Three's Company: Jack Bares All

Three's Company: Jack Bares All
ABC
October 6, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
C-

This is the first one-hour episode of the series, as well as the introduction of Priscilla Barnes as Terri Alden.  As such, it's a shame that Staretski & Rips couldn't do a better job of writing.  Yes, some blame goes to Powers's direction and Barnes's performance, but they're doing the best they can with what they were given.  And I did try to watch this episode objectively (including with director commentary) but these are the issues that remain:

• Terri is an unsympathetic character for most of the episode.  My issue is not really with the scene where she initially annoys Jack, since he's being unsympathetic there, while she's trying to act as a professional, albeit a somewhat snarky professional.  It's actually worse when Terri tries to make up with Jack and further offends him, and here is a good example of the subpar writing.  Even though Janet must've (or should've) told her that it's a platonic living arrangement, Terri acts seductively when she goes into the kitchen.  (Powers says on the commentary that he wanted a Marilyn Monroe style.)  And then, very un-Marilyn, she teases Jack about cooking, saying real men don't.  Now, wouldn't Janet have told her that Jack is a chef?  Beyond that, wouldn't it have come up that Jack is in the ER because he's a chef?  (Not to mention he's wearing an apron and Felipe is also dressed for the kitchen.)  And then when Furley tells Terri that Jack is gay, Terri makes things even worse by apologizing, trying to act tolerant but questioning why he'd have served in the Navy.  OK, it's 1981, but that doesn't make this good character development, or good plot progression.
• Jack is also, as I said, unsympathetic through part of the episode.  He's more justified than Terri, but he did ask Janet to find a roommate while he was busy.  Instead of either insisting on not living with Terri, or trying to communicate with her, he lets Larry talk him into a scheme of vengeance that's a lot more spiteful, and less funny, than what the two of them did at Eleanor's party.
• Larry is unsympathetic through most of the episode.  As he was the previous year, he's trying to move a girlfriend in, this time Didi (Shell Kepler, who'd previously played Larry's girlfriend Luanne, who he also lied to about his profession).  As I asked then, what is the point of this, when we know Larry's relationships are short-term?  And then he seems very taken with Terri (a crush that would continue), but he nonetheless wants her out and Didi in.  So he comes up with the scheme and persists in it, even though everyone onstage (and in the studio audience) is appalled.
• Janet is relatively sympathetic, although it's wrong of her to try to gloss over Jack's anger at Terri.
• Cindy is OK, although it gets annoying that she keeps saying both that she's only going to be ten minutes away (at UCLA, studying to be a veterinarian) and that she'll miss everyone but will visit often (at one point coming back just to say that and to hit Jack with a door).
• Other than his homophobic comments, Mr. Furley is fine this episode.  He is, perhaps willfully, blind to hints at the party that Jack is straight (as in Terri's impersonation of Jack, and Janet's of Larry), but it's not for the first time.
• Felipe is annoying, but that's usually a given.  (Mr. Angelino has decided to give Jack "one more chance.")

So what's to like?  Well, Ritter's dead-on impression of Knotts (and Knotts's reaction) for one.  Also, while I don't think the moment is earned, the way that Jack and Terri make up would pass for sweet on a better episode.  And there are some ensemble moments that are good, like the adding-words-for-a-sentence game.  But this is not how I wanted the sixth season kicked off thirty-five years ago or now.

Bobby F. Ellerbee had played Don on What's Happening!! and his role as Dr. Cooper is, as far as I can recall, the first speaking one for a black actor on 3'sC.  Although she's not credited, Sheila Rogers, who'd previously played Punkin Randall's mother, here first appears in the role of Desk Nurse Marge Andrews.