Expose

Julie falls in love with a student English teacher, who is visiting the school. However she is very hurt when she realises he is a journalist who is writing and damaging article about the school.

 Meanwhile Julie's Mother is struggling to find a job in New York and turns to Miss Grant for career advice.

I watched this straight after "The Crazies" and I think that spoiled some of my enjoyment of this episode a little because it's no where near as strong as the previous one.

It's a Julie episode and we get to see a little more of her strength of character when she threatens to expose the truth. The storyline is okay although I get a little frustrated with the doomed love stories where a cast member falls in love with a guest star. We know that the couple will have broken up by the end of the episode, never top be seen or heard of again, so what's the point? However having said that, this is probably one of the better doomed love stories that the show does.

It doesn't make sense to me that Lydia is helping Mrs Miller with her job hunting. She makes a comment about being a careers adviser but who does she normally help? I thought the students wanted to be performers and technically they weren't supposed to be auditioning while they were at school so I would have thought that when they graduate they would concentrate on auditions rather than job hunting in other areas. Maybe they went back to Lydia a few months later for help with work but I would have thought that Lydia was busy enough as a teacher and dealing with all the shows they put on.

Also I wasn't particularly interested in Mrs Miller having a storyline of her own it took away time from any of the other kids having a storyline. If they weren't involved in the Mannequin routine they wouldn't have been in the episode.

I always loved "It's Gonna Be A Long Night" and it was one of my favourite songs, although Lori isn't exactly a very strong singer (no pun intended there!) but it works well enough here.

I was never a big fan of Mannequin. It's okay but there are far better songs in the show. I never understood why it was released as a single and am not surprised that it wasn't really a hit.

It is also a little confusing that Julie is in the routine at the end of the show because everyone said it worked better without her and using a real dummy. She doesn't rehearse with anyone and doesn't want to be part of it but then suddenly she is reinstated! 

Original  air date in U.S.A. 25th March 1982

Original  air date in U.K 19th August 1982,  BBC repeat 07th  August 1986,  The Children's Channel  Autumn 1992, Now 80s 12th December 2021 & 6th January 2022   

Original air date  in France  22nd May 1982

Original air date in The Netherlands 19th February 1983       

Original air date in Italy 19th March 1983

Original air date in Spain 8th May 1983

Original  air date in West Germany 13th March 1985

Original air date in Belgium 01st October 1987