Your Own Song

Synopsis

Special needs student Troy Phillips starts attending the school but soon starts to question whether he fits in. Coco is furious when Troy seems to be given special treatment when he is given the lead in a show without having to audition for it.

Meanwhile Doris helps Danny get a date by telling him what to say.

My Review

I like this episode and it's storyline and in my opinion this is a great improvement on the first episode but Fame sometimes tends to suffer from what I call Guest Star syndrome. Season 2 is hit quite pretty badly by it. The first season hadn't been successful in the U.S. so they wanted to bring in more guest stars, in their opinion to improve the show. I'm all for guest stars that enhance a main cast member’s storyline but enjoy the episodes less when the story is created around a guest star. This one isn't too bad as all the characters do get something to do, with the exception of Julie who is not in this episode at all. At this point we didn't know that Troy would be back in a later episodes. It could have been interesting if they'd made Troy a semi regular character like Dwight.

However, there is still a little too much of Jimmy Osmond in this episode for my liking. I mean Gene, Carlo, Lori and Lee have yet to have a chance to sing in this season so far and here we are with Jimmy Osmond singing 3 times in just one episode and I do wonder if this was a little too early in the season for a guest star orientated episode. Let's get the main cast re-established first and then add some guest stars. Well that's my opinion anyway.

I'm not sure if it’s just me but I don’t really see Jimmy Osmond as a totally fantastic singer. He's got a pleasant voice but I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about, Valerie and Erica can both sing as well if not better than him, just my opinion.

Also I believe in order to be a great singer you need to have a high level of understanding of the words and how they relate to emotions in order to be able to convey those emotions to the audience. Lots of people can just sing the right words and hold a tune but it doesn't make it a great performance. So for me Troy's great singing doesn't fit in with his disability.

Having already got the The Kids From Fame Songs album when I first watched this episode, I was expecting Danny to have to step in and sing Songs with Erica because that’s the album version so it was a surprise that that didn't happen. I wonder why Jimmy’s version wasn't included on the album instead of them re-recording it with Carlo? Although personally I'm glad that Carlo did get to sing on the album.

I do really like Songs and think it sounds like it's going to be a simple song but then it gets complicated when the singers are singing different parts at the same time. So works really well.

Erica is particularly strong in this episode as we see that great Coco confidence at the beginning and her fighting spirit when she is under threat by Troy. She doesn't seem to know about his condition at this point and the anger and frustration really shows on her face. I like the way that she doesn't seem to fear the competition but doesn't like it when people are being treated differently and just wants everything to be fair. I find her particularly strong when she goes to speak to Troy and then doubts whether helping the competition was a wise move. For me it is really interesting watching this episode from Coco’s perspective rather than Troy’s.

The Danny and Doris sub plot is quite funny and highlights how shallow some people can be and are only interested in the packaging rather than the contents. It’s particularly funny when Danny is left on his own and comes up with smelling like sand. However after he's confronted Diana about only being interested in him for the words he said rather than him as a person I'm not sure why Danny still wants her at the end when they look like they are back together?

Interesting points for me are that this seems to be the first time that we see some of the kids actually in other arts classes. For instance Bruno, Leroy and Coco are in drama and Coco is in music. I'm not sure weather this was done purely for this story where the cast need to be in the same class as Troy or as a way to include the cast so they had more to do in this episode. Strangely in episode 1 of this season Bruno has to ask Doris to teach him to act, why would he need to do that if he's already taking acting classes? Maybe he was so bad that he decided he'd better take a few real acting lessons?

I believe this was the episode that Madonna auditioned to play the role of Danny's girlfriend Diana, I really can't image her in the role and falling for the stuff Danny is saying.

A couple of other small nit picks:

- Why are Danny, Doris and Diana all wearing completely different clothes in the cafeteria to the ones they were wearing in the drama class? Troy comes in from having his audition so it’s all supposed to be on the same day. Danny was only wearing a vest in his the earlier scene so he could have got cold and put something else over it but that doesn't explain Doris and Diana.

- Even with his disability Troy’s acting is far superior to Bruno’s in the first episode. Highlighting just how OTT they were with Bruno’s lack of acting skills.

Episode Pictures