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Original Air Date: November 17, 1987 Review completed September 9, 2007 "The Anniversary" The circus comes to town May 29th, and everyone is excited. Except, oddly, for Cherie, who goes to ridiculous lengths to avoid any kind of commitment or conversation about the date. After a few attempts, Punky forces the reason out of her: May 29th is the day her parents died, killed in a car accident as they drove to pick Cherie up from school. Punky finds out from Betty that Cherie has not even gone to visit her parents' gravesite, so Punky decides to give her some closure and take her to see it. After a large amount of resistance, Cherie is brought to see them, and she finally confronts her feelings of grief. So, what does this week's show bring to the table? Well, does anyone remember Cherie's parents? No worries if you don't, because that plot point has been brought up all of once in the show's history. In that respect, it's an odd choice to build a story around this late in the game, but it's a pleasant surprise. First of all, no filler details. There's nothing outside of the big theme that I haven't talked about somewhere in the previous fifty-five reviews. We open on a western scene that re-uses Margaux being target practice (more literaly this time), have Betty getting spooked at the end, and really, you could write the comic scenes yourself by this point. Well, okay, Henry loses badly to Brandon at gin. There you go. Other than that, the comedy just stops the story in a slightly annoying fashion. To the ACTUAL point, I can't help but wonder a little why Betty never brought up the subject of Cherie's parents to Henry. I can understand why Cherie never did, and why Betty wouldn't talk to Punky about it, but Betty never mentioned it to her partner in crime (prevention)? Odd. But then again, Henry's not really a part of this episode beyond "he's part of the cast, he should get some lines". It isn't about him. Neat touch: When Betty talks about the situation, she refers to Cherie's parents as "my son and daughter". No, I'm not angling for a really bad implication, I'm thinking more of a really well-written implication of how close Betty was to her son- or daughter-in-law that she would drop the legalese and refer to them so familiarly. Another thing I've griped about in the past that got fixed: They turned the audience microphones off for the graveyard scenes. I can't rememeber which one now, but there was an episode last season where a big dramatic scene ended up with quite a bit of oddly-placed audience laughter in the middle. No crowd noise this time, though, and thank goodness. We've got a moment where a kid is struggling to figure out how to talk to long-dead parents; I don't want reaction noises on the soundtrack. Speaking of, no one's ever accused Cherie Johnson of being a great actress, and that's not going to change with this episode, but something's going on that made the graveyard scene work like heck. Either someone on the writing team really made their pay, or there's a lot of ad-lib going, and I lean towards the latter. It just makes sense. What the heck DO you say? I actually do know a family that lost their mother, and while they were a lot older at the time, the reactions had a lot of the same "what do we do now?" kind of feel. Someone (someones, probably) realized this early on and incorporated that. It's a very genuine feeling. It's also something that can't completely be replicated in other sitcoms. Two girls, both of whom have lost parents in very different ways, trying to find a way for one to cope. It doesn't happen too often, and it's startling to see some of the unique properties of Punky come to light in this context. The absolute most frustrating part of the last dozen or so episodes has been that you don't always NEED Punky and the gang to re-make the plots elsewhere. Why, when most pre-teens will fill the roles? I realize the whole "use the plot hook" argument opens up unwanted comparisons to Small Wonder, but I stand my ground on this one. It drew me into the story more. And thus, it was a better story to me. That's it for this episode. The emotions involved tell their own story, so it doesn't need the type of analysis other episodes do. So I'm not writing that way. I'll crucify the next episode to make for it. - Jimmy Vibes |