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Original Air Date: November 6, 1987 Review completed June 18, 2007 "Hands Across The Halls" The Warnimont's regular viewing of "Lifestyles of Pets of the Rich and Famous" is interrupted by a small fire in the opposite apartment. Mrs. Firestein is quite apologetic for the mishap, with most being sympathetic expect for grumpy Mr. Frank, who wants her out for the repeated alarms. Inside, Henry discovers that the fire is the result of burning pyjamas, thanks to Firestein's attempt to save the effort of pay dryers. Her situation turns out to be even worse than that, as her son is now married and strongly urging her to move into a nursing home for her safety. After finding out just how much Firestein has to lose, Punky and Cherie are determined to rally the building into helping her stay. A meeting of all tenants is called, but Mr. Frank's resistance combined with everyone else's busy lives almost sinks the idea. When Frank's father is revealed to be the one taking over Firestein's lease, Frank throws his full support into Punky and Cherie's plan, rallying the building and saving Firestein from the nursing home. Why yes, I HAVE been waiting to use that joke. What I haven't been waiting for is a chance to rehash some of my material from Season Two. At the beginning of this episode, I had a general mindset that this review would end up taking on a mostly positive light. I wouldn't call this a favourite episode or anything, but maybe it would be a holding episode after the upturn of "Divorce Anderson Style". As I got further along into my note-taking, however, I started to recognize a certain pattern. I was digging the jokes, and I could recognize certain themes from earlier shows, but then the main plot kicked in and left a sour taste in my mouth. In other words, it's the middle of Season Two moral block again. Aw, son of a crap. Then again, we start with probably the least dated topical references ever unleashed in the series. Who in 1987 would have thought that Calvin Klein could still be topical today? And let's face it, Joan Collins jokes never get old. (But how does a dog get a facelift?) The writers then throw us a major curveball: There's other people in the building! That's funny, I've never seen them before, and this is the 46th review I've written for this site. Something I have seen before that makes a long overdue return is the earthy family humour that tended to pop up in Season One. There's the Cromwells getting in a few shots at each other about who gets up with the baby, Firestein mentioning that bimbo her son married, and even the nice little father-son relationship shown at the end. Here's hoping that the writing team runs with this, because the episodes that did use it tended to be more thought out than some of their brethen. (Early Season One and "I Love You Brandon", for starters.) If the writing sees an upswing on the family situations, though, it goes back down for the villain of the piece. Mr. Frank makes his first appearance carrying a safe and a ship in a bottle. That is the least subtle prop decision since Stingy's piggy bank, which is actually a pretty apt comparison. Both are obsessed with money, both care about themselves far more than anything, and both are embarrassing as sin. Stingy, however, has better jokes. Aside from a brief gag about looking like a warthog, Frank just gets to snarl a lot. Well, okay, he pauses to nearly get his butt kicked by Betty too. As tends to happen, though, the protagonist gets the better writing. (Though a villain doesn't HAVE to be written like crap to get audiences to turn on them...) "I'm not usually forgetful when I bake my pyjamas" is a darn good line, though it doesn't get a laugh from the audience. Remember, this is the same audience that will laugh at everything out of Punky's mouth for the entire episode, even if it's only theoretically a joke. Also, I like how the show presents Firestein as a stunt pilot and doesn't even begin to bring up any gender issues that would have came up at that time. Well-presented idealism in action, I say. One funny line to note from Firestein is one where she mentions that she's been in her apartment for forty years. Of course, for that to work, you have to forget that the apartment across the hall served as the Whitney's apartment in "Milk Does A Body Good". Then, you also remember that this is the very same apartment in which we get out very first look at Punky in the series. Remember, the abandoned apartment? I almost considered writing it off as a subversive joke, but nothing in this episode convinces me that anyone was thinking subversive. There just wasn't another set to put the apartment's front door on. One bit of old continuity that is more successful is the obligatory Punky/Henry talk. This time around, someone remembered that there's usually a comfortable level of humour rolled into these to make them look less like ways to remind us of the plot. And in this case, George Gaynes and his reactions have got me laughing at crippling back pain. That takes talent. ("I'll go get Mrs. Johnson." "NO!") Also featuring a Golden Girls joke so subtle I nearly missed it. (C'mon, a Bea Arthur reference in 1987? What else could it be?) The meeting that comes about from this is also a laugh riot, but for more of the wrong reasons. First, I think Frank just got off a zinger at a competitor's show (The Lonnie George Show, was it?), but...what the heck IS it? Even Google couldn't find anything, no matter what variation I used. That doesn't rankle quite as much as the gigantic laughes at one of Punky's lines, though. YOU CAN LAUGH AT "Thank you chair.", BUT NOT AT A LINE ABOUT BAKING PYJAMAS?! The one funny thing I found in this segment is that Frank's father looks like either Stadler or Waldorf, I can't tell which. (If you don't know, watch some more of The Muppet Show, darnit.) Sadly, the largest thing I took from the end segment was the logical conclusion of the rest of the episode's main point. The episode's one-point agenda consists of, "Nursing homes are bad if the person doesn't want to go." Fair enough, 'tis a good point. The writing to show this point, though, is universally awful. The first "Hey, the nursing home really sucks" segment is like a freakin' list. I just can't feel that bad when it's all about as natural as gravel underwear, and the second part during the building meeting isn't much better. The half-acted line read on, "A hour?! Is that all?!" pretty much says it all there. If other episodes of this type (particularly the earliest ones) were nothing of what I expected from 80s television, then this episode was everything I expected from 80s television. I want the record to show that I tried to like the episode the same way I liked other borderline shows like "The Search" and "Urban Fear". And indeed, I can't pass this episode off as the same league of stinker as, say, "Punky's Big Story". But when I'm facing down an episode of Punky Brewster that I see as particularly unsubtle, I have to draw the line. Too much of the dialogue is right out of the psychology textbook, with a hint of the old "The More You Know" segments. None of this "it's just a kid's show" stuff either. The show's been better than that. Hopefully, it's not a long wait before it gets back there. - Jimmy Vibes |