A River to Cross

 Teachers and students are thrown into racial conflict when they put on a production of "Huckleberry Finn" Some people believe the play to be racist because of its perceived use of racial stereotypes and its frequent use of the racial slurs. However other people believe that as it portrays the story of a friendship between a black man and a white boy that the play is actually anti-racist.

I like this episode a lot as it’s one of those that takes an issue and looks at both sides of it. At first look it just looks like they are ripping of the story of Huckleberry Finn but by doing the book as a school play we get to see the wider issue of whether the book/play is racist or not. This really is a debate that has been raging on in the real World so it’s interesting to see the events play out here in the School, of the Arts.   To me Fame was always at it's strongest when it was doing real life stories.

My only concern with the story is, that I'm not sure Bobby a strong enough character to carry such an important side of the story? The credits state Introducing Kenny Ramson as Bobby Carver. A title that’s normally held for the introduction of new regular/semi regular characters but we don’t see Bobby again, so that’s quite strange. It would be nice to have already met him in a previous episode so we could get to know him a little more outside the issue in this episode. Here he comes across as a little 2 dimensional with only one point of view and to be honest I don't really like him. He comes across as the bad guy but really there shouldn’t be a bad guy in this story, just people with different points of view. If we already knew him I think this would lessen how harshly he comes across. I think as he’s up against such strong original characters, like Leroy, Danny, Lydia and Sherwood, who have been in the show since the beginning, it’s difficult for him to come over as anything but the bad guy.

Personally, I think it would be interesting if Leroy had been the character who opposed the play and maybe Sherwood too. So, we could have Lydia and Danny for it and Sherwood and Leroy against. One black & one white on each side as well as one teacher  and one pupil on each side. I think that would have given a much fairer view of both sides of the argument. Particularly as Gene is the one that sees the vision of Jim (was that sequence supposed to be a dream as it's not entirely clear whether it happened or was imagined) and the one who expresses his doubts about the play.

 Sadly our other regular characters who do agree with Bobby and choose to boycott the show like Dusty and Chris don’t really get any air time to be able to put over their point of view.   I’m also missing Nicole and Jesse in this episode and find myself wondering what would be their view points on the situation. It could be interesting if they were both on opposite sides and how that would affect their relationship.

 It’s nice to see the strong relationship between Danny and Leroy. I don’t know whether it was done on purpose or just coincidence but as they have their conversation they end up in front of the dance room mirror which is where their friendship started years before in season 1. I also like the dance that the 2 do together and think it’s really strong with Carlo holding his own against Gene.

 The song “Free at Last” is a really strong song for Gene and a great performance. I’m less thrilled by the “Crossing Over” song that Loretta gets to sing. Plus so much of it is talked over both at the start and the end of the episode, which gets a\ little annoying.

Original  air date in U.S.A 01st February 1986

Original  air date  in U.K. on The Children's Channel  Broadcast early 1993.

Original air date in Italy 21st September 1987

Original  air date in France 25th February 1996