 Synopsis: The Kids and particularly Doris struggle to adapt all the changes at the School. Shorofsky gets Bruno a job as a waiter at a coffee shop where he can also play his music. However the job is threatened when the Kids from the school turn up and start to party.
Meanwhile Chris struggles with his classical dance and reluctantly Leroy agrees to help coach him.
My Review
After such a fantastic opening episode the conclusion to the story, although still good, isn’t quite as satisfying for me.
The emphasis of the story has now moved to the new characters and their attempts to try and fit into the school. Morloch provides us with some great humour particularly in his attempts to set up the PA system, which causes conflict for all the teachers. I like that Morloch doesn’t come round to everyone else’s thinking by the end of this episode and it’s obvious that this conflict is set to run and run and the school is in for a bumpy ride. Leroy is fighting with Chris, but wasn’t the room they are fighting in the sick room/ nurses room last season? Then Leroy becomes Chris’ mentor and this leads to a lovely scene between Leroy and Lydia when Leroy says he will be responsible for Chris, showing just how much he has grown up since the series started. However, I have to say I’m a little confused by the Chris storyline, presumably he got into the school because he was a good dancer but to now we have him struggling with the classic stuff and is to be moved to another class. Well as he’s supposedly younger and only just started at the school surely he shouldn’t have been in the same class as Leroy and the older advanced students anyway. After this episode we never see him in any other dance class apart from with Leroy and the advanced students. So it makes me question what the point of the storyline is. If there is this “Shuffling Buffaloes” lower ability class isn’t that where we should see the likes of Doris, Danny and Dwight, instead of them having to always compete with the best dancers? After the cliff hanger of what happens next Bruno’s story tends to get wrapped up very quickly in this episode for my liking and I think I would have preferred to see him struggling for a few episodes and doing different jobs. Although the kids have good intentions of trying to show support for him, they nearly get him fired but that is resolved quickly too. In a way Caruso is a replacement for Bruno’s Dad and someone for him to disagree with. The idea of taking Bruno out of school is a good one and gave the show more variety of storylines although I’m not convinced that the writers really made as much out of this as they could. Straight away he’s found a job and most of his scenes will be as a waiter with very little scope for further development. I really feel this was a missed opportunity, although that’s more a complaint about future episodes rather than this one. The excellent songs for this season continue with “Midnight Celebration” which is a great Coco song. Although Danny’s voice sounds a little weird as he counts into it and Danny has suddenly become a drummer. I also love the duet between Doris and Holly even though we don’t really hear very much of it. Doris is acting weird and we aren’t exactly sure what is wrong. There is a lovely scene near the end where Danny comforts her and tries to get her to talk. The two seem so close then and Danny so caring. Danny then takes her to see Bruno and it is great stuff when Doris talks about how she feels and all the changes that have happened. I just feel this is very realistic and something we can all identify with. Then for great continuity they reprise “Once In Awhile” as a duet and the 2 of them sound great together. Her problems do seem to get solved very quickly though and after the song she seems happy again. episode pictures coming soon
CREDITS: Production number 2763
Although the previous epiosd was billed as part 1 this epiosde was simply billed as:
Gonna Learn How To Fly.
Written By William Blinn
Directed by William F Claxton
Original U.S. air date 22nd October 1983
Original U.K. air date 22nd February 1984 Guest Stars
Michael Delorenzo as Michael
Ann Nelson as Mrs Berg
Seth Kaufman Waiter
David Greenlee Dwight Mendenhall
Dave Shelley Caruso
SONGS
"Once In Awhile" performed by Lee Curreri & Valerie Landsburg.
Written By Ken Ehrlich
"Midnight Celebration" performed by Erica Gimpel.
Written By Barry Fasman and Alan Connor.
MP3s Available:
Download the episode in 4 Parts: Links: Screenshots From Gonna Learn How To (2) |
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