Synopsis: Ann hires a budget sleazy press agent who gets a fabricated story into a gossip rag linking her with a married actor.
Larry-view: The script is another waste of time, but we do get three great guest stars and some action. We get Robert Alda (Alan Alda's dad). We get fascinating former beauty queen Joan Blondell (career goes back to the 30s). And charming Jesse White (Maytag repairman 1968-1989, Twilite zone, Bedtime for Bonzo).
The script is the usual juvenile compromising situations with questions about hanky-panky flying, Donald and Mr. Marie walking in on Ann with yet another man in her apartment, Ann walking in on Donald with another woman, etc, etc. Oh that's getting tiresome. There's no laugh out loud lines and the script is a complete failure as far as funny goes.
The script also features implausible motivations, dropped threads, and implausible events. Mr. Marie drives an hour and a half from Brewster to confront his daughter, and then stays for three minutes and leaves. He would have at least stayed for a cup of coffee. Donald questions Ann's integrity and they have a blowup argument. He would have apologized since he was clearly in the wrong, but instead Donald agrees to break up and storms out. Mr. Hobert starts hitting on Ann in her apartment, but then that thread vaporizes when she offers him coffee. Ann walks in on Donald and Mrs. Hobert, which would have obviously been on the level, and she jumps to a hanky-panky conclusion, which is patently ridiculous, and blows up. Even with no explanation to her suspicions, Ann immediately drops the hanky-panky idea simply because Mr. Hobert calls Mrs. Hobert "sweetheart." Yes it's a comedy, yes the whole show is silly, yes the audience needs to suspend disbelief, but also, the writers should put a little effort into making a decent script, huh? I wonder why on earth they decided to get three huge guest stars for this one. I guess since they were all from former glory they were able to get them on the cheap. All three are worth watching, it's just a shame they didn't have good material.
We also get some action with Mrs. Hobert throwing vases at the other three people, and the editing here is tight and perfect, except that the stage hand's hand as he is throwing the objects is visible. The director misframed two shots: when Mrs. Hobert moves to the other side of Donald's apartment and throws something at Mr. Hobert holding the lampshade, to me it appears that the director moved the camera to a different place in the room and Mrs. Hobert therefore appears to be throwing in the wrong direction. My wife thought it looked OK. When the object hits the lampshade, the shot is misframed and you don't get to see it hit. That's too bad since that's the money shot in this show.
Man, the erratic quality of the writing on this show is worse than Star Trek. I'm well into season two here and I've only got about three classics for the whole series and lots of complete boners.
Larry-view: The script is another waste of time, but we do get three great guest stars and some action. We get Robert Alda (Alan Alda's dad). We get fascinating former beauty queen Joan Blondell (career goes back to the 30s). And charming Jesse White (Maytag repairman 1968-1989, Twilite zone, Bedtime for Bonzo).
The script is the usual juvenile compromising situations with questions about hanky-panky flying, Donald and Mr. Marie walking in on Ann with yet another man in her apartment, Ann walking in on Donald with another woman, etc, etc. Oh that's getting tiresome. There's no laugh out loud lines and the script is a complete failure as far as funny goes.
The script also features implausible motivations, dropped threads, and implausible events. Mr. Marie drives an hour and a half from Brewster to confront his daughter, and then stays for three minutes and leaves. He would have at least stayed for a cup of coffee. Donald questions Ann's integrity and they have a blowup argument. He would have apologized since he was clearly in the wrong, but instead Donald agrees to break up and storms out. Mr. Hobert starts hitting on Ann in her apartment, but then that thread vaporizes when she offers him coffee. Ann walks in on Donald and Mrs. Hobert, which would have obviously been on the level, and she jumps to a hanky-panky conclusion, which is patently ridiculous, and blows up. Even with no explanation to her suspicions, Ann immediately drops the hanky-panky idea simply because Mr. Hobert calls Mrs. Hobert "sweetheart." Yes it's a comedy, yes the whole show is silly, yes the audience needs to suspend disbelief, but also, the writers should put a little effort into making a decent script, huh? I wonder why on earth they decided to get three huge guest stars for this one. I guess since they were all from former glory they were able to get them on the cheap. All three are worth watching, it's just a shame they didn't have good material.
We also get some action with Mrs. Hobert throwing vases at the other three people, and the editing here is tight and perfect, except that the stage hand's hand as he is throwing the objects is visible. The director misframed two shots: when Mrs. Hobert moves to the other side of Donald's apartment and throws something at Mr. Hobert holding the lampshade, to me it appears that the director moved the camera to a different place in the room and Mrs. Hobert therefore appears to be throwing in the wrong direction. My wife thought it looked OK. When the object hits the lampshade, the shot is misframed and you don't get to see it hit. That's too bad since that's the money shot in this show.
Man, the erratic quality of the writing on this show is worse than Star Trek. I'm well into season two here and I've only got about three classics for the whole series and lots of complete boners.
