Come One, Come All

Montgomery's estranged Mother, who is a famous actress, visits the school and takes over the production of the the latest school show. However she ruffles feathers when she insists on doing a 20s show which the Kids think is out dated.  

Montgomery too is unhappy that his Mother visiting feeling that he comes second in her life to her career.

This is my least favourite episode of the first season and one of my least favourite of the whole 6 years. I don't like that the story is being totally built around a guest star, particularly one that I hadn’t really heard of before. I realise who she is now but as a 14 year old originally watching in the U.K.  I had no clue. Presumably the producers felt lucky to get her but I'm not convinced even in america that all the young kids would have known who she was.

Also she seemed a little old to be playing Montgomery’s Mother and we don’t really get to explore their back story. Montgomery mentioned he was tired of being in the wings of her life. I always got the impression Montgomery lived alone and had grown up away from his family but the details are missing and therefore it’s hard to care. I assume that if PR had stayed in the second season they may have explored his story more.

Of course Montgomery in the series never mentions being gay. Well actually he never mentions being straight either, apart from a brief scene in "The Crazies" where he says he's been working on a girl and then she slaps him so he clearly has no clue about women. I like to think he was in the closet but it's a shame the show couldn't explore the subject because taking that part of Montgomery's character away in the series does weaken the character.  

Compare this with Street Kid, where Valerie and the writers use every part of the story to showcase who Doris is, we learn very little about Montgomery here.

In fact in one of the best scenes in this episode it is Doris’ character we see more deeply into, when she notices that Montgomery is unhappy with his Mother being there and she follows him to the Library to support and offer a shoulder to cry on.

In some ways the episode follows reality. Montgomery’s Mother is using the school and the Kids to showcase herself and it feels like that’s what the writers are doing with Gwen Verdon, letting her showcase herself and ignoring the cast.

Montgomery’s mime act is okay but I would have preferred to hear a song.  Normally a show would have a characrer realise their mistakes and try to reddem themselves but here Montgomery’s Mother remains selfish to the end.

This is an unusual episode in the fact there are no songs. I remember when this series was originally screened in 1982 over here that my family was away on holiday when this aired and my step father wouldn't allow me to watch the TV while we were away. I was then confused when the albums came out because I knew I'd seen the episodes with all those songs in them, so thought maybe there was a song that I was missing. When I finally got to see the episode I was most disappointed that there wasn't a new song.

The dance routines were okay and Debbie is obviously having fun dancing with Gwen in their evolution of dance routine but most of the styles of music were a little dated for the audience Fame was attracting.

Gene should have been given a chance to sing when he was doing his audition or a much more modern song be used for the dance finale and have Coco and some of the others singing it.

PR obviously does sing at least a little as we hear him on “Starmaker” and “Do The Gimme That” so I wonder why they didn’t have him singing something in this episode. The scene with him playing guitar in the music cubicle would have been an ideal opportunity for him to sing something, perhaps quite an angry rock song to show his frustration.

Carol seems to be having a lot of fun in this episode and her scenes are funny which lifts things a little and makes it a little more interesting. Although in the School for the Art why Sherwood would be involved in casting, directing and putting on a show doesn’t make much sense. Lydia and Shorofsky yes but an English teacher? We see, particularly from season 2, that there are other dance and drama teachers so if Crandall is away surely there would be another drama teacher to step in for him.

The scene where the kids meet Montgomery’s Mother is also pretty funny where they try to trick her as to who is who. Although if she is such a bad Mother would she really have time to exchange and read letters from Montgomery and actually take in things about people she’s never met?

Interestingly in one of the scenes in the office a backdrop of other buildings can clearly be seen outside the windows which I don’t recall ever being seen in any other episode.

One final nit pick, why oh why are they performing the show in the cafeteria again? And the dressing room that Doris is using is a curtained off part of the dance class, why aren’t they using the proper make up room?

Original  air date in U.S.A.  11th March 1982

Original  air date in U.K. 22nd Sept 1982,  BBC repeat 14th  August 1986,  The Children's Channel  Autumn 1992, Now 80s 05th & 09th December 2021 

Original air date  in France  15th May 1982

Original Air date in Australia (Melbourne)  23rd May 1982

Original air date in Italy 05th March 1983

Original air date in The Netherlands 18th March 1983       

Original air date in Spain 24th April 1983 

Original  air date in West Germany 27th February 1985

Original air date in Belgium 17th September 1987