

RIGHT???! 

(I've been saying this for years. Nellie is written to be a sheltered, white person from Little Rock whose latent racism is exposed when it is revealed that Emile has two bi-racial children. And her audition is awful--I hate the way she ends "Wash That Man..." by staying on the note instead of climbing up the scale the way it's written in the score. And the limp, awkward way she renders "Some Enchanted Evening"...! She has that abortive jerk with her right arm, she's not focused--oh, she's terrible. She's not necessarily that unusual for the typical HS performer, it's just that everyone is saying "oh NO, Tootie HAS to audition, she's so GOOD." No, she isn't.  Background: someone who has performed in musical theater all her life, including professionally all over the world.) 

[Katy M]

23 hours ago, Snow Apple said:

Today had the episode about South Pacific as the school musical. It doesn't make sense for Tootie to play Nellie. Doesn't that change the whole point of her character? Tootie is not even a good singer.

I don't think schools usually worry about race when casting plays.  Can you imagine the kerfuffle if Tootie couldn't get the lead just because she was the only black girl at the school?

[Maverick]

Tootie wasn't the only black girl.  There were several others...and apparently they were all required to be in the Jermaine Jackson fan club (while apparently none of the white students were allowed to).  

[CeeBeeGee]

6 hours ago, Katy M said:

Can you imagine the kerfuffle if Tootie couldn't get the lead just because she was the only black girl at the school?

South Pacific is literally about white racism--that's the overriding message of the play. Not "everyone's a little bit racist"--white racism, specifically Nellie and Lt. Cable. Can you imagine the kerfluffle if Tootie is cast as "the racist"? Just do a different play that can be cast with no regard for race. And cast someone who can actually sell a song.

[Snow Apple]

1 hour ago, Maverick said:

Tootie wasn't the only black girl.  There were several others...and apparently they were all required to be in the Jermaine Jackson fan club (while apparently none of the white students were allowed to).  

Tootie also tried to make black friends in the episode where her new boyfriend criticized her for only having white friends and a white partner for the dance contest.

I remember Tootie saying they should hang out because their families are from the same place. "You're from Detroit too?"  "No, she means Africa" "I'm from Jamaica"

[Snow Apple]

I'm not someone who minds Tootie even though I can understand those who find her annoying. I just wish she didn't huff before speaking in a shrill voice. She didn't do that when she was young, and she did it less as she got older. But those middle years are hard to watch.

[ljenkins782]

On 6/25/2020 at 1:34 AM, CeeBeeGee said:

RIGHT???! 

(I've been saying this for years. Nellie is written to be a sheltered, white person from Little Rock whose latent racism is exposed when it is revealed that Emile has two bi-racial children. And her audition is awful--I hate the way she ends "Wash That Man..." by staying on the note instead of climbing up the scale the way it's written in the score. And the limp, awkward way she renders "Some Enchanted Evening"...! She has that abortive jerk with her right arm, she's not focused--oh, she's terrible. She's not necessarily that unusual for the typical HS performer, it's just that everyone is saying "oh NO, Tootie HAS to audition, she's so GOOD." No, she isn't.  Background: someone who has performed in musical theater all her life, including professionally all over the world.) 

The Roku Channel has switched over to the final seasons (they had 1-6 for a long time and now just have 7-9) and the episode with Stacey Q and the Broadway audition is the most ridiculous part of the entire "Tootie the actress" series arc. Someone who has wanted to be a professional actress for her entire life is SHOCKED to discover that: lots of other people will be auditioning; those other people will likely be very talented; the process is cutthroat; that she's not the strongest singer. I mean...duh.

Anyone who has devoted their life to the performing arts would have reached all of the above conclusions even at a regional theater level, let alone Broadway. And yeah, Kim Fields is no singer, so I wonder why they were always featuring her in musical theater pieces. You can act without singing.

