Thoughts on Grand, episodes 1-5

 

Via Giphy.

Carol Ann (Bonnie Hunt), wearing a slip, considers a blouse. Cleaning lady Janice (Pamela Reed) enters the bedroom and Carol Ann retreats into the walk-in closet. Janice is mildly annoyed by this quirk.
"(Calling out) You want me to leave?"
"Oh, no! No, no, no! I'm fine. I, uh, always get dressed in the closet. I like to be close to my clothes, you know."
"(To herself as she removes bedding) But not too close to the planet Earth."

Let's welcome back one of Thoughts On's better gimmicks, I Like, I Dislike and I'm Okay With!

"A Tale of One City" (Jan. 18, 1990)

I Like "Play It Grand," the theme song written by Tom Snow and Grand's creator, Michael Leeson. I feel like it actually would have fit as a genuine soap opera theme during this time period.

I Like the chemistry between Pamela Reed and Sara Rue, as downwardly mobile ex-homecoming queen Janice Pasetti and daughter Edda. Reed gives the best sustained performance over these initial episodes, but Rue deserves credit for accepting being the subject of fat jokes at age 10. It helps that Edda gets the last word.

"Ma? I'm, like, thinking I maybe wouldn't go to school."

"(as she cleans Edda's face) Are those kids making fun of you again?"

"No!"

"Did those snots call you a 'fatso from Bilatso'?"

"Do ... do you think I'm fat?"

*Janice pulls away, not sure how to answer this*

"... Yeah." *Makes a "but just a little" gesture* I'm not bringing anymore fattening stuff into this house, that's it."

"But I don't eat hardly anything now!"

"Oh, Edda, c'mon."

"I think the fat other people lose drifts into the air and lands on me." *Makes an "it's so obvious" gesture*

"You eat too much junk."

"So, you smoke."

"Yeah?" *Takes cigarette, snuffs it out in ashtray* There. *Makes definite gesture* I quit."

"There. *Mimics Janice's gesture* I'm thin."

I'm Okay With the chemistry between Reed and Andrew Lauer. Andrew plays Wayne Kazmurski, a young motorcycle cop attracted to Janice. It improves in later episodes, as does the chemistry between Bonnie Hunt and Michael McKean, as Carol Ann and Tom Smithson. The Smithsons are seven months married, and Carol Ann's ready to start a family. "Guess who's ovulating? ... Tom, I am a ripe tomato. Pluck me."

"I don't know who I am."

"You're a lazy, pampered rich boy. What do you want for lunch?"

I'm Okay With the dynamic among Norris (Joel Murray), Desmond (John Neville) and Harris Weldon (John Randolph). In this episode, Norris decides that he's going to stop thinking, indulging in idleness atop a kitchen stool. Weldon, meanwhile, has ordered a French maid outfit for Janice. She later wears it over her everyday clothes.

I Like Reed's performance for the remainder of the episode. Janice is contacted by estranged husband Eddie (Ed Marinaro). As she says, Eddie is probably the only guy who pulled the "leaving to get cigarettes" ploy, then checked up on his abandoned wife. Eddie wants to see Janice tonight, and she admits to Desmond that she's vulnerable and not sure she wouldn't take Eddie back.

I Dislike McKean and Randolph's scene. Tom proposes that Weldon get out of manufacturing pianos and start making golf clubs, resulting in a first day firing. Nepotism can only get you so far, I guess. The acting is decent, but the scene needed a better punchline than Weldon throwing Tom out of his office.

I Love Reed's work opposite Marinaro. Janice gets to let Eddie know that he cannot buy and eloquently talk his way back into the marriage he left. As it turns out, Eddie did not come to reunite with Janice. He wants a divorce. The psychologist he's seeing is also someone he wants to live with. "She's an educated woman and she wants to live with you?" Janice throws Eddie out, telling him that he had better think of something good to say when he tells Edda goodbye. "Oh, and Eddie -- This time, you will tell her goodbye."

I Like the concluding scene of a few characters' nighttime activities. Norris watches The Pat Sajak Show. Janice searches in the vicinity of her trailer for a hastily discarded pack of cigarettes.

"The Pretty Good Mother" (Jan. 25, 1990)

I Dislike how convoluted the farce got in this episode. Carol Ann becomes increasingly certain that Tom is having an affair with Janice. In Three's Company style, Carol Ann catches Tom holding Janice and insisting he's just got to "make it." She responds by getting drunk and then hostile during a dinner at the Weldons that Tom hoped to use as a way of getting his job back. It does give Hunt more to play than the Katherine Helmond in Soap variant she kind of had going in the first episode, but I would have liked more motivation, having her play off of McKean and Reed.

