Category: alf

And here we are. The penultimate episode of ALF. After this there’s only one left, and then we’ll have the standard bonus features after that episode. Beyond that? We’re doing a live stream of Project: ALF that will serve as our big celebration to end the series. It’s on May 20, so click here for information, and make sure to be there. It’s going to be great.

After that I’ll post the formal review of that movie, a handful of wrap-up posts, and nothing else about ALF ever at any point as long as I live. I’m not covering the cartoon shows, talk shows, guest appearances on other shows, any potential reboots, or anything else you could possibly ask me about, period, for fuck’s sake. I’m done with this garbage.

There is one exception I’m willing to make: should that long-rumored ALF movie get off the ground, I’ll post something about it. A full-length review in this style will be impossible before it makes it to DVD and I can take screengrabs, so I’m honestly not sure what kind of coverage I can give it, but if we get an ALF movie, fine, I’ll do something. If we get ALF anything else, it can fucking fuck the fuck off.

But, hey, let’s focus on the positive: our final standalone episode is about Lynn’s sex life.

…hurrah.

It opens with ALF kicking Willie’s and Brian’s asses at Monopoly, which is fine. Like, it’s not great, and I can’t even remember anything about it long enough to tell you what happened, but it wasn’t horrible, so, whatever.

Then Lynn comes home with Robert, and before he hides ALF bitches that she should dump this guy because he’s a mime.

And…he is?

I thought the mime stuff was just some made-up nonsense from that dumbass fantasy episode. Robert is really a mime? Why? HOW?

We met him in “It’s My Party,” where he was a caterer. And…that’s it. The only other time we’ve seen him was “Future’s So Bright, I’ve Gotta Wear Shades,” where he was suddenly a mime. But I figured that was some irrelevant setup for a series of gags, just as Brian’s not really married to the mob, Eric’s not really a children’s show host, and Kate’s tits aren’t that saggy.

The mime thing stuck, though? How strange. Since when do fantasy episodes affect the main continuity? Of…like…anything?

And then there’s just the fact that Lynn’s with a mime at all. If you decide all of a sudden she needs to be dating one, fine, I’ve finished trying to argue, but why bring Robert back for that? Why is it not a new boyfriend? Why introduce another recurring squeeze for Lynn — one who doesn’t mind that she became a frathouse legend a few weeks back — as one thing, only to literally redefine who he is the next time we see him?

I wonder if this episode was originally meant to air before “Future’s So Bright, I’ve Gotta Wear Shades.” It would make more sense that way, both because this would work as setup for Robert being a mime in ALF’s fantasy, and because we might actually recognize the guy there if we’d seen him twice before.

Ugh, whatever. Robert and Lynn kiss, which causes Willie to pop a boner and ALF to bitch at her for not kissing him that way.

If you were hoping they’d hit a grand slam with their final Lynn episode, you really haven’t been paying attention to anything I’ve told you.

After the credits, ALF makes a shitty joke and Kate stares at him wordlessly. It’s odd, but I know the feeling.

Then Lynn comes home from her college football game. Can anyone tell if she’s got the real CSUN crest on her jacket? Also, is it even called a crest? I went to college and I have no idea, because I spent most of my time urinating when girls tried to talk to me.

She won a raffle for a ski trip, and is taking Robert with her. I don’t know if this is a sidelong reference to Dean Cameron — who plays Robert — starring in Ski School the same year “I Gotta Be Me” aired, but it’s a nice enough coincidence even if it’s not.

Well, it’s a coincidence anyway.

This clearly upsets Kate, whose little girl is growing up, and who she really wishes would save her 75th sexual partner for marriage. She suggests taking Joanie instead.

And, hey, remember Joanie? She was the recurring character that wasn’t. Which sucks, because she was pretty good, and it would have been nice for Lynn to finally associate with someone incapable of spraying her with reproductive jelly.

Lynn was on the phone with Joanie in “Lies,” and then Joanie showed up to take a kitten off the Tanners’ hands in “Live and Let Die,” but that was it. Now we get another reference to her, and it really feels like we were meant to see her again and never did.

That’s good for the actress, though; had she appeared a second time she’d have been contractually obligated to do a scene with ALF.

This episode was written by Bev Archer (or is at least credited to her), and she is actually a relatively major figure for ALF.

She’s mainly known for her supporting (but memorable) roles in Mama’s Family, where she played Iola, and Major Dad, where she played Gunny. Neither show was great, but Archer was a highlight of both. She was a gifted comic actress who, as far as I know at least, never got beyond supporting and bit parts. But that’s okay; I like her, and she knows how to make the most of a small role. (Evidence of that fact: I remember her from Mama’s Family and Major Dad more than I remember any of the other actors involved.)

On ALF she played Mrs. Byrd, who appeared in the “Someone to Watch Over Me” two-parter and was heard in “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.” Interestingly, she is also the only actor from this sitcom to appear in Project: ALF, aside from Paul Fusco of course. Everyone else got a big fuck-you. So, that’s interesting. She was clearly in Fusco’s good graces, which we’ve seen many times over is not an easy thing to accomplish.

Archer also wrote three episodes of ALF, including this one, and was probably in the writer’s room for more. Interestingly, all three of her episodes are about Lynn’s romantic dabblings. There was “Promises, Promises” (Eddie and Randy), “Torn Between Two Lovers” (Danny and Randy), and now “I Gotta Be Me” (Robert and Marcel Marceau).