I know these episodes aren't the most popular of the series, but I still enjoy the series up to the end. There are a lot of really memorable gems and Tootie and Natalie got a lot better acting-wise by the end. And Cloris Leachman is much better comedically than Charlotte Rae was, so that substitution (contrived as the circumstances were) works for me. Pippa was a bit of a low point, but she's not in that many episodes.

Today I watched the episode where they decided to convert that attic into a room for Tootie and Natalie and a couple of things bugged me. Jo's whole "I don't take money from Blair" thing is fine and all when Blair's trying to pay for her outright, but they were on a deadline to get this room finished and once the bank turned Jo down for a loan, Blair offers to LOAN her the money and she gets all shitty again. I get the "I don't take charity" thing as a principle, but you're going to hold up the plans of 3 other people while you scrape together a plan? Or you borrow the money now, same as you would from a bank, and then pay it back after the room is done. I strongly doubt money would become an issue between them when it was pocket change for Blair and I'm sure Jo would have been motivated to pay it off as soon as possible.

The other weird thing was Natalie needing to work extra hours at a cannery to get her $500. Wasn't she always portrayed as a wealthy, boarding school girl? I know she went on her kick of thinking she needed to work to get life experience for a writing career, but I didn't think that meant she cut herself off entirely from any help from her mother. Tootie never appears to have a job, but she never batted an eye at the cost of the renovation, so it doesn't seem unheard of it to still be getting money from the parents.

I also watched The Little Chill and while Sue Ann was ALWAYS annoying (and a bad actress), her behavior in this one really takes the cake. Besides the fact that she was full of shit the whole time, who the hell wants to be friends with someone who comes marching in spouting about all of their (alleged) accomplishments that way? In real life, that'd be the friend whose number you'd "lose" immediately after that reunion. 

One more random observation is that I kind of like most of Beverly Ann's outfits. She never went for the big shoulder pads or any of the other hideous 80s fashions and her outfits would fit right in if she wore them today. That's why it's better not to be trendy, go for classic clothes and you can wear them as long as you can fit into them. 😛 

[Katy M]

32 minutes ago, ljenkins782 said:

The other weird thing was Natalie needing to work extra hours at a cannery to get her $500. Wasn't she always portrayed as a wealthy, boarding school girl? I know she went on her kick of thinking she needed to work to get life experience for a writing career, but I didn't think that meant she cut herself off entirely from any help from her mother. Tootie never appears to have a job, but she never batted an eye at the cost of the renovation, so it doesn't seem unheard of it to still be getting money from the parents.

IIRC, Natalie had decided against college, and therefore wasn't in school.  Therefore her parents probably had more or less stopped giving her money.  Tootie was going to college, so her parents were probably just still paying for everything at that point.

[GHScorpiosRule]

37 minutes ago, Katy M said:

Therefore her parents probably had more or less stopped giving her money.

It would have been her mother, since her father died in season 4, I think. 

[Snow Apple]

Maybe Natalie didn't want her parent's money (I'm including her dad because he was a doctor and most likely set up a college fund) since the whole point was gaining life experience and travel before college, and taking money didn't fit into her view of that. Of course in reality, she's still sheltered and she knows her mom and the others are there if she fails, but still.........

Edited June 30, 2020 by Snow Apple

[Maverick]

In the episode where Natalie graduates, her mother makes it very clear that she will not support Natalie financially.  "That's not fair!" Natalie screams, but her mom sticks to her guns.   

 Beverly Ann was such a pointless character.  They had to invent Andy being a foster kid in order to give her some plot purpose.   I suppose it was better to have Beverly Ann be the clueless older woman than continue to drag Mrs. Garret into that to role.   During season 7, they increasingly wrote her as some dottering old woman.    For a character that started as a maid on Diff'rent Strokes and had grown to be an independent business woman, the final season wasn't overly kind to her character.   Blair suffers a similar character assassination where she's often portrayed a straight up blonde ditz rather than the intelligent, artistic if image conscious and self-absorb young woman she was in the earlier seasons.

