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Original Air Date: November 10, 1985 Review completed July 16, 2006 "The Search" Mike assigns a project about drawing up the family tree, a task that has Punky less than thrilled (for obvious reasons by this point). Mike decides to help out by joining Punky to search for their natural birth mothers. After six weeks of searching, Henry finally hits a lead on Mike's mother... which turns out to be the woman herself, less than thrilled to find this intrusion of the past. Punky gets herself into a position to figure out more from her, finding out that she was an underaged mother who gave Mike up and has since moved on to have another family. Punky makes a plea for Mike based on her own experiences, and while she doesn't take it well at first, Mike soon gets a visit to his classroom for a joyful reunion. Ah-hahaha... check out the inside joke at the beginning of the episode. For the three people who haven't heard this story yet: Mrs. (Peyton B.) Rutledge is the original inspiration for the name "Punky Brewster", because that was her nickname when NBC President Brandon Tarkitoff knew her. She also apparently had some of the tomboyish traits that we see in Punky. So, basically, they've tracked down this original Punky Brewster and got her to make a guest shot in one of the episodes. Maybe a long way to go for a cute name moment, but hey, whatever get their chicken spicy. I had to laugh at Punky's attempt at sneaking into class. That it would never work is beside the point. Actually, I also have to laugh about Punky's attempts to raise her hand for "do you have a lot of family?". There's at least four people in that class who know full well that Punky is semi-adopted, and maybe more depending on how many people were with them last year. Also, Allan, in these first scenes, has a painful-looking scratch across his cheekbone, which makes you wonder what happened to Casey Ellison. (Still not as bad as Ami Foster's broken arm from way back at the beginning of Season One, though.) I'll just bring up a quick point here; it could probably seem insensitive that Mike is going on like crazy about family issues in assigning the lesson, but I like how it's written that Mike just goes on with the material at the time and saves the sensitive side of the issue until a lot later on. Left alone, it could have been a great plot point against the politically-correct phenomenon, by showing that Mike does have a job to do regardless of personal issues (with Punky and himself, if you'll remember). But they kind of blow it in a later scene where Mike says that Henry told him about Punky's mood. That doesn't make him look too observant. Something a little more interesting is Punky's evasiveness about the issue in the next scene. Okay, I'll admit that the dialogue does have a monologue feel to it, but the scene is pretty remarkable in that I don't think we've this kind of vunerability in Punky for quite some time. Sure, she's had a little fear of Henry put in her a few times since the start of the season, but she hasn't been like this since... jeez, since "I Love You Brandon", which was about a dozen episodes ago. Heck, in the past couple of episodes, she's been fighting fantasy monsters and been in a really bad play about drugs (or was that meant to be an episode?). I guess the creative team felt that Punky was getting to be too much of a fantasy figure... good thought. And now Mike's past is re-established and further defined... which makes me think that at this point, "Fenster Hall" isn't quite meant to have happened. Oh boy. It the mere thought of it weren't enough to blow a hole in continuity, I'd take a look at all of the attempted "Fenster Hall" retcons in this season and see what actually stuck and what disappeared. At any rate, though, Mike's whole situation being explained again makes me think that the writers were considering "Fenster Hall" a side trip in history at this point in the show's life, though as we'll see in "Changes", this doesn't hold for the rest of the season. Or they were just re-explaining things, since it makes perfect sense that Punky wouldn't know. Speaking of side notes: That chicken dinner looks good. Can you say "lunch shoot"? Heh. "Not bad for six weeks' work." Exposition down to the barest essential, ladies and gentlemen. It makes me wonder, though... at the beginning of the series, the search for Punky's mother went for, what, a couple of days? There was even another search during "Yes, Punky, There Is A Santa Claus" that went on for... er, a week or two sounds about right, if the fateful Santa job happened just before school let out for the holidays. Why was it six weeks' worth of searching now, then? Heh, only in the 80s could someone be "selling candy for fundraising" and actually get invited into the house. (Or, for that matter, the child would actually consider going into the house.) And that cover story is pretty funny, especially with how Punky thinks a tuba works (see Quotes). And for that matter, how Punky manages to just walk right back into the house after getting effectively kicked out, and she just keeps talking. We're already at the eighteen minute mark of the episode and things are just starting to perk, story-wise, but it does perk quite well. Something you don't see too often in explorations of families like this is the other side of the family, where the mother has moved on and where meeting with the son again would be far more complicated than could be imagined. The actual content of the episode only touches it on it briefly, but it greatly implies all of the problems involved in such a scenario, where it would be very possible that the lost branch of the family could serve to tear apart other family relationships. Not to mention issues like, well, like the fact that having Mike far earlier than the rest of the family would mean that there's another relationship in the mother's life that hadn't been disclosed. That the episode addressing it at all is kind of a shock on kid's television, but a pleasant one. And that, incidentally, is why I yell about episodes like "Just Say No" and "Tap Your Troubles Away". Even with the restrictions of format and the family audience, there's a lot more that the show can touch on, seriously or otherwise, than episodes like those do. Case in point cited above. And... man, this episode has gone really fast, because we're already at the climax. I didn't notice the time going. Um, anyways... I like the way that the scene plays out myself. It's an awkward scene, filled with pauses where people search for what to say, and odd topic switches, and in general, it really does look like two people that are meeting for the first time despite knowing of each other all their lives. And Punky ends with a prayer (again, Only In The 80s...) where she re-inforces the underlying theme of the show which has been kind of lost within all of these Super Brewster antics of the past few episodes. I realize that this review is more of a play-by-play than anything, but there is a reason. And no, it's not that it's approximately 350 degrees out while I'm typing this. (Not that that helps.) It more like that this is an episode in which the beauty of it states itself. Besides a little implication in the scenes where Lois (Mike's mother; Lois Collins) explores the negative side of having contact with Mike, the story is very up-front about the costs, consequences, and rewards of its events, and there's not really much I can add to something like that. It does its own work. It doesn't mean that I'm a lazy doink; I achieve that on my own merits. Punky comes down to earth, Mike finds a mother, and the series grounds itself a little bit. Not bad at all. - Jimmy Vibes LOIS: Tell me, what instrument do you play? PUNKY: The piano. LOIS: ...In band? PUNKY: Uh, did I say piano? I meant tuba. I'm getting [mumbling]... yeah, tuba. LOIS: [suspiciously] You don't seem big enough to carry a tuba. PUNKY: Well, I don't actually carry it... they sort of get it rolling down the hill; I jump inside, hang on, and blow. [attempts tuba blowing, which sounds more like a flute] |