Judgment Day

Danny and Leroy's friendship is tested when Danny's girlfriend, Susan, accuses Leroy of discriminating against the white dancers and always choosing the black dancers for leads in the shows.

Meanwhile Dusty is researching black history at the Apollo Theatre and Shorofsky & Ian clash over musical styles, with Ian hiding a secret. 

As with the other episodes that deal with the subject of racial discrimination I really like this episode and feel it is one of the best episodes in season 6. This is a great twist on the season 2 episode "Beginnings", where a white teacher was accused of discriminating against the black dancers now Leroy is accused of discriminating against the white dancers., in favour of casting black ones in shows.    

Over the years Leroy has really grown as a character, back in season 1 if he was accused of something like this he would have yelled and become angry, possibly hitting something or someone! Here he is much more mature and although he's angry he remains calm. We all know that the allegations aren't true but  the accusation really get to him and  mess with his head, making him question his behaviour and attitudes. For awhile he's even left doubting himself, which then makes other people , even his best friend Danny  question the situation. 

I find it really interesting how some people can manipulate a situation so much that it leaves even the person being accused, doubting how they are perceived by others. I've experienced this myself, where you know something isn't true but you start to worry that's how you may come over or how other people might see you and here Gene deals with that wonderfully.

 It’s a nice twist that it’s Danny’s girlfriend that is the accuser, causing the two friends to clash. Even though Danny doesn’t want to believe it, the situation becomes so much that he does question his friend. This is nicely played between Gene and Carlo.   Although since when has Danny been going out with Susan. Two episodes ago he was interested and going out with Jillian. I didn’t see them actually break up and then they are together again later in this season so his love life gets very confusing to me!

One thing I would have liked to have seen more of is people coming to Leroy's defence. Sadly Jesse and Nicole have very little to do in this episode so it would have been nice to see them defend Leroy and see what problems they would face because of that. Dusty is off with her own story line so isn't really involved in this one. Also it's frustrating that Debbie has so little to do here. Yes we see Lydia in a brief scene supporting Leroy but realistically Lydia would be there getting involved and not letting Susan take this as far as it gets. Being the official dance teacher she would know better than anyone just how lazy Susan could be.

Dusty's story is also okay and gives another side to the race issue.

It's also nice that one of the dancers Michelle Whitney-Morrison gets pushed forward into a lead role, which reminds me of the old days of seasons 2 and 3. Personally it might have been nice if Susan's role had been given to Jillian as that would continue the story line of her going out with Danny, but I guess they wanted Jillian to remain nice and sweet and not come over as nasty like Susan does here.

 Lycia Naff also featured in the very first episode of Season 1. We never found out her characters name then but if it was Susan are we to believe that Susan, like Danny has been in High School for 6 years?  I'm not particularly keen on the songs in this episode but they are okay. We get a lot of the Instrument Noise of Art, it would have been nice if this was actually a proper song that the dancers were singing.  

We also have the story of Ian not being able to read music and Shorofsky offering to tutor him which is very reminiscent of the Shorofsky Bruno relationship we had in the early seasons.  One nitpick is at the start Lou says to Shorofsky "We Finally Meet!" Have they forgotten that in "The Ol' Ball Game" back in Season 4 that they were at the softball match together? At one point they were arguing about a technical issue of the game and Lou threatens both Morloch and Shorfosky with no bowling!   

Original  air date in U.S.A.  27th  October 1986

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

Original air date in Italy 05th January 1989

Original air date  in France 12th March 1996