Choices

Holly gets a part on a day time soap opera and leaves the School of the Arts, causing Nicole to question her own future. When Nicole then gets a small part in a Broadway show she has to choose whether to stay in School or pursue her career.

Meanwhile Kate and Reggie are auditioning for places at the school and Leroy clashes with auditionee Henry Lee. 

Morloch has left the school and is replaced by the new principle Bob Dyrenforth. 

When I first got a copy of this episode in 1993 the first half was missing so I only got to see the final 20 minutes or so and had no idea what was going on. Who was this new guy and where was Morloch? Why were people auditioning and why was Holly on TV? It was over 10 years before I got to watch the full episode and find out the answers to these questions.

 Initially, I thought Morloch's disappearance was very strange as he'd been the focus of the previous episode so if he was leaving I thought it would have been better to actually write him oput in the previous episode and give the character a proper send off. It wasn't until last year when I read Michael Hoey's Inside Fame book that I discovered the truth in that Ken Swofford had been sacked. After filming had finished on "Ebenezer Morloch" Ken has requested the camera to continue filming as gave an impassioned speech on his dislike for the executive producers and what they were doing to the show.  So knowing the truth I realised that there's no way Morloch's departure could have been handled any other way.  As Morloch was such a strong character that caused lots of conflict at the school, sadly Dyrenforth seems quite boring in comparison.

 Sadly, I don't know the circumstances in which Cynthia Gibb left the show but I'm not a fan of  how Holly is written out. For me it all happens too quickly and I feel this should have been an episode concentrating on Holly auditioning and getting the job on the soap, rather than how Holly's departure affects Nicole. I want to see Holly unsure if moving thousands of miles is the right thing to do and I want a big emotional goodbye. Instead things fall a little flat and I don't feel any emotion when Holly says goodbye.  I do like the Nicole story, although it's not exactly original and seems a little rushed here with so much other stuff happening.

 The audition scenes for the new characters are very reminiscent of the original Fame movie so that's a nice touch but since when do the auditions take place over a few weeks? Miss Persky says that they all have to sing, dance and play a musical instrument and that's for someone who's auditioning to the drama department! Does this mean a great actor would be refused a place if they can't sing, dance and play an instrument? At the same time we see Leroy rejecting dancers but don't thet get a chance to sing, dance and act too. This all seems totally inconsistant with what we've seen before and what is happening elsewhere in the story. At the end Nicole gets a second chance to audition for the school after she's quit  but how does she get in if she's missed all the other auditions that other hopefuls have had to go through. If the auditions take weeks, who is actually teaching the students the school already has. If this was the beginning of the school year before the term started fine but not in the middle of the year.

 Lydia is missing for the whole episode whoch would be fine if the events unfolded over a day or so but when it's weeks, where is she at this crucial point in the year. As Leroy is only a teaching assistant and only been doing that for a few months is he really qualified to decide who gets into the school and who doesn't? 

Also what is Dusty doing in the vocal auditions? Two years ago Shorofsky through Coco and Doris out, refusing to let them watch but now he doesn't seem to care. 

 Sadly the auditions, although they take up a lot of the episode, don't give us much insight into the characters of either Reggie or Kate. With such tough auditions I would expect to be blown away by their talent but it fails to shine through in this episode. Most of the music is good and I really love Nia singing "Only in My Dreams". "Where Does The Night Begin" is also good but I don't really  care for "Your Love Has Been So Good To Me". It weird on that song because Leroy is singing but it doesn't sound like Gene's normal vocals.  

Original  air date in U.S.A 04th January 1986

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

Original air date in Italy 19th September 1987

Original  air date in France 23rd February 1996