As we’ve discussed before, the fact that a writer is credited for an episode doesn’t necessarily mean that that writer is responsible for its content; it’s possible Archer just pitched the idea. But I do find it interesting that all of her credited work on this show shares that particular common theme.

As you know and would never believe otherwise, “Promises, Promises” was the worst piece of shit to ever air on television, and I’m including the time my TV fritzed out and I got that weird Videodrome transmission. But “Torn Between Two Lovers” was pretty good overall and ended with a great Lynn moment, so “I Gotta Be Me” could go either way.

…wait. It features a mime.

Disregard.

In the next scene ALF eats some soup or something.

Fuck that. We’ll talk more about the Lynn stuff.

Lynn stands her ground about going on the trip with Robert. Kate gets upset, Willie comes in and also gets upset, but Lynn asserts herself and walks out of the room. And…you know what? That whole thing worked pretty well. Granted, the acting isn’t top notch, but I like the situation.

Lynn’s parents want her to make the right decisions, but can no longer make decisions for her. That’s got to be a pretty rough transitional period for parents. You go from having relative control over your kids to having less of it, and eventually having none of it. But your desire to steer your children right doesn’t go away, which means you’ll inevitably be hurt, frustrated, and disappointed by the things that they do.

Here I’m on Lynn’s side, but I absolutely appreciate where Kate is coming from. Especially since…y’know. She’s being a parent. Agree with her or not, she’s displaying a kind of concern for one of her children, and this is maybe the third time that’s ever happened on this show.

I’m on Lynn’s side not because I think Robert’s a great catch or anything, but because she’s a teenager. She’s in college. She’s in a committed relationship (as far as this episode is concerned, that is). And she has every right to make this kind of mistake.

Not that we have to see this as a mistake, but even if we assume it’s one, so what? Take a weekend with your boyfriend. Have a great time. Or get in a fight and realize you don’t know each other the way you think you do. Or have a wonderful weekend, give the guy your heart, and get it broken at some point later so that you’ll wish you never met him.

Whatever happens, it’s okay. In fact, whatever happens, it’s necessary.

These are things people need to do as they grow up. We need to have negative experiences so that we can better recognize and avoid them in the future, so we’ll appreciate the positive ones more, so we’ll know what, exactly, the fuck we want. (Just kidding. I’ll never figure that out.)

If Kate felt that Robert was dangerous, that would be another story. As it stands, though, she just doesn’t want Lynn doing what college girls (and guys) do. Good intentions, but unrealistic and not at all helpful.

Lynn making a stand here, about this, is nice.

She should. She should do exactly this.

She should march off to that ski weekend, and if she comes back happy, great. If she comes back miserable, so much the better. She needs to learn her lessons firsthand. Kate may know better than Lynn does. In fact, she very likely does…but that doesn’t help anybody. Lynn has to know better than Lynn does.

So go ahead, Lynn. Make a mistake. Make lots of mistakes. It’s the only way you’ll come out ahead.

Anyway, Lynn comes in and Willie acts like an asshole to her. She asks why he’s drinking coffee at ten o’clock at night, and he says, “I don’t expect many of us will be sleeping tonight, anyway.”

What a fucking dick…guilting your own daughter for your hangups. And way to go with the passive-aggressive response to an innocent question. Did you learn that from your years of social work experience?

Guys, I really hate to harp on this, but moments like this are why I question the decision to make Willie a social worker. He doesn’t act like one. To anyone. Ever. For any reason. At any point. He’s not a social worker; he’s an asshole.

We get a pretty nice Lynn moment after ALF is shooed from the room. (Seriously…that improves every moment.) Even though it still hinges on Willie being a bit of a fuckwit.

He sits down next to his daughter and tells her she can solve this whole problem right now. One: fuck you for even thinking this is a problem, Willie. (You fuckwit.) But then we come to two: Lynn handles this really well.

Here’s what she says: “How? By promising that nothing will happen that mom doesn’t want to happen?”

It’s not delivered with any bitchiness at all; she just realizes how unfair an expectation it is.

Willie tells her that Kate (way to pass the blame, Willie; you’re the one wide awake, fretting over what does or doesn’t get into your daughter’s vagina) just wants to make sure Lynn is making the right decision.

Lynn has the perfect four-word reply: “That’s not okay anymore.”

And, you know what? Andrea Elson is killing this.

That doesn’t make it a good episode, and it sure as shit won’t be a memorable one, but this is the strongest Elson has ever been as an actor. I buy her responses. I believe in her situation. It’d be a lie to say that I’m invested in it, but I more than agree with her; I’m actively on her side. I want her to win this battle.

I…fuck. To some extent, I care about the outcome of this.

Stand tall, Lynn. Do this for yourself. You’re doing this right. Let your parents learn a lesson this week; you clearly already have.

Earlier in the scene ALF wondered aloud why Lynn didn’t simply lie about where she was going, or who would be there. But Lynn didn’t do that. The show never dug into why she didn’t, but I think she didn’t because she’s more respectful than that.

Sure, she could have said, “Yeah, I’ll take Joanie,” and then spent the whole weekend getting ski school’d. But she didn’t lie, because there’s nothing wrong with her decision, and doesn’t feel the need to hide it.

If her parents have a problem with it, it’s her parents’ problem. She feels comfortable with what she’s doing, which is genuinely the only important consideration here. It’s also the one neither Willie nor Kate seem to be taking on board.

There’s a lot to enjoy and appreciate here. So, you can pretty much guess what happens next.

In the next scene ALF sniffs Lynn’s sheets and jacks off for a while.

