11-08-00

Hail,

Quick note: if you've been having trouble with this page, it's because the hosting company is having a bit of a problem. Unfortunately, their tech support seems to be unable to speak coherently, so it may be some time before this is resolved.

It's not the girls room that's being haunted by Tommy Sherman, it's "A Tree Grows in Lawndale." Unfortunately this episode doesn't come close in impact to his original appearance in "The Misery Chick."

To start with the subplots, none of them really come out well. There's no reason for an entire town to freak like this over a bad high-school football team. A lot of parents, certainly, but why would people like Theresa in Junior 5 go off like that? The whole "loser town" thing didn't need to be pushed this heavily, and this rather detracted from the story.
The whole haunting addition didn't help, either. Okay, so most of the cheerleaders wouldn't recognize Jane or Daria's voice, but Brittany should have. Even all echoy.

Kevin and Brittany breaking up is pretty common, and this was an amusing reason for it, even if it didn't make any sense. If Kevin thought his injury might be permanent then this would be a lot more understandable, but he's a QB, he's got to have had some sort of injury like this before.
Kevin's early behavior did highlight a high-school standard, that of the conformist nonconformist, which was interesting, but not carried far enough.

The best part of the episode was the banter between Daria and Jane, and between them and the rest of the characters. They sounded a lot more like they did early on, although Jane is making more religion related statements than before.

I just don't have a whole lot to say about this episode. It was moderately funny, it had way too much Kevin and Brittany, and Jodie got the best line of the show.

Wraith