>Yes, I can't say I was so keen on the Reese sideline in this story. Not
>only was the continual meanness to Dewey often unwarranted, I couldn't
see
>a particular reason why Reese was acting so out of character. Maybe I
>missed something ? Did it have anything to do with him allegedly being
in
>the bath at the end of the episode ?
>
>The way he was acting I was constantly expecting him to suddenly change
>what he was doing and return back to the Reese that we know. Funny at
>first, but then it was quite uncomfortable.
>
I didn't figure Reese too out of character; I kind of figured Reese
was 'helping' Stevie purely so he could spy on him making out with
Chandra. Nothing altruistic or nice, just feeding his own voyeuristic
tendancies. After all, he had spied on Malcolm making out before. And
he wasn't really in the bath, that was just his cover for hiding in
the bathroom so he could look through the keyhole into the bedroom.
It was clear the girls weren't going to make out with him, this was
his way of at least getting something out of the evening. Although I
guess that could be considered out of character is as far as Reese
having the intellect to plan a scheme like that.
I felt much of the meanness to Dewey in this episode wasn't personal
or vindictive. Dewey wasn't a target, he was just in the way. Reese
didn't force him outside out of malice, Reese was only interested in
watching Chandra making out with Stevie, he couldn't do that with
Dewey around.
That was a theme they played in the episode, with Dewey first being
kicked out by Hal who wanted to focus on the poker. Finally his toys
were destroyed by Kristen who didn't even know who Dewey was, she was
just trying to force Malcolm to tell her where the gun was.
Some nice moments, but where I agree with you is that there was no
balance. The payback didn't match. I wouldn't have minded Dewey being
treated that way if he could have turned it round and exposed Reese as
the perv he was in front of the whole poker crowd. That was the joke I
expected and missed.
>> For me, the _worst_ MITM episode to date was "Health Scare", season 3.
To me it is a toss up between that and 'Contamination'. And pretty
much for the same reason I think you are saying. Like Poker #2, the
one thing these episodes lacked was balance.
While individual plot lines and isolated moments of these episodes
work fine, the overall payback doesn't match up by the end of the
show. In 'Health Scare' and 'Contamination' the problem was Lois.
Sure, she is a monster, but she does have a heart underneath that. In
these episodes she is ****trayed as just vindictive. I guess 'Health
Scare' more so as it implies she cares about Hal to the total
detriment of the kids. No balance, no caring under the surface even if
it is in her own twisted over-protective kind of way.
They kind of ****tray her that way in the bowling segments of
'Bowling'. But in that they ****tray her slightly more human side in
the segments of her with Dewey, and even in the bowling story, Malcolm
gets humiliated, but the balance there is that he gets the girl, which
he doesn't in the Hal version. In 'Health Scare' the kids get nothing,
except grounded unreasonably as Lois gets more and more paranoid. She
finds out Hal is okay, there was nothing to worry about, but there is
no payback for her unreasonable behavior. She even gets last licks,
winding the kids up over custody.
And in 'Contamination' the way she publicly humiliates Malcolm, that
went just too far for me to find funny, unless there had been some
kind of major punchline. Sure she gets 'grounded' by the millitary at
the end along with all the family except Malcolm, a taste of her own
medicene, but that just didn't cut it as balance for me. Maybe if
Malcolm had actually done anything wrong to deserve the wrath she
poured on him throughout the story I would have dealt better, but all
this came from him getting back late from the library after doing
schoolwork.
I have issues with those two stories. Those are the only two shows I
would hesitate before re-watching. 'Poker #2' I can see is heading
toward the same precipice, but somehow for me stops short of falling
over.
>http://tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/DetailsServlet/showid-248/epid-3855/moduleid-21
>
>I like to watch the ratings of the episodes on this page. I do have some
>disagreements with them (I don't think Houseboat should be classed as the
>2nd worst episode, personally) ... but I think it speaks volumes about
the
>show's consistent quality that out of 86 episodes the lowest rating is
6.7,
>and new episodes continuously feature high, signifying that the show
>is as good as it's ever been.
Interesting chart, actually I disagree with it a lot :-) And... how
come a season 5 episode already has a rating???
'Reese Drives', 'Traffic Ticket' and 'Cynthias back' I would not place
in the bottom twelve. Unfortunately there are only three or four
episodes I WOULD place in the bottom twelve, so I guess I have a math
problem there.
'Day Care' in the top 5. It wasn't bad, but in no way did I think it
better than 80+ other episodes. Okay, the Dewey story in that was
great. The scene where he is arguing philiosophy with the Sunday
school teacher was inspired (any bets Dewey shows up to have a higher
IQ than Malcolm in the final ever episode??). But for an out of
character Reese, this had to be the worst.
But point taken, even the 'worst' episodes aren't that bad really.
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