Alice Doesn't Work Here Anymore

Mrs Berg is concerned when an old friend comes to visit. Mrs Berg used to be an actress using the name Alice Bowmont and has pretended that she is actually the Principal of the School of the Arts. When Jillian discovers the truth she and the other kids persuade Mrs Berg to let them help her keep up the pretense. 

 Meanwhile Reggie is acting as a classroom assistant and decides to help a young student, who is against animal dissections and convince Dyrenforth that a computer program can do the same job.  

I really like this episode and it's one of my favourites from season 6. I do feel that after 6 seasons it's long over due that Mrs Berg gets a whole episode to herself. She's  had small sub plots but nothing like this before, so that makes this feel a little different and special.

There does appear to be a little rewriting of her character but its enjoyable so I'll forgive that.

Here we learn that 40 years ago she used to be an actress. It's a nice twist but I'm not sure why it needed to be kept a secret all these years. (Oh yes the writers have only just thought of it!) Surely in a school like that she would have confided in someone by now. Particularly as the letters she's been exchanging with her friend have come under the name of Alice Bowmont to the school, I would have thought someone else would have noticed by now. Also she has been at the School for a very long time so in her early years I'm sure someone would have recognised her and it be passed down to each generation that Mrs Berg used to be an actress!

What's also strange is that Mrs Berg has gone from being this ditzy receptionist who can't even recognise the difference between normal lines on a page and things that have been underlined, in season 2 to being indispensable and Dyrenforth not being able to cope without her. So I'm not quite sure how that change occurred.

Still this is an enjoyable story of the kids trying to help Mrs Berg continue the lie she's being telling her friend all these years. It may not be the most original idea but it works well and is good fun.          

Sadly we are missing a few cast members here which is a shame. We see the students trying to stop Paul asking any difficult questions and they get Dyrenforth out of the way but what about Shorofsky, Lydia and Leroy wouldn't they notice what what's going on? Don't they notice things like the Auditorium being renamed and the school newspaper sign. Obviously none of these characters are in the episode, so it seems as though we are not supposed to think about them, which I find frustrating. I'm sure they'd want to help in someway if they did know.

I am a little confused as to where Mr Berg is. He got very jealous when Mrs Berg worked late with Shorofsky in season 3 but here we  have Mrs Berg meeting up with an old flame and Mr Berg is nowhere to be seen and isn't even mentioned!

The one thing I'm not too keen on in this episode is the Reggie story. Since when has she been a helping out as a classroom assistant. This season she's already been expelled for rebelling against things so I wouldn't have thought she was ideal material to help out in class. Since when do the teachers need these helpers anyway?

The fact that the story involves a characters we've never seen before means I struggle to be interested. The actor looks way too young to be at school but then in real life he is the son of the executive producers so they probably just wanted to give their son a job. There is mention of him being a super brain which I suppose could explain why he's in High School but we're not given any more information than that. Personally I think it should have been Jillian struggling with issues of cutting up living things in biology and Reggie who sits next to her in class helping out. This would explain why Jillian is struggling in this subject and why she gets a letter home about a bad grade. As it is they do the story of Jillian getting a bad grade but we have no explanation or reason why.

The producers made this episode on a shoestring budget in order to save money so that they could afford to have the older cast members return in the season finale. However I think it's shows in the story telling, which is a shame. 

Original  air date in U.S.A.  11th  May 1987

Original air date  in the U.K.  The Children's Channel  Broadcast Early 1993  

Original air date in Italy 27th January 1989    

Original air date  in France 31st March 1996