 Watching in reruns, I just can't with Jo.  I know she''s the golden character that shook things up and saved the show, But she never loses that chip on her shoulder.   She doesn't like rich people, but she only takes it out on Blair.   Most of the other girls at Eastland are well off, if not outright rich--including Natalie and Tootie.   She can never admit, even grudgingly, that Blair is her friend and even when she's forced to say something nice about Blair it's not in the same zip code as believable.   

[ljenkins782]

17 hours ago, Maverick said:

In the episode where Natalie graduates, her mother makes it very clear that she will not support Natalie financially.  "That's not fair!" Natalie screams, but her mom sticks to her guns.   

Ah, okay. I tend to skip all of the graduation episodes, they just don't hit the right notes for me most of the time. I just assumed it was more like what @Snow Apple said, she saw it as being 'independent' despite having a safety net. 

It's pretty funny to me that Natalie would be outraged about her mom not supporting her, since she seemed to equate struggle with "real life" that she felt she needed in order to be a writer. Her ideas about being a writer were pretty much on par with Tootie's idea of being an actress, it was like they picked something in junior high and just went through life announcing that that was what they'd be, without ever really knowing what either one was about. 

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Beverly Ann was such a pointless character.  They had to invent Andy being a foster kid in order to give her some plot purpose.   I suppose it was better to have Beverly Ann be the clueless older woman than continue to drag Mrs. Garret into that to role.   During season 7, they increasingly wrote her as some dottering old woman.    For a character that started as a maid on Diff'rent Strokes and had grown to be an independent business woman, the final season wasn't overly kind to her character.  

I wasn't bothered by her or by Andy because I liked both of them and found them funny. It added something to the show for me, unlike Shaun Cassidy's character, Pippa, Kelly the punk kid, or even George Clooney's character, which is really only notable because of what he would go on to become. 

Mrs. Garrett's role in her latest seasons was not only diminished, it was all over the place. She's in school, she's got a friend accusing her of sleeping with her late husband, she's got some old boyfriend coming back into her life from Wisconsin, who I believe is a DIFFERENT old boyfriend from the one she ended up marrying and going to the Peace Corps with...it was all so disjointed.

There was a spate of episodes between seasons 6 & 7 that seemed like genuine standalone pieces and not part of an ensemble series. I'm not sure if that was intended to disguise the absence of Charlotte Rae, but the weirdness of those episodes hurts the show way more than no Mrs. Garrett would have, since she wasn't even close to being a focal point of the show by that point.

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Watching in reruns, I just can't with Jo.  I know she''s the golden character that shook things up and saved the show, But she never loses that chip on her shoulder.   She doesn't like rich people, but she only takes it out on Blair.   Most of the other girls at Eastland are well off, if not outright rich--including Natalie and Tootie.   She can never admit, even grudgingly, that Blair is her friend and even when she's forced to say something nice about Blair it's not in the same zip code as believable.   

I do think the barbs between her and Blair were mutual and ultimately good-natured (though Blair was able to cross that line into sincerity more often and more believably, considering she's the more fortunate one in life, it makes sense that she could cross the aisle a little easier), but the chip on the shoulder part about Blair's wealth was annoying in the ways that she put her pride above all other considerations.

There's the example I posted earlier about her holding up the construction on the room that the 4 of them were building because she couldn't bear to even take a loan, but there was also the time that she lost her financial aid and didn't have a room at Langley. She refused any kind of financial help, but had no problem crashing on the floor of Blair's single room, inconveniencing her, and eventually getting Blair in trouble with the dorm board despite her being a paid up resident.*

*That dorm monitor bit cracked me up. I still want to know if that was a thing into the 80s, I think there was such a thing as a housemother or dorm monitor type role earlier in the century, but I have to imagine it had mostly become obsolete by the 80s. I had an extra bed in my triple dorm room when someone dropped out mid-semester and we had guests sleeping in our extra bed or all over the floor on a regular basis and no one ever asked/cared whether they were students or not.