I Dislike Weldon's storyline for the next few episodes. The 100,000th Weldon piano will be performed by Leonard Bernstein at a Carnegie Hall gala, and Weldon is determined to have a young woman on his arm. Desmond suggests Janice. "Seated in the presidential box, the first lady, the president, my cleaning lady, and me. No." "She's a hard worker, sir." "Ordinarily, I like that in a date."

I Like Reed and Rue's performances in the scenes where Janice and Edda decide to have a timed, cathartic wallow about their circumstances. "As long as we got the timer set, shouldn't we bake something?"

"What is it about Janice?"

"She has a unique quality."

"I know what you mean. How would you describe it?"

"(into her wine glass) She's a slut."

I Like the payoff to the adult women's storylines. An upset, rain-drenched Carol Ann has an outburst at Janice's trailer, then storms off ... and suddenly Janice feels a whole lot better.

I Like the sweet ending, of Tom being willing to stay all night with Carol Ann, who's fallen asleep on a park bench.

"Sex, Lies & Cable TV" (Feb. 1, 1990)

I Like Tom's speech at the opening of the episode. I'm imagining how Robert Mandan or Richard Mulligan would have delivered or acted it, which is not to deny McKean's performance. It's the best work he's done on the show so far.

"It's not unusual for a man my age to wake up at four o'clock in the morning for various reasons. Being a woman, maybe you can't understand, but when you're a guy, you lie there in the dark and you think about your life. And where you went wrong. And what's going to become of you. And how your younger brother is doing so much better than you are. And the only thing you can do, honey, is to get up."

I Like the characterization of Wayne being a lovable doofus. "*after strutting over to Janice* Guess what I just had chromed?" It's his gun, done in preparation for the annual Policeman's Dinner Dance and Shootoff. Wayne tries to entice Janice with a fun night. "You've probably picked your own lobster out of a tank, but I bet you never shot your own chicken."

I'm Okay With Norris' storyline getting some forward motion. Weeks of not thinking has helped the young man realize he'd be perfect for TV. He's going to host a local show.

I Love the resolution of Carol Ann's jealousy of Janice, which results in a good scene between Hunt and Reed. The duo won't make anyone forget Katherine Helmond and Cathryn Damon, but they do have decent chemistry together.

"I think my marriage is in trouble Janice, and if you're not the reason ... is it me? I mean, am I just not interesting to him in that ... that marital way?"

"Carol Ann, you're fine. The problem is obvious. Tom's not working."

"Yes, I know that."

"Desmond, wait! Can I ask you a question? ... Have you ever been intimate when the two of you knew you weren't in love?"

"I've been intimate when the three of us knew we weren't in love."

I Like the improving chemistry between Reed & Lauer and Hunt & McKean. Carol Ann fails to get Tom's job back, but she gets her own job from Weldon. Tom's pride is hurt by this. Janice, still sex-starved, decides to go out with Wayne. She asked him to get a hotel room, and he got the honeymoon suite. Wayne enjoys a romantic fantasy, but when he tells Janice he loves her, she realizes she can't go any further. "At this point in my life, I don't want to make love to somebody who loves me."

I Like the grand finale, where Wayne and Tom get acquainted at a bar. They previously met when Wayne gave Tom a speeding ticket on his first day in Grand. There's some more first class monologuing from McKean. "... But a man is on a track from the first day he draws breath. It's birth, school, job, death. ... And it looks like I'm skipping 'job.'" "... I have a job. All I have to look forward to now is death." The men are inspired by Norris' reminder to live in the here and now. Tom goes home to sleep with his wife.

"A Boy and His Dad" (Feb. 8, 1990)

I Dislike that apparently out of the blue, we have a new storyline. Tom has a 12-year-old son, Dylan (Jackey Vinson). It was during these last two episodes that I began thinking about Soap's approach to storytelling vs. Grand's. I feel like most of Soap's first season story elements were introduced during the two-part pilot, even if some of them were just mentioned rather than shown. Let's look at the characters of Burt & Mary Campbell. Their issues included Burt's impotence, which was caused by guilt over having killed Mary's first husband. Tom and Carol Ann have the umbrella issue of his wanting to prove himself as a provider, but unlike the Campbells, where the problems are "and," the Smithsons' problems seem to be "then." We're on our fourth episode about Tom's employment angst, but it's going to take a backseat during this and the next episode. Now, it's about Tom trying to keep Carol Ann in the dark about Dylan, followed by the fallout.

