Three's Company: A Night Not to Remember

Three's Company: A Night Not to Remember
ABC
September 28, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
B

Grossman & Burditt wrote this very farcical season-opener.  Janet has to entertain Ray Hagen (Terry McGovern, who was a Club Manager on Mork & Mindy), a lecherous man from her company, so she drafts Jack to accompany her, even though he has a cold.  Not having learned anything from his experience last Spring, he gets drunk, but instead of dancing all over the place, he breaks Janet's grandmother's vase and then falls asleep in her bed.  As my then-future-ex-husband pointed out a few years later, this is the first of two times that a vase will symbolize Janet's (apparent) virginity; here it's something she was saving for when she got married, and at the end of the next season, she'll meet her future husband and Jack will think Phillip is only after one thing: the vase she inherited.

The premise is arguably tasteless here, one of the episodes where the concept of consent is blurred, but at least Jack feels guilty about "taking advantage of poor little Janet."  Mr. Furley mishears Jack confessing to Larry about "taking advantage of his best friend" and assumes Jack means Larry.  And the episode is funny.  Notice that Janet doesn't seem at all surprised to find herself in bed with someone the next morning.  Yes, she's mostly asleep, but you'd think she'd notice Jack spooning her and scratching her arm.  Perhaps Janet isn't a virgin, or at least has cuddled in bed fairly recently.