[JAYJAY1979]

Jo proved that shaming someone with money made her no better than the wealthy people she didnt like.

Nowadays Jo would be considered admirable for this trait..but back than, she had to swallow crow.  I was always team Blair 

[Snow Apple]

I saw the first days of college episodes and Jo was acting awful. She refused go to the financial office and admit her parents were poor, and refused to accept money from Blair. So what did she go to Blair for? It's not Blair's fault and she also can't fix it if you don't tell her what you want. All Jo did was put them both at risk for expulsion.

[ljenkins782]

On 7/6/2020 at 4:21 PM, Snow Apple said:

I saw the first days of college episodes and Jo was acting awful. She refused go to the financial office and admit her parents were poor, and refused to accept money from Blair. So what did she go to Blair for? It's not Blair's fault and she also can't fix it if you don't tell her what you want. All Jo did was put them both at risk for expulsion.

Exactly. It was all about her pride and the fact that she found it totally acceptable to impose on Blair for an indeterminate length of time but refused to take financial help was annoying. 

I watched the episode where Charlie (Jo's dad) wins a magazine sweepstakes for $300,000 and even accounting for the lower cost of living in the 80s vs now, the math in that episode just did not add up. He bought Jo a mink (seems like the ultimate waste of money considering Jo's usual wardrobe) that cost $25,000, in addition to buying cars, renting office space for no reason at all, and spending money on a million other things. 

He ended up "losing" it all in some investment, but I don't see how he even had any money to invest. Also, he was like "when you have money, people want you to invest in things so you need a place for them to call" as a reason for leasing an entire office in New York, but really, was $300,000 such an incredible pot of wealth? 

I mean, it was a fictional sweepstakes on a fictional show, why not just make it a million dollars?

[ivygirl]

On 7/13/2020 at 1:23 PM, ljenkins782 said:

Exactly. It was all about her pride and the fact that she found it totally acceptable to impose on Blair for an indeterminate length of time but refused to take financial help was annoying. 

I watched the episode where Charlie (Jo's dad) wins a magazine sweepstakes for $300,000 and even accounting for the lower cost of living in the 80s vs now, the math in that episode just did not add up. He bought Jo a mink (seems like the ultimate waste of money considering Jo's usual wardrobe) that cost $25,000, in addition to buying cars, renting office space for no reason at all, and spending money on a million other things. 

He ended up "losing" it all in some investment, but I don't see how he even had any money to invest. Also, he was like "when you have money, people want you to invest in things so you need a place for them to call" as a reason for leasing an entire office in New York, but really, was $300,000 such an incredible pot of wealth? 

I mean, it was a fictional sweepstakes on a fictional show, why not just make it a million dollars?

This always bugged me, too! I always try to guesstimate how much he spent, and he would have blown through that cash (before taxes!) in no time. To do that, he wouldn’t just be a spendthrift; he’d be incapable of basic math. 
 

And yeah, I’m sure Jo would have preferred a new Ducati or Triumph versus a fur coat! I guess that was just a device to show how wasteful he was being.

[blondiec0332]

10 hours ago, ivygirl said:

And yeah, I’m sure Jo would have preferred a new Ducati or Triumph versus a fur coat! I guess that was just a device to show how wasteful he was being.

It was also the 80s  and when you saw a woman wearing a fur coat you were supposed to think she was rich and classy.  Not so much Jo's generation (which is my generation) but her dad's generation.  Nowadays you see a fur coat you think animal killer.

[Snow Apple]

The girls made a big deal about Natalie sleeping with Snake after a year of dating and Lisa wouldn't even appear in the episode, but nobody blinked an eye when Jo pretended to live with a guy when she was house sitting for Richard Moll. What's up with that?

