I guess it was chance that made sense, but this episode underscores just how far from those first four seasons TAGS will go to fill in that hole ever since we lost Barney. As is clear with each episode of this last season the producers are trying to elevate Howard Sprague. As his character is about the straightest arrow in the quiver it's kind of hard. That episode about his marriage might have been like Howard stepping out, but he didn't make it as he realized he was so set in his ways. Here, however, the writers create a new Howard...in about fifteen minutes. Tiring of being meticulous while working a job in which Opie convinces Howard is meaningless and mundane, Howard acts on what he perceives in a travelog to be the perfect life on a Caribbean island. This might have sounded like a funny role reversal on paper, not so much in the watching. Howard is a much weaker purveyor of comedy than Goober. And Goober no matter what mostly is way short of Barney. That said this Howard totally centric episode just seems flat and out of place. One thing seems notable, Harry Dean Stanton as the island shopkeeper. Stanton's checked out character is underplayed memorably.
Review of Howard's New Life
