Tomorrow's Farewell

There's trouble for Leroy's when his older brother Willard, who has recently been paroled from prison, turns up drunk in the auditorium. Leroy realises Willard is up to his old tricks when he finds a gun hidden in a draw. Trying to dispose of the gun Leroy gets arrested.

 Meanwhile the board of education send a team to evaluate the school and interview the students. They are particularly concerned by the School's lack of sports facilities. To prove a point Lydia arranges a dance off between her dancers and some local athletes.    

This episode has a mixture of things I like and things I'm less keen on. It was the first episode filmed after the Pilot  and there are a few inconsistencies with the characters.

I like the opening as an instrumental version of the theme plays and we see the characters preparing for school. Then all of the teachers advising their students of the board of educations evaluation team.  I really like this part of the story. Also there is lots of humour throughout the story which is great.  The whole issue of these evaluators not understanding the school and it's students and their needs is very good. I love the dance off between the dancers and the jocks and Lydia's satisfaction at proving her point is great. I also like that the focus of the episode is now on Leroy and we get to hear Gene sing, but I don't like Willard and find his scenes and storyline annoying.

Also the scenes where each of the characters is interviewed are little annoying. They seem to ramble and talk differently to any other situations. Thomas Carter, the director called for the actors to  improvise these scenes. At such an early stage in production, they haven't really had times to get to know their characters very well.  For instance during  Bruno's evaluation he mentions the hierarchy of students and how they look down on each other and don't mix?  Now maybe that was Lee's real life experience and his take from filming the Movie where most of the time the characters stayed in their specific groups with little cross over. However, on the TV show he is  friends with dancers, actors, musicians and they all mix all the time! 

I'm not sure why Montgomery's interview wasn't shown. There is a scene in the script for it and P.R.'s opening credit appears to come from that footage but it was sadly edited out of the episode and his character is pretty much neglected again. We still haven't been told what his major is although we do see him in the drama room with Danny and Doris so maybe we are to assume he's a drama major. At least we are finally told that Doris is a drama major and we assume Danny is as well as they talk about him wanting to be a comedian. We also finally hear Danny's name being used on screen.

It's a little confusing as to what classes each of the kids has. When the teachers are all talking we see Coco & Leroy in the dance room with Lydia, Julie and Bruno with Shorofsky and Doris with Sherwood. However in the first episode all the kid have English together are we to assume that Doris has extra English classes, because the same things happens in "Passing Grade".

There is quite a bit of location work which is nice and some scenes set in the school that aren't on the normal set. We see the auditorium but this is much bigger than the set they use from season 2 onwards so presumably this a real place that they used. Also there is a scene in a corridor where Sherwood confronts Leroy about his brother being drunk. It could actually be anywhere but it's not a place we see again.

We are told that the showers are up on the second floor of the school which is frustrating for the students to have to travel after class. This is a contradiction to where the locker rooms are shown from season 4 onwards.

I was also a little confused when all the kids are in the dressing room and they hear a noise in the auditorium and Bruno says "there's someone out in the house" but school seems to still be session so what is the problem with someone being in the auditorium and why does everyone go to investigate? Wouldn't it just be one of the other students working on a scenes or a teacher marking out the stage or something like that?

I freeze framed on the picture that was of Leroy, Willard and their Mother which is on Leroy's wall as I wondered if it was really a picture of Gene when he was young but it doesn't really look like him or the actor playing Willard. Leroy says there is 10 years difference in their ages but it doesn't look like that in the photo.

From season 5 they introduce Leroy's other brother Lemar but Leroy doesn't appear to have any pictures of him on the wall and bother Willard and Lemar seem to have the same personality. I wonder why they created a new person rather than just bring Willard back? Interestingly when Coco wants to know why Leroy hasn't thrown Willard out on the streets Leroy yells he's the only family he has but later in this season we see his Mother, then his Father in season 4, his pretend Uncle Eddie in Season 3 and then Lemar and his niece Tina in season 5 onwards!

I also got confused with the scene where the cop chases Leroy. I didn't see him dump the gun so didn't understand why suddenly the cop was after him.

The music is great from the theme that is used at the start, to the wonderful "I can do anything better than you can", beautiful "Come what may" and the use of the Jackson's "Can you feel it at the end". It all gives a really good feel good vibe to the episode.

The use of the outdoor scenes while Leroy sings and the use of the mime artist is all very distinctive. Leroy's little speech about dancing and the school is actually pretty powerful and moving. For the whole episode the school seems to be put down, either by the evaluators or things like Danny's parents thinking the people at the school are a little flaky but by the end we see the school is actually a really special important place and without it people like Leroy would be following a very different path. It leaves you feeling pretty inspired.

Original  air date in U.S.A  21st January 1982

Original  air date  in U.K. 01st July 1982,  BBC repeat 30th July 1986,  The Children's Channel  Autumn 1992,    Now 80s 7th & 11 November 2021  & 15th January 2022

Original  air date in France  20th March 1982

Original Air date in Australia (Melbourne)  13th June 1982

Original air date in Italy 15th January 1983

Original; air date in Spain 6th March 1983

Original air date in The Netherlands 12th November 1983  

Original  air date in West Germany   16th January 1985

Original air date in Belgium  25th June 1987