Soap: Episode 70

Jodie understands my pain.

Soap: Episode 70
ABC
November 12, 1980
Dramedy
DVD
C

Signal Jaws, the jumping is nigh!  With a one-hour season premiere and a move over to Wednesdays at 9:30 (after Taxi), this was probably highly anticipated by fans at the time.  (I was watching Facts of Life in its first "Jo season.")  Viewing this episode in syndication a couple years later, I don't think I immediately noticed the drop in quality, only in looking back.  But, yes, even at fourteen, I sensed there was something off about Season Four.

Harris and Silver were still writing, but they added on the team of Dick Clair and Jenna McMahon, who had, among other things, co-written a very early Bob Newhart Show episode, but who were mostly known for The Carol Burnett Show.  So perhaps it's not surprising that the comedy became even broader during their thirteen episodes of Soap.  Here in the season-opener, this can be seen particularly with Burt and Danny, both of whom, especially Danny, have become increasingly idiotic, although Burt's lines about his baby son are needlessly stupid.  They and three of Jessica's suitors end up in turban-like head bandages.  If any of this were funny, I might forgive it.  (After all, the comedy was pretty broad on Three's Company by '80 but it usually worked.)  But it's not.  There are moments I like, stray lines like Burt's "Shocked?  I'm appalled!" and Danny's reaction to porn on the hotel TV: "Norman Lear has really changed television."  And of course Crystal remains solid as Jodie.  I'm assuming Harris or perhaps Silver is responsible for some of this, as she probably is for the "eating candy at Mary's hospital bed" scene between the two sisters.  But the writing is definitely on the wall.

As for the actual threads, in no particular order (since the timeline really doesn't make any sense, considering how long Leslie points a gun at Billy, and considering that the judge was supposed to render her decision about Wendy's custody the morning after Jodie left the courtroom with his dignity intact):

1. Mary gives birth to a healthy baby boy.
2. Burt and Danny wake up in the aforementioned hotel room and later receive blackmail photos from Tibbs.
3. Absolutely no mention is made of Polly, despite Danny's proposal in the previous episode.
4. The judge awards custody to Jodie because Mrs. David admitted to the judge that she committed perjury.  (No mention of her or Carol being punished for this, beyond not getting Wendy.)  Jodie offers Carol fair visitation rights, but Carol says she'll make Jodie regret he ever had a daughter.
5. Jessica is in a coma where she can nonetheless speak, and then she mysteriously recovers.  (I've seen the special where Bea Arthur is Jessica's guide in Heaven, but this was in 1983 at the Museum of Broadcasting in New York [as the Paley Center for Media was then known], so I can't tell you much about it, other than I liked it more than the fourth season.)
6. Her suitors squabble over her, leading to the psychiatrist falling out the window, breaking every bone in his body, and laughing about it (because he'll have the neighboring hospital room).  Howdy, Jabberjaw!
7. Dutch decides that he'll have Eunice and Corinne draw cards to see who "wins" him.  They go along with this.  (Oddly enough, this would be a device in Gosford Park.)  Corinne bluffs but Eunice has the high card.  Eunice gloats.  Corinne and Dutch agree to just be pals again, but Corinne tells him she's going to move out.  (This is even worse than I remembered.  I thought that Dutch chose Eunice because she'd got him his freedom.  This is such a cop-out!)
8. And Leslie, as I mentioned, tries to kill Billy but draws it out.  The Major takes her gun away to inspect it but hands it back.  Leslie ends up shooting Saunders in the temple.  (Jessica later comments, "I didn't even know he was Jewish.")

Sarina C. Grant, who was a Ticket Master on What's Happening!! makes her first of two appearances as the Nurse who wonders why Mary is relieved her baby is white (rather than silver).  Sheldon Feldner, who was a Bailiff before, makes his first of five appearances as Deputy Perkins.  Brian Kale makes his first of two appearances as the Emergency Doctor; he'd also play an anesthesiologist later.