God dammit.

Then he tries to give her some guff about putting out for a mime, and I’m a little disappointed that Lynn just tells him to go to hell and doesn’t rip his nuts off and club him to death with them.

ALF even suggests that Willie mishandled the situation with Lynn, presumably because the guy didn’t chain her to a radiator to prevent her from having sex. I don’t know why Willie’s so upset; it’s his own fault. Years ago when he took his daughter to the circus and the ringmaster said, “Give it up for the mimes!” she really took it to heart.

The implication in this episode is that Lynn is a virgin. Which I doubt because I’ve watched the 98 episodes that preceded this one, but…whatever. It’s never explicitly stated, so it’s not necessarily a retcon…and I don’t really give a shit. This show is so riddled with continuity fuck-ed-ness that I don’t care what we are or aren’t told about characters anymore; all I care is that it leads to something worth watching.

For the most part, this does. It’s not great, but if we need to pretend Lynn is a virgin so that her parents can grow the fuck up, then, fine, whatever, I’ll take it.

The next morning Robert comes over to pick her up. He loudly announces that the hotel is giving them a room with a fireplace and a hot tub, so that they can fuck in front of a fireplace and also fuck in a hot tub. Willie gives him signals to shut his whore mouth, which Robert misinterprets, and then he waves goodbye to Lynn’s virginity.

Sadly, as in all softcore pornography, the penetration happens off camera. This is our act break, and the next thing we see is Lynn returning home.

It’s overall a pretty good scene. Both Kate and Lynn feel bad about the way they handled the situation. (Willie expresses no such regret, because fuck his wife and kid.) Which…eh, whatever. I don’t think Lynn did anything wrong — again, she was honest about what she was doing, and she was pretty articulate in her explanation of why she had to make her own choices — but I can understand the value of keeping the peace. Sometimes it’s worth conceding a little bit just to avoid the conflict.

And she does avoid the conflict, until she says that she and Robert enjoyed sex so much that they talked about living together, so that they can have it both regularly and without an alien listening through the door.

This causes Willie and Kate to flip the fuck out, and Lynn gets upset. Rightly so, I think. To be honest, I’m on her parents’ side this time — she is a bit young and she hasn’t been with this guy long enough — but the way in which they come down on her is pretty shitty. They basically just explode the moment she brings it up, so even though they have a fully rational leg to stand on, they just act like dickbags about it.

Lynn storms out, and ALF says to Willie and Kate, “If it’s any consolation, I’ll never leave you.”

At this point that has to be a deliberate joke on the part of the writers, since he does exactly that in the very next episode, furry middle fingers raised to the Tanners and to the audience.

Lynn goes over to Robert’s filthy fucking sty of an apartment and says that she’s ready to move in. Robert replies, “Whoa, let me make one thing perfectly clear: I only said that so you’d let me stick it anywhere I wanted. I’m sure you understand.”

This helps Lynn put things into perspective, but unfortunately not enough that she jams her thumbs through his eyes.

She decides she was hasty to leave home. She says, “Okay, I’ll go back. I’ll play Suzy Creamcheese one more time, but I won’t promise to like it.”

And…I have no idea what the fuck that means. It’s a Frank Zappa reference, but that’s all I know for sure. Can anyone better versed in Zappa’s history shed any light on this?

I’m aware of a little bit of context…but only a little. The back cover of Freak Out!, the debut album from Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, featured a letter from a fake fan named Suzy Creamcheese. The next year (1967) the band released Absolutely Free, which included a song called “Son of Suzy Creamcheese.” You can listen to it here like I just did, get needlessly pissed off that the uploader misspelled “Suzy,” and most likely still have no idea what Lynn’s talking about.

So, I dug a little further. Urban Dictionary, which I won’t be liking to, refers to a Frank Zappa interview from 1971 when defining “Suzy Creamcheese.” It was evidently a nickname given to an underage groupie, which may be true, but it’s nothing I’ve heard before, I haven’t seen the interview in question, and I can’t imagine that that’s what Lynn is comparing herself to anyway.

So…what the fuck?

I have to assume there was just some Zappa fan on the writing staff and they shoehorned it in for the sake of referencing the man — especially believable since Lynn at no point has acted anything like the particular kind of person who appreciates / understands / tolerates the music of Frank Zappa — but in that case, I’m surprised none of the episodes were named after Zappa songs. Wouldn’t that be the easiest place to slip in a reference without derailing the plots?

I have no idea. Anyone? It’s not uncommon for Zappa references to boggle minds, but here it’s boggling the mind of a Zappa fan. What the hell am I missing?

Lynn goes home, and everyone’s a real bitch to her. But that’s okay, because the sad music comes on and Kate admits that she’s only a real bitch to her because she loves her.

The dialogue here is pretty ropey and cheap, but Anne Schedeen does her best with it. I can’t say it was especially effective to me, but that was certainly through no fault of either actor. The reconciliation as written simply aims to warm the heart and misses its mark. At best it…I dunno. Burns my elbow.

The one thing I really like about it is how contentious the scene is when Lynn returns, and how naturally it softens into a discussion about what she and her mother feel. It’s a very human thing to lash out when you’re actually trying to reach out, and they both do a good job of tapping into that emotional irony.

Then ALF pops up through the plot window to make a joke but Willie throws him to the floor for some violent fucking against the kitchen tile.

In the short scene before the credits, ALF refuses to get out of Lynn’s bed until she shows him her “ski moves,” so she calls the Alien Task Force.