[Robert Lynch]

Can anybody explain the issues Geri Jewel had with Charlotte Rae? It surprised me because Charlotte has an autistic son and Geri saw her in such a negative light. I don't know which side is right, but it seemed that Jewell had no good memories of Charlotte herself.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Robert Lynch

[Katy M]

1 hour ago, Robert Lynch said:

Can anybody explain the issues Geri Jewel had with Charlotte Rae? It surprised me because Charlotte has an autistic son and Geri saw her in such a negative light. I don't know which side is right, but it seemed that Jewell had no good memories of Charlotte herself.

This is from a MeTV article

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Like all the young stars on the show, Jewell also recalled a cherished friendship with Charlotte Rae who she said, "Charlotte Rae was very supportive of me. I remember she gave me a book after we did the first episode … and it was a book on love and she wrote inside, ‘I’m very proud of you. We love you. Your friend Char.’ I still have that book."

https://www.metv.com/stories/geri-jewell-told-the-sweetest-story-at-the-heart-of-one-of-the-facts-of-lifes-most-popular-episodes

[Robert Lynch]

2 hours ago, Katy M said:

This is from a MeTV article

https://www.metv.com/stories/geri-jewell-told-the-sweetest-story-at-the-heart-of-one-of-the-facts-of-lifes-most-popular-episodes

Thanks! I probably read a rumor or something. Thank you for the article.

[Maverick]

 The other day the episode was on with the swim team calendar that had everyone clutching their pearls.  Of course, we only see the characters (including George!) oogling the guys and don't see the calendar ourselves.  You do get a couple of quick glimpses though and the funny thing is, the guys aren't in swimsuits.   You can tell one guy is wearing jeans and an unbuttoned shirt.  Scandalous!   You'd think these guys were wearing thong bikinis flossing their asscrack and instead they're more demur than a Studs and Spurs calendar from Walgreens.  

[Snow Apple]

Today I saw the episode where Blair and her baby sister Bailey got stuck in an elevator. At one point, she was on the phone and identified herself as David Warner's eldest daughter. As far as I know, she's his only daughter. Bailey has a different dad.

I just thought it was funny they forgot that detail.

 

 

[ljenkins782]

16 hours ago, Snow Apple said:

Today I saw the episode where Blair and her baby sister Bailey got stuck in an elevator. At one point, she was on the phone and identified herself as David Warner's eldest daughter. As far as I know, she's his only daughter. Bailey has a different dad.

I just thought it was funny they forgot that detail.

Blair's made some allusions to a variety of step-parents over the years, it's definitely possible that there are step-siblings out there as well.

Season 7 (and parts of the end of Season 6) had some seriously strange episodes, I'd love to know the background on the writing of some of these episodes. The other day, they showed the one where the reporter comes back to Eastland and they all reminisce. In any other show (the Golden Girls and Family Ties spring to mind), that would be a clip show, the character would reference the event and then they'd show a a minute or so from that episode. But not here, they were each just standing under a tree talking to an unseen interviewer. I guess there were some insights in their words, but it's always struck me as really odd the way it was structured.

But Jazzbeau, 2 guys from Wisconsin, the episode above with Blair in an /elevator for a whole episode, Jo taking ballroom dancing lessons, Mrs. Garrett's friend accusing her of adultery, etc., it was a long streak of really odd episodes. Not my favorite era of the show.

[Maverick]

 I'll add the swim team calendar, stakeout and Alice in Wonderland birthday party to the odd list.   The worst thing character-wise about 7 was the way Mrs. Garrett devolved.   From the way she was portrayed as some inept businesswoman who was too silly to manage her insurance to the way they treated her as the daft old aunt in the attic in the stakeout episode she just doesn't come off well in this season.   

Season 8 has some doozies too.  I couldn't care less about Beverly Ann's ex and had totally forgotten the episode where Cliff returns.  I don't even remember him being written out.  It seems like he was in one episode and then two episodes later Blair was on a date with some random frat guy.  Having Cliff ask Jo out was just weird.

