Ellen: Salad Days

Ellen: Salad Days
ABC
November 15, 1995
Sitcom
DVD
B-

At the time, this Dava Savel story was notable for the extended cameo of Martha Stewart as herself, but today I was mostly pleased to see the introduction of Paige's assistant Barrett (Jack Plotnick), who immediately hits it off with Peter.  (Bristow is queenier than ever, leading to a great throwaway line from Ellen about his wife.  As for Plotnick, he'd play Barrett in a dozen episodes, as well as have a nifty little role as the also gay Maurice in the 2003 movie Down with Love.)  I might've gone with a B, but I kept thinking that Ellen was getting frazzled for nothing.  (Admittedly, that's often true, but it did seem particularly needless this episode.)

Pat Millicano, who was Ned on the series finale of Who's the Boss?, is Ellen's neighbor Randy here.  Stephanie Erb makes her first of two appearances as Spence's actress girlfriend Denise, in this episode wearing Babylon 5 makeup.  And DeGeneres's real-life mother Betty appears in the credits sequence and would return to the show twice more, but not as herself.