This one…well, it wasn’t good. But it was surprisingly far from awful for an episode that’s explicitly about Lynn spreading her legs.

Part of me does wish it ended with her decision to move out, because that would have provided a nice suggestion of human momentum for the character…and since the show by this point knew the Tanners wouldn’t be in season five, it wouldn’t have posed any writing challenges moving forward.

It’s not a bad thing, exactly, that Lynn chooses to stay…it’s just that that’s the sort of decision she’d have to reach in a show that relied on the reset button. ALF no longer has such a restriction, which is a luxury that it’s frustratingly not interested in exploring.

Seriously, the show can do anything with these characters at this point, as it knows full well we’ll never see them again. Lynn can move out. Willie can get a new job. Kate can have an affair. Brian can get his hand bitten off by a seal. So why the show does precisely nothing with any of them is a question I cannot answer.

Unless, of course, this episode really was supposed to air much earlier in the season. That would explain why it feels the need to reach for the reset button. “I Gotta Be Me” certainly doesn’t feel like a second-to-last episode, and we discussed earlier how this could have set up the mime stuff for the flash-forward episode, so I don’t think it’s an unreasonable suspicion. Then again, it’s not like any other episode felt like a second-to-last episode, so fucked if I know.

Its placement at pretty much the end of the entire show does a great job of emphasizing how much Elson grew as an actor, though. She might not be leaving ALF with much raw talent, but she’s come a hell of a long way from the stilted, pop-eyed mannequin of season one.

The show rarely figured out what to do with her, almost never gave her worthwhile material, and sure as hell didn’t treat her well as a person or as a character…but she’s grown nevertheless. The idea of Lynn having a moving heart-to-heart with her parents would have chilled my bones in the early episodes, but by now it’s the writing that’s failing the audience, not her acting.

She has several emotional moments in “I Gotta Be Me,” and she carries them well. That’s progress. And, once again, that’s why I’m sad she was stuck on ALF. In a better show, she could have become much more. Here she was restricted by the limitations of fuck-awful television.

She still grew, but always within those limits.

It’s a shame, in a way, but at least we get to end with the assurance that while Max Wright got worse and Benji Gregory went nowhere during the course of ALF, Andrea Elson somehow found an opportunity to grow as an actress. And that’s as happy an ending as this show is going to get.

Just don’t look her up on IMDB. It…gets a lot sadder if you do that.

Countdown to a few light taps upon the pane, and Willie turning to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey eastward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Los Angeles. It was falling on every part of Griffith Park, on Pizza Barge, falling softly upon the Ochmoneks’ lawn flamingos and, farther westward, softly falling into Silas Tanner’s reservoir. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Gordon Shumway lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead: 1 episode

MELMAC FACTS: Rodent parts were used on Melmac as food preservatives. ALF had a cousin named Frieda. Lynn is 19 at the time of this episode. ALF’s mother didn’t approve of Rhonda. Rhonda had a reputation for “skiing around,” which ALF says is how they met, but he’s a fucking liar because he said in “Stop in the Name of Love” that they met at a pet bake. Melmacians can drool a toxic black liquid in their sleep.

I have to say I’m surprised that the past two episodes have been varying degrees of good. Low degrees, but degrees of good all the same. I didn’t expect to find much at all to enjoy in these final five but, instead, I’m finding little to actively hate. It’d be foolish to say that ALF has hit its stride, but considering how little effort anyone put into this show to begin with, I’m kind of shocked to see the machine humming along this late in the game.

Fortunately, here’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” to reassure me that this show never had a chance to begin with.

It opens with a pretty dumbass scene, but we get some nice, silent acting from Anne Schedeen as she stops in the middle of putting groceries away, and has a premonition that something terrible is about to happen. Willie tells her otherwise, because apparently living with ALF for however many fucking years has somehow failed to teach him anything.

Then ALF comes in and…y’know, that’s a pretty good comic setup. It really is. Kate has a bad feeling, ALF struts immediately into the room…that’s nice. But the show botches it by having ALF do nothing, really. He just bitches about his weight.

We learn that Melmacians don’t gain weight the same way we do. They don’t get fat; they get dense. The weight they gain is internal, and their shapes don’t change to account for it. On the one hand, this is useful. (ALF mentions that their clothes always fit and, well, I’m only 35 and I can already see the appeal in that.) On the other hand, if they get too dense, they’ll implode and die.

And…

…that’s the cold open.

Hooray?

I mean, it’s nice to hear more about Melmacian physiology, and I like that we get an explanation as to why the puppet never gains or loses visible weight in spite of all the shit he eats. No, we don’t need an explanation, but I like that somebody wrote one.

But that’s it. Kate’s well-acted premonition gave way to ALF sitting on a chair and saying some shit nobody cares about.

After the credits, Willie buttfucks ALF.

Mutually spent, they take a few minutes trying to remember what the episode was about.

Turns out it’s about dieting or something.

ALF is miserable because they made him some healthy food. Ha ha! When you are on a diet, you can only eat salad, while everybody around you eats deep fried pizza and lard balls! ALF, you are in for it now!

So, yeah, ALF bitches about vegetables. The family bitches right back at him because he was the one who wanted to lose weight to begin with, but he says a bunch of crap about how dieting is bad for Melmacians. ALF says it can cause “an imbalance in my enzyme system that might make me revert back to my primal instincts.” It says a lot when the show’s writing is so poor that you can’t tell if the main character just told a bad lie, or if the writers wrote a bad script.