  I never noticed it before, but in season 8 they use some kind of flute musical bit every time they do a scene transition.   Once you notice it, you can't not notice it and it super cheesy and annoying.  

[Katy M]

1 hour ago, Maverick said:

Season 8 has some doozies too.  I couldn't care less about Beverly Ann's ex and had totally forgotten the episode where Cliff returns.  I don't even remember him being written out.  It seems like he was in one episode and then two episodes later Blair was on a date with some random frat guy.  Having Cliff ask Jo out was just weird.

Was Cliff the one who asked Blair to marry him, but she turned him down because she wanted to concentrate on her art?  

[GHScorpiosRule]

16 minutes ago, Katy M said:

Was Cliff the one who asked Blair to marry him, but she turned him down because she wanted to concentrate on her art?  

She turned him down because she fell out of love with him. That set her off on the splurge of dating multiple guys, scheduling them in the morning, afternoon, and evening--to punish herself for not being able to remain in love with a good guy.

[ljenkins782]

On 10/1/2020 at 1:46 PM, GHScorpiosRule said:

She turned him down because she fell out of love with him. That set her off on the splurge of dating multiple guys, scheduling them in the morning, afternoon, and evening--to punish herself for not being able to remain in love with a good guy.

No, she turned him down because he was taking a residency in Texas and she wasn't ready to leave NY behind, give up school, and get married at 21. That was the episode where she dreams about the girls and Mrs G reuniting in the crazy, space age future world of the year 2000, lol. Blair realized that if she got married at that moment, she would never have experiences of her own, she'd just be Mrs. Cliff. 

Ironically, Lisa Whelchel herself pretty much married her Cliff IRL and then 25 years later, she's getting a divorce, and going on Survivor doing all these reflective talking heads about finally getting to do something just for herself. Made me chuckle that she didn't learn the same lesson that Blair did at the time.

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I'll add the swim team calendar, stakeout and Alice in Wonderland birthday party to the odd list.   The worst thing character-wise about 7 was the way Mrs. Garrett devolved.   From the way she was portrayed as some inept businesswoman who was too silly to manage her insurance to the way they treated her as the daft old aunt in the attic in the stakeout episode she just doesn't come off well in this season.   

The Alice in Wonderland one was definitely odder than odd. The weirdness of the party followed by the random old lady living with them...strange. Was she supposed to be a test stand-in for Mrs G, since Charlotte Rae wanted out? 

And yeah, somewhere around the time she went back to school, the character's general sense seemed to go out the window.

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Season 8 has some doozies too.  I couldn't care less about Beverly Ann's ex and had totally forgotten the episode where Cliff returns.  I don't even remember him being written out.  It seems like he was in one episode and then two episodes later Blair was on a date with some random frat guy.  Having Cliff ask Jo out was just weird.

I wasn't too bothered by the Cliff/Jo thing because it seemed entirely platonic. Blair already had a date to the dance and Jo agreed to go with Cliff so he'd have a reason to be there, I guess, since he wasn't a student anymore. 

Was he back for good or just visiting? I remember the one where he goes on a date with an actress who's going to school there, but I can't remember if that's before or after he moved away.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Rainn Wilson did a tour of his home for Architectural Digest and for some unexplained reason, Mindy Cohn makes an appearance. Now I want to know if they're neighbors or friends or if they just randomly thought it would be funny.

 

[ljenkins782]

Today's AntennaTV lineup is the one where Blair's friend takes Jo to the cotillion followed by the one where Tootie meets a black guy who accuses her of being too white.

The wide swing of Kim Fields' acting skills is on full display in watching these back-to-back. In the first episode, Tootie is snarky and understated, it's very funny and natural. In the second episode, Tootie is shouty, abrupt, and entirely wooden. Granted, the writing in this episode is uniformly terrible, but Kim Fields just does not do drama well.

