|
|
|
|
Original Air Date: September 30, 1984 Review completed November 6, 2005 "Punky Finds a Home, Part 3" Henry starts things off pouty; why can't he be Punky's foster parent? He's ready to give up after Randi gives him three good reasons, but after Punky herself makes an appearance, she has a change of heart. Given that Child Services holds a court hearing within 72 hours of an abandoned child report, Henry has a chance to fight. Unfortunately, neither the prosecution nor the judge see things the same way, and it looks like the fight is over. Randi manages to convince the court to hear one last testimony and calls Punky to read her good-bye letter to Henry. The court relents, and custody of Penelope "Punky" Brewster is remanded to Henry Warnimont. I guess the best way to approach this review is to get the bad out of the way first. The thing I should disclaim is, yes, I'm going to go on for a while about little, buggy things. Really, though, the sum total of this episode is a positive, and I'll show why in a little while, but it's definitely not going to seem that way in the first half. Just be patient. Big issue number one, though, is a big one indeed. The first two episodes had a strong feeling of a story arc to them, taken both individually and together. The third, however, is a little worse for that. In particular, the scenes before the courtroom feel oddly disjointed, almost more like character bits to kill time than anything major in the story's development. I'll freely go on the record and admit to liking some of these (Punky's tales of Fenster, as told to Henry, are a hoot), but I'm one to call a spade a spade. And, for that matter, calling filler filler. Another nagging bug is a fairly sizeable part of the courtroom scene; the examination of Henry by the court. I guess the producers thought that it's a cool, behind-the-curtain moment to have an extended scene between George Gaynes and the prosecutor (played by his real-life wife), but who watching in 1984 would know that? For that matter, who watching now knows that? I ran across that tidbit once, almost by accident; otherwise I never would have known. Even worse about that particular segment is that it does something I've noticed annoys the living pee out of me: It makes Punky annoying. I think that's the point, as the end result of the initial court scenes is supposed to be the judge ruling against Our Heroes, but having Punky whispering asides at the judge actually could have been funny. Instead, she just sits up there and crabs. C'mon, I can crab anytime. Punky can be funny. Let me see funny, not crabby. Unfortunately, it's a by-product of switching the focus; no one on the writing team seems to be able to write Punky as a secondary character, and we'll see worse examples later on in the series. One last con to get out of the way, but I'm pretty sure that everyone will agree on this one; Eddie still gets too much focus. I've never gotten how the basic character concept is supposed to be funny anyway: "Hey, I got hired as a glorified repairman even though I'm completely unqualified! Har!" I could live with that, though, if the story didn't completely grind to a halt when his segments came up. In particular, his first segment forces a complete stop to the story, and it was a pretty important part given that it was when Randi and Henry made their decision to fight on Punky's behalf. They might as well have held up a sign saying, "We need to take a comedy relief break; we'll be back with Punky Brewster after this joke session." Smooth segue, fellas. Okay, the writers dropped the ball a few times. Let's go to the brighter spot of the actors: First, let's give the ball to Henry. Man, I love Henry in this episode. After two episodes of being vaguely crabby, he gets to cut loose all over those who'd bust his girdle, and George plays a good crank. There's a good number of nice lines that stick out, and it's all in the delivery. In particular, his downright annoyed comeback to prosecutor Lois Dent about the size of his apartment makes you laugh just for the sheer sardonic force of it all. Having said all that, it serves to make his attachment to Punky all the sweeter, since his crankiness otherwise really underlines that this is an unusual case, rather than just being able to write it off as, "Oh, Henry just likes kids." Kudos to George Gaynes for being able to handle that range. Remember, if you can think about the role in character terms, the actor's done their job. I'm a little more reluctant to hand the kudos to Punky, though. Soleil Moon Frye did okay in this episode, but the writers didn't really back her up. In this episode, Punky is just between her vunerability from the first two episodes and the tough tomboy that she'll become for the rest of the series. So we get more than a few scenes where she holds her own, and we even get to see her more mischevious side (like the aforementioned "stories from Fenster" part), but Punky doesn't seem all that affected by the goings-on until the first verdict against them. I'm not saying Punky has to be bawling her eyes out the whole time, but things get almost light-hearted at times, which seems a little weird. It'd be a LOT weird if it were any other character, but the fact that it's Punky doesn't completely excuse things. Conveniently forgetting about Eddie Deezen, we'll go on to the other big part of the episode: Talia Balsam's Randi. During the last episode, she seemed sort of an ill fit; with something defined to do here, though, she comes out much better. In particular, it was an interesting point to have Randi pulled between the rules defining a social worker and doing something for Punky; just like the real world, the legal and the ideal just don't meet well. I don't know if her methods would work in real life, but we'll get to that. One more acting mention goes to Allyn Ann McLerie, George Gaynes' wife and the woman behind prosecutor Lois Dent. She does her job portraying a shrill, by-the-book woman, and creates an interesting counter-point for her other character in "Henry Falls in Love" later down the road. Also, you cannot honestly tell me that she didn't have a little fun deflating George on-set. Alright, I've spent most of this review dwelling on "all right"'s and negatives, so what bumps up the episode for me? The ending. Let's be up-front and adult about it: There is absolutely no way that ending would happen in real life, both because getting a judge to re-open a case is effectively impossible, and because the basic issue still isn't dealt with. Being down-back and childish about it, though, I say "who gives a crap?" It's a kid's sitcom, it's vintage feel-good television, and we the fans are more going for the feel-good and a few laughs than a CSI-styled legal battle. Really, what else would you expect besides the good-hearted underdog(s) winning? I think it works quite well, considering what kind of a series we have established. So, the writing has more uneven spots than the floor of a Zellers store, but the ending is some nice payoff. Now, with the initial plot done, let's see what these characters can do when they're turned loose. - Jimmy Vibes Do the click |