I guess it’s a promising idea that ALF’s diet may cause him to flip out and lose control, but we’ve already seen what a reversion to his primal instincts looks like in “Wild Thing.” I’ll jog your memory: he mows the lawn.

They go over this, like, fucking forever. By the time the scene is over, we’re eight minutes into the episode. They really were in no rush to do anything interesting, were they?

That night ALF exposes himself to some soda cans.

Willie and Kate catch him stealing food, so he pretends to sleepwalk. They scare him by saying there’s a cockroach on his shoulder, and my fucking god who CARES.

It’s another padded scene after however many other fucking padded scenes we’ve already had. This episode had no plot, and the crew decided to make it anyway. It’s literally just scenes of characters repeating the same things over and over in the hopes that the stage lights will eventually crash down and kill them.

At one point Willie grabs ALF and says, “Feet back! Spread ’em!” in case there wasn’t enough buttfucking for you already.

He pulls a bunch of phallic things out of ALF’s trenchcoat, which would have qualified as a visual gag if they remembered to write the gag part. As it stands it’s just something that happens because the cameras are rolling and they might as well do fucking something.

ALF explains that if he doesn’t eat something soon, he’ll have to hunt and kill some food to replace his enzymes. Willie and Kate don’t buy it, and don’t even make any effort to hide Lucky II. Which…makes sense, actually. That cat’s been in hiding since it was introduced. I look forward to one of the Alien Task Force guys slipping on its fetid carcass as they move in to taze ALF.

Anyway, ALF starts growling and stuff, which is evidently his primal nature kicking in. This…is actually okay, since I’m more than happy to forget “Wild Thing” ever happened, and I’m all for a do-over with the concept. Here’s hoping this one is resolved by ALF ripping apart and gorging himself on a screaming Eric.

When this scene ends we’re 10 minutes into the episode. You know, if the writers keep this up, they might be able to go home without actually doing anything! That’d be an impressive low, even for them.

The next morning, Brian comes in and asks for a recap of all the previous scenes in the episode, because he forgot them.

It sucks. It’s the same shit we’ve already heard, repeated yet a-fucking-gain because ALF had a half hour timeslot and only about 20 seconds of material.

ALF starts howling and you just know you’re getting a good screengrab next.

Yeah, so, ALF’s going apeshit in the back yard. And by that I mean he has a bone in his hair and is holding some twigs.

Why is he doing this? Well, Willie’s on hand to remind us of all the shit about Melmacians and crash diets and enzyme balances that we’ve been hearing about continuously since the episode started and literally could not have possibly forgotten by now. I imagine the script had a lot of instances of the word REFRAIN.

ALF calls himself Wolf now, so that the episode’s title can make a lick of sense.

I love it when they force a name into the show just so they can use a specific song as its title — which nobody outside of self-loathing ALF reviewers will ever even see. They did it in “Keepin’ the Faith” and “We’re So Sorry, Uncle Albert,” too. Fun fact: those episodes are also fucking garbage.

Willie, being Willie, says ain’t no Willie got time for this and tells his wife to deal with it herself.

Seriously. He does. She protests and sincerely asks him not to leave her alone with a crazed, dangerous, potentially homicidal alien. He replies, dickishly, “Let me call the office and say I won’t be in today because my alien’s diet has made him a warrior-hunter.”

No, fuckbag, call the office and say you’re sick. Help your fucking wife. Don’t leave her to the whims of ALF’s psychosis, especially when that little asshole is so violent and destructive even on his best days. Nobody here knows what to expect from the alien in this state, and Willie is perfectly content to come home to his wife’s mangled body on the living room floor.

Anyone want to try defending this dickass again?

Willie wishes his family luck in Heaven or Hell or wherever they wake up, and Lynn, being Lynn, steps up and says, “I’ll stay home with you, mom.”

I’m glad you exist, Lynn. I’ll be even gladder if you help your mother move out while her deadbeat husband pretends to have a late night at the office.

Uh, Kate? I love you and all, but I don’t think that’s the way you hold a baby.

Anyway, Willie comes home, at least moderately disappointed to find his family alive, because now they want his help. (Women, eh?!) Lynn talks about how crazily ALF has been behaving, and Kate tells him, flatly, that she’s frightened.

Willie’s response: he stands up, walks away, and spits, “Why do you automatically assume that I have the answers for these questions?!”

Ass.

Hole.

They’re telling you that their lives are in danger and they’re scared. They aren’t asking for answers; they’re asking for help. We were supposed to believe last week that Willie cared deeply about leaving a clean world to his children, but now he makes it explicitly clear that he doesn’t even care if they are safe in their own home.

DO SOMETHING FUCKBAG

Then the car starts and ALF stole it or whatever so Max Wright does this:

Jesus Christ this guy is awful.

After the commercial, the family exposits that they’ve been out looking for ALF and have found nothing. Then the phone rings and it’s some cop saying Willie’s car was found in Griffith Park, which is indeed a real park in LA. Kate seems to know it well, so that may provide some clue as to where the Tanners actually live in this massive city. (It doesn’t help me any, as I’ve never been there, but to someone with experience perhaps this is a nice detail?)

Kate says that the park could be very dangerous to ALF, which causes her husband to do this because he’s a cunt:

He’s pissed off because Kate showed concern for ALF’s safety, and in Willie’s mind I guess that means she can’t possibly have any concern for him as well. He says, “How silly of me to think of myself, just this once.”