[Snow Apple]

They recently showed the first season with all the extra girls and Kim was so cute and natural. A lot of child actors lose their nature acting ability in their tween/teen years. (Tina Yothers spring to mind) Kim got better again as an adult and stopped huffing/puffing and shouting. But those few years in the middle are rough to watch.

[ljenkins782]

I watched the 2-parter spring break episode today, 2 very funny episodes except for the utterly ridiculous Blair and the handyman storyline. She falls in love with the guy overnight and he asks her to move to Alaska for 2 years? Um, okay. 

Also, the dialogue in those scenes could not have been clunkier. We get it, they come from different worlds, it didn't need to be explained 100 different ways. And just like with Jo, this guy is adamant that he won't take money from Blair, so he tells her she needs to be ready to give up everything she has and the lifestyle she's had? How exactly is that fair? Hey, I'm too proud to take your money, so you'll have to live like a pauper despite being independently wealthy. That's one hell of a lot of pressure to put on yourself to ask someone to give up everything just to be with you.

And again, this was after ONE DAY of knowing each other. Ugh, such a stupid thread woven through 2 otherwise great episodes.

[JAYJAY1979]

The one organic thread on the show was the Jo/Blair connection.  It develops and evolves over time like in real life.  The episode where both went home to NY..and both realized they'd changed due to the influence of one another was a turning point of their friendship..imho.

It's why the reunion feels incomplete because Jo would have knocked some reality into Blair over her hubby...while Jo would have helped Jo not be so quick to judge people.  They were good for one another.

 

[Katy M]

On 11/2/2020 at 4:59 PM, Snow Apple said:

They recently showed the first season with all the extra girls and Kim was so cute and natural. A lot of child actors lose their nature acting ability in their tween/teen years. (Tina Yothers spring to mind) Kim got better again as an adult and stopped huffing/puffing and shouting. But those few years in the middle are rough to watch.

Just a tangent on this.  I recently saw something that Kami Cotler (Elizabeth from the Waltons) had to say about this.  Someone had asked her if she liked watching herself in old epsiodes. She said she doesn't mind watching the ones where she's little, but she doesn't like watching when she's older.  She said that when she was little, she was just having fun and didn't realize she was acting (paraphrase, I don't remember exactly what she said but that was the gist), but when she got older, she got self-conscience and awkward knowing that the cameras were on her an people were watching.

 

1 hour ago, JAYJAY1979 said:

The one organic thread on the show was the Jo/Blair connection.  It develops and evolves over time like in real life.  The episode where both went home to NY..and both realized they'd changed due to the influence of one another was a turning point of their friendship..imho.

I remember liking that episode, but it seemed a bit weird that Blair's friend got all upset when Blair offered to make tuna salad to solve her friend's problem of having no food. Blair's friend was the worst and even before Blair met Jo she wasn't that ridiculous, IMO.

[Snow Apple]

So Tootie wanted to be an actress since she was a kid but had no clue she needs a headshot to audition for a Broadway show? Ok.

For a show that tries to be realistic, they put in silly details sometimes. Especially in the later seasons.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Snow Apple

[Snow Apple]

I think I asked this before but how did Tootie's boyfriend Jeff go from being illiterate to becoming a marine biology major at Penn State in one year? 

I believe it's completely possible but it probably takes longer than one or two years.

Edited January 10, 2021 by Snow Apple

[Maverick]

 Who the hell selected the episodes for the Cloris Leachman tribute?  The last two episodes of the series?  Really?   Beverly Ann is barely in the first part and the second part is a backdoor pilot with only Blair and cameo from Jo.  Most of the episodes from the last two seasons are dreck but the ones where she adopts Andy or the 60s episode would at least showcase Cloris, which was the whole point.  

