I hate to admit it, but I watch TAGS season eight to pick it apart as much as, hopefully sometimes, still enjoy it. With the producers giving up on a direct Barney replacement the melange of new regulars and guest stars sometimes work and, a bit more often, don't. This brings up the thing surrounding so much art which is the earliest , maybe less sophisticated, work of many artists of every ilk is the best. It makes the bar immediately high which is hard to top and easy to pale in comparison. This certainly, for me at least, hovers over TAGS season eight. For whatever reason, with Floyd retiring and the introduction of the almost comically bad Emmett character, the absence of Barney is suddenly worse. The last episode showed our hero Andy in a light where he falters rather than leads with wisdom. This episode is mess. Andy insists Opie goes to a boy's camp that is for "the elite". Aunt Bee has reservations and Opie outright doesn't want to lose his Saturday to the unknown "camp experience". Opie goes just to please Andy, but when Opie is affected by his new buddy and the way the buddy lives, things take a turn for a definite social "class" division. When Andy sees this he thinks he needs to "nip it in the bud", but is also sucked in. The funniest thing is Andy being in a social situation where he feels uncomfortable, yet Opie navigates it perfectly because Andy told him to "be himself" - advice Andy himself was in short supply of. Andy, of course, comes around to being "our Andy". Not a bad lesson, but the comedy of old is sorely absent. The more I think about it, Andy's actual comment in the shows early days that it should have a five-year run is eerily correct. I can only give this episode a six rating as such.
Review of Opie Steps Up in Class
