Break Dance

Two street gangs the Silhouettes and the Enforcers decide to have a break dancing competition rather than fight each other. Chris and Michael compete too as both are coaching one of the gangs.

One of the gang members, "Snake" takes a shine to Doris and wants to start dating her.

Meanwhile Coco is offered a part in the pirates theatre road company and makes up her mind to leave school to pursue her dream.   

For me this episode doesn’t live up to the same standards as the previous 6 episodes. The whole cast is here with the exception of Sherwood but most of them have very little to do and the main story seems to concentrate on Michael. Personally I would have had Chris and Michael swap roles and Chris be the one driving the competition and fighting with the gang leader and Michael coaching the other gang.

I assume that the original plan gave more attention to the main Break Dance story but then when Erica decided to leave the show they had to add the subplot to write her out.  Personally they should just rewritten the whole episode and leave the Break dance story for another time. Erica is a huge loss to the show and Coco deserved to have a full episodes as a send off. 

To me neither story gets the attention they need to make this a great episode.  I'd always  assumed that Michael's role was really written for Gene but he did one of his disappearing acts. Which is confirmed by the script.

I do think it’s good for the character that Leroy is mature enough to realize that he shouldn’t get involved with the gangs however, that then means Leroy has no further involvement in the episode. Not even to offer Michael advice! 

When I originally watched in 1984 I knew in advance that Erica was leaving but didn’t know when, so as soon as it came up here I was only really interested in Coco’s story and I wanted to see her deliberate more about leaving and discussing it with different characters and maybe change her mind a couple of times before making her final decision. I also wanted proper goodbye scenes with all the cast but this doesn’t really happen and we have to settle for the Bruno and Coco scene, which is absolutely lovely but I wanted more of it. I love the continuity to the first season, with Erica singing “I Still Believe In Me” and Coco and Bruno holding hands at the end, which echoes Lydia and Coco holding hands at the end of the song in "Passing Grade". It’s just a really touching scene. However for me there are naturally emotional moments in life and TV shows, that are done well, really should know how to make the most out of these times and fully embody them for the whole episodes instead of forcing drama out of not particularly interesting  story concerning gang members. 

For me the break dance competition just got in the way and I found it a little hard to care about these gang members. I also found their initial scenes strutting around the school quite boring. They seem to be poking fun at the dancers in the dance class but they have come to get a choreographer! Do these guys even know what that word means and poking fun at the people you want help from doesn't seem like a particularly good idea!

I’m very confused about the start of the episode as Danny has out run the gang all the way from the Bronx, which doesn’t seem very realistic. Then he gets Dwight to call out the name of the gangs arch rivals but why does he do this? Straight away he knows it’s going to make the gang members mad and tells Dwight they need to run. Why does he deliberately try to cause more trouble? Still Dwight is funny when he yells “Hall Pass”.

I also have to ask why Morloch calls Lydia out of her class to go to the office to help with Dwight? Why doesn’t he just get the school nurse? Lydia has no special qualifications for her to be the one to help. Of course if she doesn’t go she then Debbie has even less to do in this episode. Although it is funny when Morloch is being all macho and says Lydia should stay behind while he and Dwight (The Men) go and sort the gang out! 

The only thing that really saves the day with the gang storyline is Snake’s infatuation with Doris and her funny attempts to get rid of him. I love when Doris tells Holly she’s going to ask a friend for help, then grabs her yelling “HELP”! Then her final scene where she tells snake she wants to have his baby is just great. It’s also a nice touch when she pretends she’s won an award for her performance.

I also love Danny’s line when Holly tells him he’s acting like a coward and he replies “No acting involved”.

I’m not really keen on the “Dance, Dance, Dance” song and don’t know who is singing it but I thought it was the weakest song so far this season, which doesn’t help with my enjoyment of this episode.

Bruno’s story seems absolutely pointless and is the weakest idea to get him back in the school. The whole union thing is totally confusing for me as it is totally different to what happens in the U.K. Yes we have unions and people can choose to be a part of them or not but we certainly don’t have jobs that are designated union ones and non union ones.

Also I don’t buy that Shorofsky has the power to decide how to spend school funds on hiring people to do work. Why would the School board pay someone else when they are already employing and paying Louie Bacca to do maintenance at the School? I’m not even sure why Bruno needed to be in the school. Yes we need him for the Coco scene but couldn’t she have just gone to Caruso’s and have that scene there?

Then when Bruno realizes he shouldn’t be doing the job, why does he go back to the school to discover the sound system is missing? Obviously somebody needed to but it doesn’t make sense that it’s Bruno apart from give him a bit more to do in the episode.

One thing I did notice, and this highlights how bored I was with Bruno’s story, is that during Bruno’s conversation with Louie which takes place on the auditorium stage. Behind Bruno is a wall with lots of writing on it. To be precise it’s lots of initials. At first I noticed a big G.A.R in the middle and instantly thought Gene Anthony Ray. Then I freeze framed the episode and could see other initials and quickly put 2 and 2 together:

E.R. Eartha Robinson

M.D. Michael Delorenzo

B.T. Bronwyn Thomas

J.P. Joni Palmer

L.G. Leanne Garrish

A.S. Allysia Sneed

M.P. Marguerite Pomerhn

D.T. Darryl Tribble

It seems like the dancers had been having fun with spray paint and making their mark on the set.

Original  air date in U.S.A 1 0th December 1983

Original  air date  in U.K. 06th April 1984,  Repeated on The Children's Channel  Autumn 1992

Original air date in The Netherlands 31st March 1984

Original air date in Italy 04th August 1986

Original air date in Belgium  26th  May 1988               

Original  air date in France 17th December 1988