1.13.: The Wedding Anniversary

Where's the quote? I was so busy thinking as I watched that I didn't write one down.

"Lisa!"
(How's that?)

Not one of my favorite episodes. Possibly my least favorite of Season One.

It's Lisa & Oliver's wedding anniversary. Oliver can't remember how many years they've been married. There's a long flashback to last year's anniversary when Oliver's "Balcony Crops" got the two of them thrown in prison. This year -- they end up back in prison.

I used to have a tough time pinning down why this episode did little for me. But, now I've mostly got it. Part of it is the previous episode: Lisa Has a Calf isn't a favorite of mine, although it does have its charms. This one seems to be missing some of those charms and seems to be actively going in a different direction than the previous episodes. It's more sitcom-like than anything we've seen so far.

I don't mind the premise but the structure threw me off. The flashback is about half (or more) of the episode. Things start with Oliver forgetting the number of years. Then, we have the flashback. Then, we return to Today where Oliver arranges dinner at the Shady Rest, tussles with Mr. Haney and gets them both arrested. Normally, I love the flashback scenes in Green Acres. From Season Two on, the flashbacks and fantasy sequences will be sheer joy. Here, however, it feels strange. They are all set to go out when Oliver's corn gets sick. He won't go. Dr. Faber shows up. Mother (Oh boy!) shows up. They get arrested. It all feels like a repeat of scenes we saw in the first episode. And, the jokes are very low-key and not that funny. It almost feels like, even though Jay & Dick are named, Dick is on vacation. Most of the sharp jokes that normally litter the scripts are missing here. And, this flashback should be great but turns out to be just overlong and drab.

And, the main plot doesn't have enough to sustain it. The bit with Mr. Haney feels like filler. Sort of like, maybe, the flashback didn't go on long enough and they needed to fill space. There's really no reason for it at all. I wonder if the flashback was supposed to be almost all of the episode and something happened. The second half of the episode, set in Today, kind of drags. And, it doesn't help that the first half, the Flashback, kind of does too.

Another problem is that there is no faffing about at the start. We begin immediately with the plotline and then, by the end, have run out of plot. Usually, the episodes goof about in the beginning and gradually the plot overtakes everything. Here, like the last episode oddly enough, it's there from the start and it runs short. I can't help thinking that, as Phil Leslie left after the writing of the last episode, he yelled "Do an anniversary one where Oliver can't remember how long they've been married? We did that on Fibber McGee and Molly and it killed!" The reason why I say that is because I can see Fibber forgetting but not Oliver. Jay and Dick have done that thing where they altered a character slightly, just for this episode, simply for the expediency of the plotline. And, I'm not so thrilled. (They did that in the fourth season of The Bob Newhart Show a lot. Another example is the The X-Files episode "First Person Shooter". They look like Mulder & Scully but that ain't them, Jack. Rotten episode.)

No Mr. Kimball here, by the way.

In the end, the episode is watchable. Other folks probably like it a lot more than I do. It just feels about as un-Green Acres-like as you can get. Here...

Have you ever loved a TV show or a band or a book or something...? Say a TV show, for simplicity's sake. And, you really want someone else to love it like you do? And so, there's a new episode on or something and you say, "Watch this! You'll love it. Trust me." And, they watch it. And, for some reason, very little of what you love is in the episode. Maybe they're experimenting, maybe it's an off day. Who knows? But, you sit and watch and think "C'mon, do that thing you always do...C'mon, where are the big jokes?...C'mon, where are the weird sketches?" And then, at the end, you have to explain what you love about the show to a disbelieving friend because none of it is apparent from what was just shown?

The Wedding Anniversary would be the comparable episode of Green Acres. Watch the episode and enjoy time spent with the characters. But, know that it shall return to form very soon.

Oh, by the way, it's been 10 years. Oliver & Lisa married around 1955...if the show is set contemporaneously.