November 20, 2000

CD: Seventh Heaven went by without much controversy last night. The whole town knows that the Camdens kicked slut daughter Mary out of the house. Rumors are flying. Mary's pregnant. Mary's in rehab. Mary showed her titties in a national magazine (hey, I heard that rumor too). "Gossip is bad and hurts people" is the main lesson for the episode, so let's just get that in up front.

Examples:

Ruthie decides to divert attention from Mary by telling her principal all kinds of crazy lies about her family. I don't understand the logic, but it's interesting to see shots of Ruthie hanging out at her new horsie private school, practicing archery and wearing silly uniforms.

Lucy has a date with that dorky kid who tried to kill himself. They're slated to go to a big school dance together, but Lucy breaks the plan when her friends make fun of her for hanging out with a gossip magnet. (Apparently the whole school gossips about this kid because of his attempted suicide. That's real nice.) I was actually a little disappointed with Lucy here. I felt for the dorky kid. I used to be a dorky kid. Well, maybe not that dorky.

Anyway, Lucy does the right thing in the end - she shows up at the dance and dances around with him a lot. There's a great scene where they're slow dancing to romantic music, enjoying the evening, and she starts up a conversation about why he tried to kill himself. Real tactful. It's all made up for by the fact that Lucy's wearing a tight black dress that shows a startling amount of cleavage.

Matt meets a hot blonde girl in a wedding dress, and spends the whole episode looking for her even though, well, she's in a wedding dress when they meet, so, you'd figure by now she's married. Matt's just creepier and creepier, but as usual, he has Matt's roommate to tool on him and that makes up for everything.

By the way, it turns out the blonde girl is a supermodel, and she's just wearing the wedding dress for a photo shoot. She comes by his place and they "make out all night."

The big attraction last night was the guest star appearance by the Olsen Twins, playing two hot little "bad girls" who go on a double date with Simon and his friend. Simon's friend has tried to play up a rumor that Simon's a "bad boy," based on Simon's relation to the now-infamous family exile Mary Camden. The Olsen twins play "the Murphy girls." They're "bad girls" who like "bad boys." The four kids go on a whirlwind date where the Olsens shoplift, chew and screw at a restaurant, and sneak into a movie theater. Simon balks at every turn but gives in because there are girls involved. Fair enough. Their townwide ramage ends when they get caught at the theater and handed over to Glenoak's one cop, the black cop who, as you remember, has known Simon ever since he and Ruthie got lost walking around the neighborhood a few seasons back. How far Simon has come from those simple days - he's now accused of shoplifting, stealing a meal and hanging around with a couple of irritating little Nordic blonde twins.

One other thing: the Rev. has a kind of mental breakdown and keeps playing Ricky Nelson songs. There's a great, true-to-life moment when Annie's working in the kitchen and the Rev. bops in strumming his guitar.

Annie: "Are you going to stop playing Ricky Nelson songs and give me a hand here?"

The Rev.: "No."

The real repulsion point in tonight's episode is the Olsen Twins. I don't know why they bug me so much, but they do. The WB needs to find actresses who are a lot hotter and maybe five or six years older if they're going to make up for losing Jessica Biel. The twin thing is cool, though.

BM: Sunny D, you had some goodies in your take on this week's episode, but there were just a couple things I had to bring to your attention...maybe your disgust with the Olsen twins messed with your knowledge of classic crap TV.

First and foremost, PLOT RECYCLING. The script was so piss-poor, they lifted not one but TWO storylines from the Brady Bunch. Anyone remember the one where Carol's old college boyfriend Tank takes her out on a date, even though she's already married to Mike? He comes over, is a total prick, can't get Mike's name right, and calls Carol "Twinkletoes." Well, no difference here. Annie's old high school boyfriend, whose name escapes me, but we may as well call him Tank, comes over to take her out to dinner. The Rev is less than pleased when the prick shows up on his front door, to pick up Annie for their hot date. Tank introduces himself, says "Nice to meet you, Edward!' Red Flags popped up more than at a rugby game in China. "Umm, it's Eric, and we've met 3 times already," responds the obviously miffed Rev. Annie comes down the stairs, very inappropriately dressed in a black cocktail number that needs a Wonderbra (leave the cleavage to Lucy please, Annie) and is scooped up by Tank, who calls her "Twinkletoes"...I mean "Annster." This was the first part of the evening that I regurgitated my salad with Italian dressing. I knew that I was going to chundle when I heard the Olsen twins were gonna be on, so I stayed away from steak. Anyway, it turns out Annster's old boyfriend is one of those self-help authors. Except, instead of nurturing, he's a complete asshole to his fans. Instead of a sensitive, "you can do it!" love fest speech a la Richard Simmons, Tank gets results by yelling things like "Hey Fatass! I hate you! Get your ass off the couch, put down those chips, go outside, and Do something!" The Rev obviously doesn't agree with this approach but lets his chaste wife go out with this gaping asshole.