And, man, what the living shit is this guy’s problem? He’s constantly an asshole to people who have nothing to do with his actual problems. In fact, Kate offers to go with him to the park and help with ALF…the exact opposite of what Willie did earlier in the day, when he made a big show of leaving his wife to deal with it alone.

You know.

When he was thinking of himself.

“Just this once” my hairy asshole. I’d be hard pressed to think of a time you were thinking of anybody but yourself.

In the park Willie finds a hobo, so they give each other blowjobs for a bit, secure in the knowledge that nobody will ever find the tape they recorded for some fucking reason. The show doesn’t tell us who this guy is, but adhering to ALF‘s template for naming the homeless I’m going to call him Gaggy Tad.

Willie stands around gabbing with G.T. for a while, and then mentions that his life went to hell “Four years ago. September.” Which puts ALF back on our timeline (the pilot did indeed air four years prior to this episode, in September) even though this season’s done everything in its power to wrest it into a timeline of its own.

So who knows how much fucking time has passed since ALF crashed into their garage. Also, why the absolute shit do I care?

I may as well mention that this is Jeff Doucette, who looked familiar though I couldn’t place him. (Could it be his unforgettable turn on Dog with a Blog?) Turns out he was in a bunch of episodes of Newhart, which is probably why I know his face, and that’s yet another connection between this show and Bob’s work. (You’re always going on about Bob Newhart. Let it go, Paul; you’re never going to meet him.)

Gaggy Tad says he thinks he saw “the little guy from Fantasy Island” in the park, referring to Hervé Villechaize.

Willie knows it’s actually ALF, though, and he says something I’ve listened to six times now and I still don’t know what the fuck it is. It sounds like, “He must be very bither.” Like, to rhyme with “wither.”

Is that some kind of Fantasy Island reference? Unless they say “De plane, boss!!” or ALF shoots himself in the head, any Fantasy Island reference will be lost on me.

Oh, the joys of having Max Wright deliver your lines. The audience will never know if it’s a joke they don’t get, or a shitty performance he refused to re-shoot.

Willie finds ALF about to disembowel and feast upon a poodle. You know…in case you didn’t hate these guys enough already.

I have to admit I’m…well, not impressed, exactly. But I’m intrigued by the fact that he was stalking a dog and not a cat. I guess the character change in “Live and Let Die” really did stick. Interesting. I still have no idea why they did it, but unless the next two episodes make a fool out of me, it looks ALF’s change of heart about eating felines was a deliberate and permanent one.

Pretty neat. It’s the nearest thing to actual development we’ve had for this character. It says a lot that it runs no deeper than what he does or doesn’t put in his stomach, but with this show you need to take what you can get.

Willie tells ALF to eat a fucking candy bar already. This gets a nonsensical crack about the Twinkie defense out of ALF, in a shameless pander to viewers who wondered why sitcoms weren’t making more jokes about the murder of Harvey Milk.

Anyway, ALF runs off, Willie screams, “Wolf!” for a while, Gaggy Tad comes back to do some observational hobo standup, and then ALF is cured and the episode ends.

I guess I shouldn’t have expected much more from an episode that wasn’t about anything to begin with, but somehow I was still disappointed by how careless this whole thing felt.

Honestly, if I’d found out that “Hungry Like the Wolf” was improvised, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. It’s fucking horrible, just like everything that’s improvised. Write a script, you lazy shits.

In the short scene before the credits, Kate shoos some black people off her doorstep.

Actually they came to get their poodle, I guess, but I have no fucking idea what happens after that. Kate closes the door, the black ladies start screaming in distress, and there’s the sound of a loud car horn. So…the dog got hit by a car? One of the people got hit by a car? Nobody got hit by a car? I have no clue, but whatever it is they’re clearly screaming for help.

Willie says, “Don’t open the door” when his wife shows concern, and that’s…it.

What the cunting god damned hell was that?

Tell me again what a great guy Willie is. Tell me again what an excellent social worker he is. Somebody is potentially dying in front of his house and he refuses not only to check on them, or to help them, but to call somebody else who would help them.

This…what is this?

What the actual fuck is this?

ALF comes back in and says he doesn’t give a shit about dieting anymore, which seems like something that probably shouldn’t matter what with somebody’s dog or mother or daughter lying dead in the street.

Fuck. This. Show.

Countdown to ALF being hunted and gathered in front of the Tanners: 2 episodes

MELMAC FACTS: ALF’s grandparents died from physical implosion, and he had to wet-vac them off the carpet. Melmacians only gain weight internally, and will collapse if they eat too much.

For the second week in a row, we get a Willie-centric episode. God knows that if you want to go out with a bang, you should turn the last chunks of your show over to a mumbling crack addict who would clearly rather be dead.

It opens in a pretty worrying way: ALF frets over deforestation. Wonderful. I was sure hoping for another Very Special Episode in which a sex-crazed aardvark creep shows humanity the true path to happiness.

It’s a shitty scene with he and Brian pretending they give a crap about each other. Somehow it doesn’t work. CRAZY RIGHT

But we do see a faint glimmer of promise when Willie walks through the door. (Damn…I’m sure I’ve never, ever typed that before.)

Specifically, we see that the show just might have figured out how to goad a good performance out of Max Wright: let him be miserable.

Seriously, he’s pretty good here. And that’s because, I’m sure, the show is giving him a chance to vent his frustrations a bit. I know I’ve talked a lot about how Andrea Elson tends to be very good when Lynn is being supportive and warm…presumably because Elson herself was a genuinely supportive and warm human being. Anne Schedeen is nearly always good, and I’m sure that’s because Kate is meant to be caustic and frustrated. I’m not saying Anne Schedeen was anything like that in person, but I am saying that she was able to channel the overpowering misery of working on ALF in a way that the other actors couldn’t. She didn’t have to hide her true feelings, in other words; it benefited her to let them inform her performance.

