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Original Air Date: November 11, 1987 Review completed July 23, 2007 "It's A Dog's Life" Henry is just about to walk a very antsy Brandon when Punky walks in. Punky, however, ignores her responsibilities as owner to do some shopping for a yacht trip the next day. As a result, the house is trashed when Henry gets back, and Punky is grounded. Punky grumbles as she falls asleep about the easy life of a dog, leading to a dream where Punky gets to find out for herself. After waking up, Punky is ready to be a lot more aware of Brandon's needs. As a matter of fact, I can think of two episodes that use this concept. Okay, three if you want to count the "The Perils of Punky" ghost story, and four if you count it as two parts. But by the purest definition of the form, there's two of these: "My Aged Valentine" and "It's A Dog Life". And if you really look at the two, it's actually one format with two plots, since these stories do things in the exact same order with the exact same percentage of time dedicated to each major part. Punky does something questionable each time to give reason for the dream sequence, both dreams are around the same length, and both have Henry speeches before and after. And what did I think of the father of this format? Looking back, it went something like, "There's good parts, and the dialogue people had some good inspiration at a few points, but the episode is pretty boring when taken as a whole." Hmm. What can I think of to change that statement? Er, I can substitute "animal trainers" for "dialogue people". That's about it, really. I sure can't say that about the animal dressers. Yikes, Brandon's been Queer Eyed. The first cue that this may be a longer ride than last time is, er, when Punky and pals announce their own ride; yes, this is an Attack Of The Music episode. Some of the earlier episodes went nuts with the synth, leading to some really overdone synth work, and we're going to get it here too. Seriously, did there need to be a big pause for a musical sting? Also, Punky's usual high standard of morality is going to be suddenly cut off in this episode *sigh*. Seriously, apart from the dream, Punky thinks very little about taking care of a pet that has seen her through some serious times. That's odd enough behaviour without having such a point brought exactly one episode ago during troubles with a best friend. That is just annoying inconsistent right there. Maybe I have to take back my crack at the costuming department after the mess scene. Wow, now THAT'S a mess! And those are some nice boxers on Brandon. Maybe Brandon should have got some of the dialogue too; Betty in particular gets in a very long way to try and call Henry a hothead, and it doesn't seem much more clever than just saying, "Henry, you hothead, calm down." And there's the overdone music cues again when Brandon sits up. Arrgh! After that, not much of anything, more of Punky acting on the edge of her character, and cue dream sequence. One major difference to point out here is that while "My Aged Valentine" fell on its butt when the dream started, this one gets better once we're in Fantasyland. Soleil Moon Frye gets a crack at voicing Brandon and doing a lot of dog acting here, and that's just looks like a lot of fun. Punky even gets a big cardboard "BRANDON" collar here. Nice touch. I'm still wondering how she thinks Henry can tell that the "body switch" has happened, though. (Out-of-story thought: How many bones do you want to put on at least a few dog-related pranks on the set? If the caterers were in on it, Soleil could have been ZINGED!) More dogged fun... man, even for Punky, the non-Margaux sailing suits are way out of taste. Er, um... after the fashion shock wore off, I noticed that the sound guys were overdubbing dog noises onto Punky's more dog-like moments. I'll give some points for that. They kind of get wiped out after the line "A dog is totally at the mercy of human beings." comes up. Sounds like the thesis of a third-grade essay. And then it follows up by a verbal step guide to acting like a dog that sounds like a class. This is making it really tough to enjoy AND critique. I've got to speed this up; I'm drowning in detail. For some reason, the Tenderheart cookie jar has to die about halfway between here and the end. I think I speak for all the 80s people when I say: NOOOOO!!! Also, I did get a good laugh in when Henry made a trip to Finland and back in about fifteen seconds, and then Lars came in with a really bad Finnish accent and looking a lot like a bad costume for George Gaynes. Which is weird, because Gaynes was actually born in Finland. I guess he wasn't there long enough to pick up any of the language. To end, we have a big speech of understanding between Punky and Henry. Strict to the format, not really positive or negative. Punky does smarten up a bit, so that's a point there I guess. This was a pretty disappointing episode all told. Following up "Best Friends" didn't help it much, but there wasn't much of a reason for a whole bunch of the old bad habits to come back, or for the whole episode to follow such a strict and easily noticeable template. Worst of all, I came into this review after a very long, Harry Potter-bombarded week at work and still ended up not liking the week's Punky much better. I suppose I could fill out the review a bit more with the minor points I liked, or make a few allowances for some of the plot holes, but I'm not seeing the point. This wasn't a fun episode to watch, and drowning in the minutiae isn't going to reverse that. The good part? It wasn't "Just Say No". There's your high note to end on. Good thing next week's episode is more to talk about, right? - Jimmy Vibes |