Later in the evening, the pseudo-couple are eating dinner at ... take a guess...the pool hall / restaurant. Incidentally, the Ladies Auxiliary from the church are there, gawking at them, convinced that Annie is slutting around with the congregation. I'd go to the church where the pastor's wife reciprocated the offering back to the congregation! Anyhoo, Annie determines that Tank is a super-prick when he offers to sell her, not give her, but sell her his self-help book, entitled "Screw you, Dorito-Bitch! Screw You!" at the friends and family discount of 10 bucks. Annie leaves to go chat with Eric, who has just showed up to spy and to tell her that Ruthie has been talking smack about her family (see your comments). It seems the Rev just bumped into Ruthie's fairly hot principal in the parking lot. The principal lays a smackdown on the Rev for all of the supposed problems Ruthie has brought up. The Rev goes in to clear it up with his wife, and the principal and Tank the Asshole are left sitting at a table together. We're lined up with the possibility of "meeting cute" here, (you know, where there is date-swapping) but it doesn't happen, in a most satisfying way. Tank asks the principal, "Is it Mrs. or Miss?" and she just holds up her wedding ring. Under the table, you can see his tail go between his legs.

Ruthie's crack-speak resolved, it's time for us to move onto the other grab from The Bunch. As you already mentioned, Lucy has been asked to the school dance. You'd better believe that I had visions of a bunch of pretty white children, doing that uncomfortable, stiff, robot dance that they do, to instrumental tunes written generically by no-name artists. Later, my prediction was correct. Anyhoo, she gives Suicide Boy (sorry, can't recall his name here) the boot, caving into peer pressure, stating the "something suddenly came up." Where have we heard that one before, peoples? Anyway, later on she feels like a real bitch, puts on a fetching black dress (satisfying my cleavage / Biel quota for the evening...I think Bev Mitchell is gonna pull it off this year) and takes three rugrats to the school dance. She makes the mocha one look after the two twin whitebreads while she does her Al Gore dance with Suicide Boy. We never do learn why he really tried to off himself, I think, but I figure we'll earn soon enough, and she states that she likes him, and this proclamation is punctuated with that elementary dance move, the pseudo-dip. "Oooh, fancy move!" says Lucy to her date. "Baby, I got moves you've never even seen!" Knowing Brenda Hampton is writing, I'll tend to disagree, but I am looking forward to finding out which previous TV show she rips these "moves" off from. Actually, this storyline, the "Girl Feels Like A Bitch and Goes to The Dance Anyway" has been on every sitcom...the first one that I can think of aside from the Bunch was "Growing Pains." I wish I got paid for such observations.

OK, now on to the real disgust of this episode... the Olsen twins. Mind you, I grew up (ok, I was plenty old enough then) making fun of their previous effort, "Full House." On this show, they grew up from annoying infants to annoying pre-teens, right before my very eyes. They're all grows up! It's rather disturbing to see them crap their diapers on reruns (excuse the awful pun) at 5:30 and then see them kiss boys at 8:30 that same night. It turns out that they weren't really Bad Girls, but just misguided sluts intent on teaching Simon a lesson on believing gossip. Everyone gets a lesson tonight, folks, as Sunny D already mentioned. Do keep in mind that the real reason the Olsen twins were on this show was to hawk their new Playstation game, "Mary Kate n' Ashley: Let's Get Down n' Funky!" I'm not lying...I saw an ad for some Olsen Twin related product on tonight's episode.

I need to break for some Matt observations...that model was hot, but she had an unsettling "Daryl Hannah after a Fight with Jackson Browne, nursing a Broken Jaw" look. I don't think that one is gonna take off quite as well as the "heroin/waif" look, but we ARE dealing with a family show here. So, this model, not even knowing Matt, just comes over to his pad in the ghetto for some making out. What the hell? Isn't this show supposed to preach values? I mean, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have kicked that strange, apparently stalker-like model out of bed, but this was a bit freaky. Matt's Fresh Roommate, John, actually leaves so that that couple can fornicate all night till she leaves for NYC the next day. Yeah, she's not shagging her way up the modeling ladder with anyone who comes down Flatbush Ave ... anyway, this is likely the closest thing we'll ever see to a One Night Stand on "Seventh."

The last funkiness on tonight's episode has to be the posthumous hawking of a Ricky Nelson product. Not only does the Rev quote his stats like a kid in a 50's movie spouting off about Sandy Koufax, but he also quite visibly shows off Rick's new box set, "Legacy." to anyone within view. At the end of the show, the product is hyped WB / "Dawson's Creek" style ( you know, "tonight's episode of _____ featured music by ___). In keeping with the spooky posthumous theme, Ricky's own daughter, Tracy Nelson, (you may remember her as the girl on "Seinfeld" who George dates and ultimately ends up looking just like Jerry) makes a cameo appearance. She's a counselor who administers crap advice like "Hugs + Love = Marriage." This was where I REALLY puked. You may be interested to know that her twin brothers, Gunner and Fabio, are the hair metal band Nelson.

Well, in conclusion, how am I supposed to forget about my beloved Biel when they keep yapping about her all night? Nice plot polish, Aaron.