Now, for whatever reason, Willie gets to be caustic and frustrated. And that’s probably how Max Wright actually felt at the time. As a result, it works. Deliberately or not, the writers tapped into something the guy could, at long last, sell to an audience.

Every one of his lines in this scene allows him to be…well…him. As soon as he enters the scene he says, “Hello. Am I glad to be home?”

Then ALF tells him that his son* is going to inherit a dying world, and he replies, “What have you done now?”

ALF shows him the satellite photos he was looking at with Brian, and Willie pointedly asks, “Were these free?”

Finally, after ALF delivers his spiel about the rainforests, Willie says, “I know it sometimes looks pretty grim.”

That’s the entirety of what he says in this scene. Three of his lines are loaded questions meant to make ALF feel like a worthless sack of shit, so it’s no surprise that I love them…or that Wright delivers them so convincingly. The fourth is just an observation he makes, and his performance there, by contrast, is offhand and dismissive.

Is it because Willie is dismissive of environmental concerns? No. It’s because Wright is sick to death of working with Paul Fusco. He relishes the chance to needle ALF, and shrugs off his one line of dialogue that’s just a spacer between two ALF monologues.

We see pretty clearly in this scene just how completely over this show Max Wright is…and just how the show could still, potentially, find something to do with him: lean into the guy’s inner asshole.

It’s too late for that to make much of an impact — even if they rode Dickin’ Willie to the end of the show, it wouldn’t make a dent in the total number of episodes — but it’s still nice to see.

I want to like ALF. I really do. And I’ll give it credit when it gets something right. It’s just a shame that “right” in this case comes so close to the end, was likely an accident, and was only possible because ALF by this point had ruined the man’s life.

A great start, so of course, the show immediately undoes it with a bunch of jokes about ALF listening to Willie and Kate fuck.

What is it with this show and that happening? Sometimes you guys get on me about inserting sexual jokes into my reviews, but, fuck, believe me, this show is sex obsessed in the creepiest possible fucking way there is. It’s gross. I’m just trying to replace the show’s own constant sex jokes with ones that don’t make me want to barf.

Anyway, ALF runs out of material so he insults Kate’s intelligence for a while.

Amazing that audiences got tired of this show, isn’t it?

Then ALF starts bitching about CFCs destroying the ozone layer. I’ll give “Stayin’ Alive” credit for addressing what was, when this originally aired, a legitimately timely topic. It was also, at its time, an important one.

Hey, that’s right! Remember when the ozone layer was a huge problem for the world — and the continued survival of mankind — so we set a bunch of new regulations and changed the way products were manufactured? We as a people saw a serious issue, worked together to fix it, and didn’t fight the solution. And it worked so well that we don’t even need to worry about it anymore. And that’s pretty great, isn’t it? That we fixed something we knew was harmful to us?

Of course it’s great. I just wanted to write that for any republicans who might be reading this blog. Climate change is real. Let us fix it, you shits.

ALF says there’s a company called Sendrax which is totally the worst. And, man, when a hacky serial rapist calls you the worst, you’ve got to be really fucking bad.

He shows them his letter to Sendrax, and Willie reads it out loud. I’ll transcribe it in full here, because I actually like it:

Dear Sendrax. Manufacturing CFCs is a threat to the survival of the planet. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s wrong. Damned wrong. So just knock it off.

Kate then compliments him on his choice to write it in glitter pen. And…man, I’m all for this. I really am. Wright’s disinterested, flat reading of the letter is perfect — again, deliberate or not — and I enjoy ALF’s childlike response to the situation. He’s smart enough to know Sendrax is doing something harmful, but nowhere near articulate enough to argue his point. Basically, I just like it when ALF is a believable dumbass, rather than a rampaging psycho or cosmic savior.

Already this is far better than his world-saving crusade in “Pennsylvania 6-5000,” in which a heartfelt plea for disarmament failed to make for hilarious television. (Weird, that.) Here the show still gets to make a valid humanitarian point, but it does so in a way that’s conducive to comedy. (ALF is the absolute best at having its characters sit, but it usually struggles with the “com” part.)

Am I actually going to like “Stayin’ Alive”? Honestly, I doubt it, but we’re getting flashes of what a better show would have done with the same premise, and that’s reassuring.

There’s good material in season four…it’s just spread thin. Damned thin. And it should knock it off.

Kate wishes ALF luck with his letter, which causes Willie to flip out so severely on her that I couldn’t even get a clear screenshot.

Her point is that writing to the company is a constructive response to the issue.

His point is that he’s a gigantic fucking asshole.

Later on ALF is calling a radio show to complain about CFCs or some shit, and the big joke, I guess, is that the topic of the show had nothing to do with the environment. Hilarious. ALF is a nuisance.

Lynn comes in with the mail and nothing to report about her day, because it didn’t involve ALF and therefore has no business being discussed.

She hands him a response from Sendrax, but it’s just another form letter thanking him for his concern. So, yeah, apparently he’s been sending a bunch of letters, and always getting the same vague replies.

Lynn then crawls into the Tanners’ cryogenic hibernation pod until ALF needs her again.

Later still, Max Wright gets to howl the prime-time equivalent of profanities at ALF, which means he’s pretty good again. Apparently Willie’s space puppet spent $300 at the post office.

