I Never Danced For My Father

Leroy's estranged Father, whom everyone believed to be dead returns and enrolls at the school, in an attempt to get to know his Son. Angry and hurt Leroy rejects his father but eventually comes round to the fact that the man who had abandoned him has changed.  

Meanwhile Danny, who wants to impress his own father, persuades Jesse to let him open for him at Lou's Lanes and Morloch is looking for a place to spend Thanks giving.

I like this episode as there seems to be lots going on. Both Leroy and Danny's situations are similar as their stories are on the same theme of Father and Son relationships. Leroy's is perhaps the most interesting as we haven't seen this story before, whereas Danny's is an on-going problem that we have seen with his father throughout the past seasons. 

We now have another different actor playing Danny's father, not just different from previous seasons but also different from the first episode in this season! However the actor will remain the same throughout the rest of this season, then we won't see Danny's Father again. It's interesting that Danny's family have a little story arc this season as story arcs are pretty rare on "Fame".  However, I think things get more interesting in their story in later episodes as this is just a rerun of previous episodes where Danny's Father doesn't think he should be in show business.

I'm interested to know when Leroy's record was updated to show his father as deceased because in the first season, no one seemed to be aware of this particularly when Sherwood wanted to talk to his parents. Although I like the Leroy story line I don't like that Leroy's father could suddenly enrolled as a student at the school, it would never happen at a school in the U.K. so it's never something I understood, when older or younger people were suddenly students.  Exactly how many auditions do they have for the school. This is only episode 4 so the school has only just gone through the main auditions for the school year. They could have easily had Leroy's Father hanging around without making him a student. 

I also feel Lydia's sudden flirtation and kiss with Vernon comes out of nowhere. It's a shame that Vernon wasn't in a number of episodes throughout the season, to give Leroy more of a story arc, so we could explore things a little more. A story line of Leroy's teacher and father dating could have made for an interesting episode in itself. Here is gets thrown in and thrown away too quickly.

The scene where Leroy confronts his about making it up to that little kid is particularly strong and one I personally can relate too. Gene's acting is excellent here.  

We also see the introduction of Lou's Lanes in this episode and there is some great laugh out loud comedy with Lou's attraction to Doris and Doris pretending she is in a relationship with Morloch to get away from him.

 "We Stand" is a great song and works well set on board the airplane.  The song and dance is obviously filmed in the studio but it looks good and is different to what we usually see. It's a shame that "Make It Up" and "That's What I'm Dancing About" aren't fuller songs and we only get to hear little snippets of them.

Original  air date in U.S.A 15th October 1984

Original  air date  in U.K. 01st April 1985,  Repeated on The Children's Channel  Broadcast Autumn 1992

Original air date in Italy 25th August 1986

Original  air date in France 23rd January 1996