Who's the Boss?: Briefless Encounter

Before the encounter

Who's the Boss?: Briefless Encounter
ABC
September 27, 1984
Sitcom
DVD
B

Cohan and Hunter wrote what may well be the most famous episode of the series.  (Family Guy would reference it later and it was the main inspiration for the porn parody, http://reviewingeverymovieiown.blogspot.com/2015/10/whos-boss-xxx-parody.html.)  Tony walks in on Angela as she's stepping out of the tub, and the nudity is well implied without showing anything except for like her stomach.  (Light actually flashed Danza, to get a genuine reaction out of him.)

Things that would carry over to the rest of the series:

• A heightening of the sexual tension;
• The nudity, which would be referenced on at least one other episode, with surprising results;
• Mona's interest in psychology;
• Her continuing interference in Angela and Tony's lives;
• Tony's date, in this case an Italian-American college professor, picking him up at the house;
• People thinking more is going on with Angela and Tony than there is, not unlike on Three's Company;
• A misunderstanding, although one that would probably never have happened on Three's Company;
• Tony standing up for Angela and choosing her over someone he likes;
• Sam's indifference to school;
• Mona enjoyment of college;
• Jonathan being beat up or at least threatened, this time by a girl;
• Angela's conflict between work and motherhood, this time heightened by Jonathan's manipulation;
• and someone, in this case Mona, referring to them as a "family."

The kids aren't in this episode much, although Jonathan does set up some of the situation.  Sam Weisman, who acted on Welcome Back, Kotter and M*A*S*H, directed this and a later episode.