Mork & Mindy: The Mork Report

Mork & Mindy: The Mork Report
ABC
May 27, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Winifred Hervey wrote this episode that was meant to air before the "Gotta Run" three-parter.  It feels like it's going to be a clip show, but Mork's memories in his report to Orson on marriage are all newly shot (and directed by Williams).  We get to Fred and Cora, and hear Orson, this one last time, and end on a more upbeat note, even if it was probably cognitive dissonance at the time.  (Like I said, I remember hardly anything about this season in its first airing.)  The sequences with just Mork and Mindy are best here, especially their "romantic" dance.  (Shown in black & white, unlike the still above.)  I guess we can be glad that M & M got together, even if how this was handled, and other events along the way, didn't always live up to potential.

Mork & Mindy in its final season ranges from 2 Cs to 2 Bs, averaging out to a low B-.  I don't think the series ever fully jumped the shark, and it probably wasn't sustainable for long term (say six plus years) anyway, given the premise and Williams's persona.  It remains a cute, sweet show, sometimes very moving, other times baffling and/or disappointing.  I'm glad I got to follow it then and now on this crazy journey, but I don't know what I would've made of it with a time-traveling Season Five.  If M & M's bond were reemphasized, I probably would've stayed with it, but part of that bond was always their culture clash, and that might've been lost with them clashing with a variety of cultures.

This is not quite it for Williams & Dawber, since a friend sent me a download of their reunion on The Crazy Ones.  If I can still access it when we get up to 2014, I'll share my thoughts then.  For now, we bid a farewell to my junior-high years and prepare for life as a high school freshman...