The Home Front

Chris has family problems and starts missing rehearsals for a show that Michael is directing.

Meanwhile Alicia is struggling to fit into the school and Doris makes life a little difficult for her.  Also Morloch is handing out extra classes on a Saturday!

There are a number of episodes particularly in the 3rd series that feel very empty to me, where a lot of cast members either simply aren't in the episode or have very little to do. This is one of those episodes. Lee is missing completely,  Carol and Albert only make a very brief appearance at the end for Morloch's surprise. Then there's Gene, who again only makes an appearance at the end for the dance routine and Morloch's Surprise. It's obvious that the conflict between Michael and Chris was originally intended to be a Leroy / Chris storyline but once again Michael Delorenzo has to replace Gene.  This 3rd series was supposed to have Leroy and Chris clashing throughout but with Gene absent so much of the time Michael had to replace him and for me this never quite worked. 

Then there's Alicia who is struggling to fit in to the school. In the U.K. "The Deal" was shown slightly out of order, 5 episodes ago and so we'd had 4 Alicia free episodes since her début so it's a little difficult only now seeing her struggling to fit in. This will be Alicia's last episode and the character will never be mentioned again. So I always find it a little difficult to get into her storyline. I struggle to believe that Doris is the one being mean to her and doesn't believe Alicia belongs at the school, as it just doesn't ring true of the character.  As Holly quips "You gave her such a warm welcome!" Which is true, as soon as Alicia joined the school Doris takes Alicia to see a dance performance in the auditorium. 

Doris already knew that Alicia was an opera singer so it seems strange that she would make any kind of effort to welcome someone to the school when she doesn't feel they belong and then be mean to them.  Obviously the writers hadn't come up with this story line when they wrote Alicia's first episode but still it doesn't work for me. 

Also we see Chris introducing himself, when he was the ones that took Alicia to the auditorium in her first episode. Are we to believe he didn't introduce himself when they first met? Anyway Alicia problems are soon solved when Doris sees her Charlie Chaplin performance. The girl has a a wonderful classical voice but Doris doesn't think she's talented. However, have her put on a Charlie Chaplin outfit and do a funny walk and Doris realises she's wrong!! 

I also struggle a little with Chris' family problems. We've not heard about or seen Chris's family before and we never see any of these characters  again. So I do find it a little difficult to care about them. In Season 6 Chris has an older sister, so why exactly isn't she helping here? 

My biggest concern is that none of the gang seem to notice or care that Chris is having a hard time. When Doris thinks Alicia (dressed as Charlie Chaplin) is Chris at the end, she quips about Donlon finally making it to a rehearsal. Wouldn't the Doris we know and love have done something to try and find out what his problem was. Then there's Chris and Danny, who are such good friends but Danny shows no concern what so ever.  None of it rings true to me and makes the episode a little flat. Also Chris' story also ends pretty quickly after a quick chat to his Dad!

Mrs Berg saves the day a little in her brief scene with Danny when she asks why she is being punished, as that's really funny. 

The scene at the end also feels a little odd to me, as though it was filmed at a different time, which is why so many characters are there that aren't really in this episode. Michael has a completely different hairstyle to the rest of the episode and suddenly all his curls are gone. I guess he could have had it cut but actors wouldn't normally do that during the middle of filming as scenes are usually filmed out of order so cutting their hair would mess up continuity. I've often felt this scene was filmed as a real birthday surprise for Ken Swofford. Maybe I'm wrong it just feels a bit odd to me. 

I really like "Starting At The End" but have to say I didn't really notice any issue when Alicia was trying to sing it. Certainly not enough for her to be laughed at. I also like "She Blinded Me With Science" it's just a shame that some of the cast aren't actually singing it, rather than just have the song playing on the radio.

The episode features the same student evaluations interviews we first saw in the season 1 episode "Tomorrows Farewell". Just like that previous episode the interviews are improvised The script just says allow 1 1/2 pages for the scenes. The episodes features interviews with Doris, Holly and Alicia. However the script doesn't have a scene for Alicia but does have ones for Chris and Danny.     

The script shows a deleted story for Danny concerning his name, which would get reunsed in season 5 and additional scenes for Sherwood, Shorofsky, Morloch, Lydia and Leroy, which actually gives the story some heart. I wonder if these scenes were ever actually filmed?

Original  air date in U.S.A 27th May 1984

Original  air date  in U.K. 20th July 1984,  Repeated on The Children's Channel  Autumn 1992

Original  air date  in The Netherlands 24th July 1984

Original air date in Italy 19th August  1986

Original air date in Belgium 15th September 1988      

Original  air date in France 20th May 1989