I love this show but I hated this episode. This show did its share of serious episodes well, but this was just... too much. Anyone tuning in to this one expecting a laugh-fest like usual for this show is likely to walk away as though they were just yelled-at. This was too heavy even for the Fresh Prince to handle.
After I finished watching this one I felt like I had just been yelled-at for expecting something humorous. The gritty and dramatic themes come up out of nowhere with all the subtlety of an atomic bomb going off. At best its sudden attempt at an extremely straight face for once in the show's run just comes off as jarring and trying way too hard to win that Emmy - the dramatic themes really aren't done that well anyway.
Again, the show does handle serious issues very well (interracial marriage, drugs, parental abandonment), but this episode really has no place in the show. It was just _too_ serious.
This isn't Star Trek, which could bounce between genres as freely as it wanted; this was a sitcom. A sitcom that at times delved into the serious issues but tried to stay away from them for the sake of its viewers. Except this time. And it was just insulting.
After I finished watching this one I felt like I had just been yelled-at for expecting something humorous. The gritty and dramatic themes come up out of nowhere with all the subtlety of an atomic bomb going off. At best its sudden attempt at an extremely straight face for once in the show's run just comes off as jarring and trying way too hard to win that Emmy - the dramatic themes really aren't done that well anyway.
Again, the show does handle serious issues very well (interracial marriage, drugs, parental abandonment), but this episode really has no place in the show. It was just _too_ serious.
This isn't Star Trek, which could bounce between genres as freely as it wanted; this was a sitcom. A sitcom that at times delved into the serious issues but tried to stay away from them for the sake of its viewers. Except this time. And it was just insulting.