Welcome Back, Kotter: There's No Business, Part 1

Welcome Back, Kotter: There's No Business, Part 1
ABC
January 26, 1978
Sitcom
DVD
C+

Kaplan wrote the teleplay based on a story by a writer who didn't write much else (an episode each for three other sitcoms).  The irony here is that it's about Gabe becoming a stand-up comic, whose act bombs and then succeeds when he starts telling jokes about his students, and yet the episode itself isn't that funny.  (The line about Epstein's walk made me smile.)  Also, Haller's name is in the opening credits (something that never happened for Vernee Watson or Debralee Scott) and yet she seems like an afterthought in the scenes she appears in, as if she has no distinct personality in the way that the four male Sweathogs do.  There's a certain lethargy to Season Three, not consistent but recurring.  The final season is remembered as the sharkbait, but it does feel like things aren't as fresh as they once were.  (And, yes, we're not quite through obviously, but I'll be curious to see what Season Three averages out to.)

David Daniel plays a Male Student in this and Part 2, while Sam Weisman would return as Peter Charnoff.  (And Weisman would later become a director, including of Who's the Boss?)

This is the 700th program from the '70s, and the final couple years of the decade are going to be pretty busy.