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Original Air Date: March 9, 1986 Review completed April 2, 2007 "Accident Happen" Punky is writing in her diary about the events of the past few days: At Career Day, Punky had made a presentation about wanting to be an astronaut. Unfortunately for her inspiring presentation, the space shuttle Challenger had exploded soon after launch, killing all on board. America was observing national mourning, but Punky was hit especially hard. Having not wanted to see her dream die that soon, Mike pulled some strings and manageed to get the first man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, to have a talk with Punky about the disaster. He convinced her to go on with her dreams, and made her a member of the Young Astronauts. Thanks to this, Punky decides to be brave and keep right on going with thoughts of going into space. That point is what is going to make critical review of this particular episode like running through a minefield at night. While this episode does bring out all of the regulars and does use a story narrative, it's not so much a day in the life of Punky as it is a very small cross-section of a country reacting to a shocking event. That makes it a bit challenging: Is it bad form to crab about the pace when we're all supposed to know the way things are going to go about thirty seconds in? Is it possible to rightfully point out some over-reaction when the reactions could be very real, either for the actors or some of the people in contact with them? Heck, some people still had some strong reactions when I mentioned I was reviewing a sitcom episode dealing with the Challenger tragedy. I'll say one thing: It puts complaining about Cherie getting stuck in a fridge into perspective. In an unguarded moment, I once complained about "Accidents Happen" being a lowly episode, second only to "Just Say No" on my scale of worst episodes. That is indeed a harsh comment given what I had to say about that little drug comment. So, does that mean I'm going to puss out on giving one of my usual hatchet jobs here? No. There is still some form of a narrative here, and there are things to talk about that have nothing to do with that sad event. Just keep it in the back of your mind that there's more going on in this story than the story itself; this show was made for an American audience, and this episode was originally aired at a time when a lot of these reactions and thoughts were reality. So, back to the usual style, will I be pelted with rotten fruit if I make a pun about Punky's diary scenes using conservational dialogue? Okay, that was a bad joke. Bad Jimmy. Having said that, I think using the diary and having the episode in past tense was probably the best way to make this story work, especially given that there probably wasn't a lot of time to produce this particular episode. That said, it's freaky that this is the third show I've seen in about a week to use this device (both 8 Simple Rules and Life With Derek aired episodes like this recently). In a surprising move, the early parts of the episode also use a lot of humour. There's an extended gag about involving Brandon in card tricks that has Punky use lots of little groaners during the happenings. The first diary scene leading us into the main narrative has Punky make a few mis-spellings and having to battle her pen for a while. Henry even gets into it when he tries to palm his career off on everyone in the room. And Punky seems to hiccup at Henry in there too, but I'm not sure that was intended. Career Day comes off with a lot of humour too, partly due to being written at around 80 jokes per minute, and partly because the audience is up to about 12 on the LSD scale and are cheering for absolutely everything. Also, they got to save on the costumes by having Allan be Rambo, just like on Hallowe'en. Heh. Anything that gives us a run of Sylvester Stallone jokes can't be all bad. Then again, Punky got a nice low-budget astronaut outfit. Then again again, it appears that the suit is recycled from an old "Punky's Pointer" segment, at least according to the forums. Possible Inflammatory Statement #1: The snippet of the sequence dealing with the Challenger is very... deliberatly... timed. Is there a reason to make that part a flashback within a flashback? Oh, yes, to milk the emotion for a commercial cliffhanger. Just asking. All the same, it was a good job just using description from Punky to illustrate the sequence of events. Having the cast make reaction shots to off-screen footage may have been a bit much, and I'm pretty sure you just could not get away with using the actual news footage of the incident. And (and I know I note this every time), it has to be the 80s when a teacher can, off-the-cuff, ask the class to say a prayer. All of this genuine emotion and instances of real-life tragedy make me wonder all the more why they kept that piss-poor subplot with Henry in a dress. What the bilge barge is that in the episode for?! Mike gives one awesome reaction shot to it, but that's about ten seconds of enjoyment in a bit that goes on, and on, and I'll never know who in the writer room actually green-lit a sequence where Henry should pose with Buzz f'ing Aldrin while wearing blue floral print. Jeez, Henry is possibly my favourite character out of the bunch, so thanks a bunch for pulling that crap, episode. The 1930s called, it wants its material back. Oh, I guess I kind of glossed over an important point there: Buzz Aldrin is in this episode! Yes, first-man-on-the-moon Buzz Aldrin, Buzz f'ing Aldrin. Or, as I will now forever call him after this episode, [quick and deep] Buzz. In fact, it was pretty fun writing my point-form notes thinking of his name that way:
And back to the diary scenes for the end. Oh, how I wish I had more to say about those, but at least it's a nice last shot through the window. So pulling aside the circumstances surrounding the episode and its production, how does it fare? Okay, I guess. I really don't like Henry getting to look like an absolute nancy for most of the episode, but there's some good humour bits. At least, unlike "Just Say No", there's more of an urgency and a more alien situation behind the preaching. I suppose that's all I can really ask for. I don't have to necessarily like it, because this episode has a job to do. For America. - Jimmy Vibes |