I'm Okay With Tom's "judgment call" about not previously revealing Dylan to Carol Ann. "The night I told her I'd been married before, she went into the bathroom and shaved her head. I probably should have mentioned it before her hair grew back. Well, hindsight, huh?"

I Like Desmond convincing Janice to be a ladylike date for Weldon's Carnegie Hall gala by reminding her of the first class travel to and accomodations in New York, including having a maid who isn't her.

I Like Edda and Dylan, who's been kicked out Wayne's family's home after having fooled around with his gun, bonding. Edda says she likes the name Monique. Dylan calls her that, and Janice is warily concerned.

"Faded Genes" (Feb. 15, 1990)

"Tom, what other secrets do you have, huh? What else haven't you told me, Tom? It is Tom, isn't it?"

I Like Hunt's performance after she finds out about Dylan. "You have a son? ... So you had sex with your previous wife?" "Yes. We were married. Not that happily, though." Carol Ann doesn't react well to the boy's name being Dylan, since that was the name she wanted to give her and Tom's son.

I Dislike that we have another new storyline. Desmond, fearing his gallbladder removal surgery, confesses to Weldon that he slept with one of his ex-wives. Desmond, not Weldon, might actually be Norris' father. There was a good punchline to this, with Weldon being thrilled that Norris' idiocy is not his fault, but once again, I would have liked more of a gradual reveal. The jury's still out on the idea of Weldon, having learned that Desmond cannot possibly be Norris' father, deciding to let him still believe that. It's apparently because Weldon has given up on trying to motivate Norris into making something out of his life.

I Like McKean's performance as Tom tells Dylan about his first marriage. He was selling cars in the San Fernando Valley when he met a rich girl from Beverly Hills. She test drove a vehicle and charged it on her dad's American Express. "A month later, we were married. Her parents never thought I could provide her with the kind of life she deserved. They offered us money. I refused. I had my pride. So we moved into their poolhouse. When you were born, they tried even harder to split us up. They turned her against me. They'd have swim parties, the three of them, and they wouldn't invite me." One day, Tom was unable to get through the front gate at his in-laws'. Dylan said that if he had been old enough to walk, he'd have buzzed him in. "I gave you up too easily, Dylan." "Stuff happens." "It sure does."

I Like Murray's performance and the lines when Norris gives Tom advice on being a good parent. "Five, try to have as few wives as possible. Under three, if you can. A kid has to know he has parents he can rely on. And recognize."

I'm Okay With the ending, after Carol Ann (who did not shave her head this time) agrees to let Dylan stay with her and Tom. "Oh, and Tom, if he touches me there again, I'll have to kill him." "I kinda like you as a brunette." They proceed to screw in the walk-in closet.

Thoughts:

-- Commercials were included with these uploads, which is always fun. I got a big kick out of the audience testimonials ad for Tremors, plus seeing Driving Miss Daisy progress from a Golden Globes-nominated film to an Oscar-nominated film.

-- Pamela Reed had an impressive 1990, with among other things, Grand, Cadilac Man, The Civil War and Kindergarten Cop. And then she did not have any film or TV credits for 1991. That's showbiz, I guess. I'm glad she's still working. There was a time that I thought she would be perfect casting as Heidi Heitkamp.

-- Hey, It's ...! "The Pretty Good Mother" has Meagen Fay and Debra Jo Rupp as a talk show host and guest who fuel Carol Ann's paranoia, plus Marianne Muellerleile as Weldon's secretary, who keeps Tom at bay. "Because he doesn't like you." "A Boy and His Dad" has Lori Petty as Medea, who wants to be Norris' disciple. "If this works out, I might start my own cult."

-- Today in Classic TV: While the men favorably compare Janice to Michelle Pfeiffer, Carol Ann says Tom used to compare her to Loretta Swit ("The Pretty Good Mother"). Feeling like she's living with a stranger, Carol Ann tells Tom that it's like out of a Barbara Eden movie of the week ("Faded Genes").

-- Ratings Roundup: According to TV Tango, Grand had a range of 21.6 ("A Tale of One City") to 17.2 ("Faded Genes"). Most of these episodes aired at 9:30 p.m. on Thursdays. Grand started as the third highest-rated show of the night, and ended this batch as the fifth, behind The Cosby Show, Cheers, A Different World and L.A. Law. We'll see how the ratings progress over the winter of 1990.