Mork & Mindy: A Mommy for Morky

Mork & Mindy: A Mommy for Morky
ABC
November 16, 1978
Sitcom
DVD
C+

I'm sorry to give such a low grade to an episode that includes a tour de force performance by Williams, but it's an annoying performance in a contrived situation.  Mindy's ex-fiance (!) shows up and now that Dan isn't so young (what is he, 25? she's only 21), he wants to get married and especially become a father, to ten children!  Mindy enjoys being with him but she's not sure if she's ready for motherhood.  So Mork uses his aging machine to take on the persona of a three-year-old.  The issues I have with this:

1. It completely contradicts the Orkan aging process that the canon will eventually follow, since an Orkan three-year-old should act like an elderly Earthling;
2. He makes the decision almost unilaterally, without any time for discussion;
3. He chooses to do this shortly before Dan arrives;
4. He sets the machine for ten minutes, and it's an hour till the movie that Mindy and Dan are going to see, so all she has to do is wait the ten minutes and not answer the door (she can pretend she was in the shower and forgot what time he was coming over), until Mork is himself again.  (It's not clear if Dan even knows Mindy is living with a man, which is more sloppy writing.)

All that said, there are some funny moments scattered throughout the episode, like the way Mork has redecorated the attic, and like I said, Williams does a great job of getting into the character of a toddler.  So I won't go even lower on the grade.

Mindy's pregnant friend Sally is played by Susan Lawrence, who carried Dear Lovey Hart: I Am Desperate and who made a nice cameo as Horshack's neighbor on Welcome Back, Kotter.  She'd be back in this role later in the season.  This is the first of seventeen Mork stories written by Tom Tenowich.