Soap: Episode 36

Soap: Episode 36
ABC
December 7, 1978
Dramedy
DVD
B-

This Harris & Silver episode, would've been a B, since I like the scene where Corinne's nameless Doctor (Jo de Winter, who was "Dear Libby" on The Brady Bunch) tells her that she has the healthy uterus of a woman who's five months pregnant, even though Corinne has been married only a month.  (More about the timeline below.)  Helmond has some funny lines, and de Winter and Canova are solid.  I also like the scene with Carol and Dennis both trying to Talk with Jodie while he's filming a silly commercial (although one perfectly plausible in that era of the Fruit of the Loom underwear ads such as this one, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnAAr2dQrNA).  I could take or leave the scene introducing Detective Donohue (John Byner in his first of seventeen Soap appearances).  But the two scenes with Danny and Burt dealing with Elaine's kidnapping put too much emphasis on slapstick and dumb humor, like Burt's reaction to a ransom of $250,000, "that's almost a quarter of a million."

As for the timeline, Corinne says she hadn't been with anyone between Tim and Peter, and the latter died six months ago.  And since it was November on the previous episode, that would give us a death date of presumably May (or very early June).  So is this still taking place in '77?  It would've made more sense for Corinne to say Peter died about a year ago (making her pregnancy even more surprising), and he did die roughly at the same point in Season One as we're now at for Season Two.  Unless the murder has been retconned, or Sally isn't that great a secretary and she doesn't update her work calendar.  Also, don't forget that Carol is pregnant.  So it'll be interesting to see when her baby is supposed to be due, if the show ever tells us.  (I don't think so.)

Alex Henteloff, who's Mr. Peppy Flake, had been Capt. Casey on an early M*A*S*H episode, while Wendell Wright, who plays Rodney Raisin, would appear on What's Happening!! a couple weeks later.  Understandably, Elaine, Chester, Eunice, and Dutch are absent, but so is the Major.