The thing that struck me first about this episode was how college kids dressed back in 1984. Wow. The next thing that struck me was the insane hair on the bad guy. Oh. My. GAWD. OK, so this is another Max episode bordering on a Mary Sue. Max's nephew is graduating from Westcliff College and a star on the basketball team. The bad guy is another player on the team, a patsy to the big bad guy, really, insanely jealous, and plants cocaine in the nephew's locker, and causes all kinds of trouble. Turns out Max was the only family he had after his parents' died; turns out "Jenny," his mother, must have been his sister. Now, I'm not generally a fan of Mary Sue stories, especially here in the god-awful 5th season, but this one was really good. Really great acting all around. The nephew, Doug, is played by David Wallace, who played Tod Chandler on Days of our Lives. He did a very nice job. A great scene between J&J playing ping pong; one of the truly rare moments where J&J are genuinely annoyed with each other, not faking it or undercover. They played it so well! Another great scene was between the Dean of the college and the Chairman of the Alumni Assn. (the big bad guy, played by "Hunter"). Great in many ways. For one thing, the acting is top notch; it's a throwaway scene, but they're talented actors who chose to own their roles and made this snooze of a scene compelling and important. Which was a serious feat considering the Dean is pushing an old push mower across his lawn that is nothing but DIRT and no GRASS! And also considering that the Alumni guy is sitting there on the front lawn as he's doing this on a piano bench? Talk about terrible set dressing. But, still, they pulled off a great scene. And Hunter had the very best line of the episode, maybe the season:
Dean: "There's going to be an investigation" Hunter: "Who's going to investigate it the campus cops? They couldn't find a pair of stolen panties if the girl was still in 'em."
So, of course, J&J are undercover, save the day, and Doug helps them win the championship for junior colleges. JUNIOR colleges? Oookey.
BLOOPER ALERT --> At :24, Jennifer is about to sit down as she's kind of manhandled by the guy in the blue shirt. The back cover of her magazine is different in this shot as the very next shot when she actually sits down. Also, the photo on the back of that magazine that first time looks an awful lot like the guy manhandling her; it's weird!
Kind of strange, she never wears her red backpack on her back. She Carries it with her everywhere. And that includes when she's on her bicycle. Not sure why she wouldn't just put it on her back. I really like, however, when there is the bike accident, Jonathan can't hold her cuz they're still undercover, and he just puts a hand on her shoulder. Communicated exactly what it needed to. And also great communication, after the game when Doug is being celebrated, Max reaches out to him and says something that we can't hear over the cheers. You can read his lips, but we don't hear the words ... and we don't need to.
This was a very interesting episode. the bball theme was a new one for them, certainly. It must have been difficult to direct and shoot,and while I did see more than one shot reused at least once, I still think director Ralph Senesky did a decent good job considering the complexities of this episode.
Sadly for me, this is the last episode my local station showed before they pulled it from their schedule. One day, I hope to find the last three episodes of the run,a s well as the nine or so episodes from season 3 that they didn't show. Untilthen, this was way fun. Maybe it's fitting that this episode ends with a freeze frame of Jonathan looking directly into the camera with a knowing grin.
Dean: "There's going to be an investigation" Hunter: "Who's going to investigate it the campus cops? They couldn't find a pair of stolen panties if the girl was still in 'em."
So, of course, J&J are undercover, save the day, and Doug helps them win the championship for junior colleges. JUNIOR colleges? Oookey.
BLOOPER ALERT --> At :24, Jennifer is about to sit down as she's kind of manhandled by the guy in the blue shirt. The back cover of her magazine is different in this shot as the very next shot when she actually sits down. Also, the photo on the back of that magazine that first time looks an awful lot like the guy manhandling her; it's weird!
Kind of strange, she never wears her red backpack on her back. She Carries it with her everywhere. And that includes when she's on her bicycle. Not sure why she wouldn't just put it on her back. I really like, however, when there is the bike accident, Jonathan can't hold her cuz they're still undercover, and he just puts a hand on her shoulder. Communicated exactly what it needed to. And also great communication, after the game when Doug is being celebrated, Max reaches out to him and says something that we can't hear over the cheers. You can read his lips, but we don't hear the words ... and we don't need to.
This was a very interesting episode. the bball theme was a new one for them, certainly. It must have been difficult to direct and shoot,and while I did see more than one shot reused at least once, I still think director Ralph Senesky did a decent good job considering the complexities of this episode.
Sadly for me, this is the last episode my local station showed before they pulled it from their schedule. One day, I hope to find the last three episodes of the run,a s well as the nine or so episodes from season 3 that they didn't show. Untilthen, this was way fun. Maybe it's fitting that this episode ends with a freeze frame of Jonathan looking directly into the camera with a knowing grin.