[JAYJAY1979]

11 hours ago, Maverick said:

 Who the hell selected the episodes for the Cloris Leachman tribute?  The last two episodes of the series?  Really?   Beverly Ann is barely in the first part and the second part is a backdoor pilot with only Blair and cameo from Jo.  Most of the episodes from the last two seasons are dreck but the ones where she adopts Andy or the 60s episode would at least showcase Cloris, which was the whole point.  

I was hoping to see the 'it's a wonderful life' episode.  It inadvertently played on the face the girls were capable of living their lives without a lot of guidance from a mother figure.

She was funny as Beverly Ann, but it was a tall order having her fill Charlotte Rae's shoes no matter how talented she was.

[ljenkins782]

On 1/31/2021 at 2:39 AM, Maverick said:

 Who the hell selected the episodes for the Cloris Leachman tribute?  The last two episodes of the series?  Really?   Beverly Ann is barely in the first part and the second part is a backdoor pilot with only Blair and cameo from Jo.  Most of the episodes from the last two seasons are dreck but the ones where she adopts Andy or the 60s episode would at least showcase Cloris, which was the whole point.  

Aww, I didn't realize she'd passed away. 

But yeah, those 2 episodes are possibly the actual worst 2 episodes to choose for a tribute to her. The 2-parter where we first meet her, the classic 7 Little Indians, the one with the dreamed flash forward to when the girls were old and BA was super old, the "it's a wonderful life" homage, any one of those would have been far better as a tribute.

[CeeBeeGee]

I'm watching a S7 episode, "We Get Letters," and it feels really off-brand for this show. Mrs. Garrett's old friend comes to visit and accuses Mrs. G of having had a years-long affair with her now deceased husband. She's so cold and angry about it, and then the others get wind of what's up and Natalie actually believes it. I'm wondering who okayed this script--it's kind of repulsive watching an unpleasant person say unpleasant things to Mrs. G and then have Natalie repeat them. It's just such a weird misfire of an episode.

[Maverick]

Many of the episodes in the Over Our Heads years were out there.  They were trying to go for something really dramatic with Natalie because of that episode years earlier where she caught her father with his mistress.  But yeah, Natalie should have had much more faith in Edna.   

[CeeBeeGee]

1 hour ago, Maverick said:

Many of the episodes in the Over Our Heads years were out there.  They were trying to go for something really dramatic with Natalie because of that episode years earlier where she caught her father with his mistress.  But yeah, Natalie should have had much more faith in Edna.   

Right? In what world is Natalie justified in repeating that crap to her face, asking her to deny it? How many times has Mrs. G saved your ass? And the second conversation with the friend, she's so nasty and sarcastic--I would've been hard put not to slap her face and show her the door.

[Snow Apple]

I hated that episode and I hated that friend.

[ljenkins782]

 

4 hours ago, CeeBeeGee said:

I'm watching a S7 episode, "We Get Letters," and it feels really off-brand for this show. Mrs. Garrett's old friend comes to visit and accuses Mrs. G of having had a years-long affair with her now deceased husband. She's so cold and angry about it, and then the others get wind of what's up and Natalie actually believes it. I'm wondering who okayed this script--it's kind of repulsive watching an unpleasant person say unpleasant things to Mrs. G and then have Natalie repeat them. It's just such a weird misfire of an episode.

Yes, this was one of the many bizarre episodes during this era of the show. But the writing on this one was so weird and cryptic, it took SO long to get to the conclusion that Mrs. Garrett hadn't had an affair with the guy. 

The show's "brand" went so far off the tracks around this time, a casual viewer who tuned into just one episode or another would have a hard time figuring out what the show was about. 

[Snow Apple]

Yeah, the later episodes were disconnected. The show started of about high school so you know what it's about. Then Edna's Edibles which is still ok because it's about college and high school students balancing work and school.

Then it went of the rails.

[Snow Apple]

I saw an episode of Different Strokes from the 1st season and Mrs. Garrett said she's going to visit her sister Beverly. Did they ever mention Beverly Ann on TFOL before she showed up? If not, that's some amazing continuity.