Love Kittens Go To High School

Everyone is excited when a film crew uses the school of the arts to film on location. Jillian is particularly excited as she is assigned as the directors assistant and she starts to develop feelings for him. The female lead in the film Maxie Sharp must decide if the film is really what she wants to do or continue with her education and become a student at the school.  

For a very long time I was unable to watch this episode. Just from the preview clips and the dreadful title, things looked like a crazy madhouse, with directors wearing falshing lights on the hats, Dyrneforth wearing a wig and overacting. The school being used as a set and filled with dry ice. Everything looked manic and I couldn’t understand how Jesse and Danny in particular could bounce back from Nicole’s death so quickly and throw themselves into what was happening at the school. Here Jesse even seems to be getting close to Maxie. So I struggled to believe it. I'm not sure how much time is supposed to have passed since Nicole died but I was still missing her too much to move on so quickly!

Also it made no sense to me that the film makers would be granted access to a school that was in normal use and be filming during the school day. The idea that the school was trying to carry on as normal around people filming and the idea that film makers could be filming while normal school activities were going on just seems ludicrus to me. What happens if the filmakers are in the middle of a scenes and suddenly the school bell goes off? which it does frequently throughout the school day

Also previously we’ve been told that the kids couldn’t work professionally and could be expelled if they broke the rule but here lots of the kids are in the film and are doing it right under the teachers noses.

 Then there’s Dyrenforth being in the film too! Don’t actors have to have some kind of acting union card to be able to work on camera. In the U.K. we call them Equity cards, so if that is the case how is Dyrenforth able to appear?

All of this doesn’t make sense to me so I tend to view the rest of the episode badly.

I'm so confused by Jillian and Danny in  this series. I thought they were together but we've seen Danny with another girlfriend already and now Jillian is love with someone else and quite honestly I don't by it. The writers seem to be doing anything, whether it makes sense or fits a character or not. Just like Maxie is suddenly a student at the end of the episode, with no proper audition apart from a reading to the class that thy throw in a line as it being seen as an audition. I've recently been watching "Street Kid" in season 1 where they have to do an impromptu audition for Tracy and the teachers have this huge debate about its ethics as they weren't scheduled for auditions for 3 months here the writers don't even care. So if they don't care its hard as an audience member to care.

In some ways the basic storyline of this episode is similar to "Street Kid" where a young girl is in a situation she isn't happy with and attending the school seems like a chance to change thing. However, "Street Kid" is so superior.  

Maxie seems pleasant enough but is the character strong enough for all this special treatment? I'm not convinced by what we see here. Obviously the producers weren't aware at this point that the show would be ending, otherwise there's no point in bringing in a new cast member. Maybe its episodes like this that cost the series its chance of carrying on.

I do think there was a missed opportunity with Maxie. She's already doing what our other kids want to but they could learn from her that just having a part in a movie isn't always the dream they think it is.

The songs are pleasant enough and I quite like first in line.

Original  air date in U.S.A. 26th  January 1987

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

Original air date in Italy 14th January 1989 

Original air date  in France 20th March 1996