How ALF did this without leaving the house is never addressed. Which is fine, because Willie is clearly more worried about $300 than about ALF being spotted, captured, and tortured in an underground research facility.

Actually, fuck, I’m right there with him. I’ll take $300 over ALF’s safety any day of my life. Shit, I’ll pay you twice that if you can guarantee they’ll never find the body.

Anyway, Willie threatens sexual violence against him.

I’m not even kidding.

That’s just what this show is.

Even in episodes that I don’t hate…that’s just what this show is.

ALF has been sending a shit-ton of letters to Sendrax, with a different signature every time. Right now he’s writing one signed by Marvin Hamlisch, and I figured we’d get some kind of joke about signing one of the letters “Willie Tanner,” which would also naturally feed into where the story goes from here, but second drafts are for suckers.

ALF’s plan was to have all of these letters quote his radio screed, which would then trick Sendrax into thinking he’s started a public movement against them. Of course, since ALF is making up the whole thing he didn’t have to go on the radio in the first place but SECOND DRAFTS ARE FOR SUCKERS

Eh, whatever. This scene is packed with a hell of a lot of exposition for a sitcom, but considering that a typical half hour of this show involves ALF shitting into the tub while shouting racial slurs, I’ll take “a hell of a lot of exposition” any day.

The phone rings and it’s Sendrax, asking for Gordon Shumway. Shit just got real.

Whoever is calling uses the word lawsuit, and ALF clarifies, “Would I be suing you, or would you be suing me?” (Which I kind of love.) Then he hears the answer and slides the phone over to Willie, saying, “It’s for you.” (Which I also kind of love.)

Like “Mr. Sandman,” “Stayin’ Alive” has a lot of clunky setup, but the payoffs are, by and large, worth it. While this isn’t as good an episode, it’s shockingly competent compared to most of season four. And by that I mean I only cried twice.

And…uh…that was the act break. So, okay. I don’t hate this one so far, but I’m a bit surprised that so little has happened by the halfway point of the narrative. Like, seriously. It was just ALF bitching about the same thing in a few different rooms. I get the feeling that the storyboards this week just had the word WHATEVER written across them.

Anyway, Benji Gregory has realized that the production crew pays so little attention to him he can lie horizontally across a scene and nobody will bother to move him.

Willie and Kate yell at ALF for a while, and nothing is really established by this scene except that lawyers are expensive. (Can anyone out there verify this?!)

Willie realizes that none of these other assholes are interested in moving the plot along, so he decides to meet with Sendrax himself, posing as Gordon Shumway.

You know. Instead of as Willie Tanner, which is really who one of the phony letters should have been signed by anyway. (Narrative efficiency, how does it work?)

Then we cut to the Sendrax offices and…

HOLY SHIT GUYS THAT’S DAN CASTELLANETA.

Homer. Mutha. Fuckin’. Simpson.

And…god. I…I don’t know. I absolutely had no clue this guy was in ALF at any point. I’m kind of starstruck. Kind of impressed.

You’ve been reading these reviews. You know how often I cite The Simpsons in order to make a point. Hell, I’ve gotten told to shut the fuck up about that show already. (Rightly so. I’m not being a dick by saying that…I mention it all the damned time.) But there’s a reason The Simpsons is such a perfect point of comparison: it’s brilliant.

It’s hard to look at any show that has room for improvement and not find an example of how The Simpsons did it better. It was an immediate, urgent cultural institution, and though more than half of its output by this point has been utter shit, its overall reputation remains untarnished. It provided 7, 8, 9, or 10 years worth of solid, incredible, biting, inspiring, perfect comedy. (The number varies depending who you ask. The reverence does not.)

So I point to The Simpsons often because The Simpsons did so much — and did it all so well — that it’s a handy reference. When ALF bungles a strong premise, the odds are good that The Simpsons showed viewers how to do the same thing right. I’d cite examples, but you can refer to just about any of my previous reviews to find them, and, for once, I’m not looking for ways to distract myself from talking about the episode. HOMER SIMPSON IS HERE

Seeing Castellaneta on ALF is a massively pleasant surprise, not just because he’s an emissary from that far (far, far, far, far) superior show, but because he’s a truly gifted comic actor in his own right. I perk up because I know he’s worth watching. I pay attention because I know he deserves it.

At this point in his career, Castellaneta was already playing Homer (and Grandpa, and Krusty, and Barney…). In fact, one day before “Stayin’ Alive” aired, “The Telltale Head” debuted. The Simpsons wasn’t yet the legend we know today, but that episode — one of the best of its first season — certainly gave it a big push toward becoming one.

He doesn’t sound anything like Homer (or Grandpa, or Krusty, or Barney…) in real life, though, so if anyone watching “Stayin’ Alive” recognized him, it would have been for his work on The Tracey Ullman Show, where you could actually see his face. He was a standout member of an excellent ensemble there and — of course — that’s the show that originally featured the Simpsons. (The Simpsons is easily the most successful spinoff in television history.)

His appearance in “Stayin’ Alive” came at a time before he could bank on sweet Simpsons money to carry him to his grave, but that doesn’t fully explain his presence. Even today the guy pops up in small roles on other shows (voice-over and live action), and he seems to do it just for the sake of doing it.

He doesn’t need to keep busy, he doesn’t need the money, and he’s already immortalized in the kind of role any performer would kill to have…but he keeps taking bit roles that, strictly speaking, are beneath him. (Again, not trying to be a dick…what wouldn’t be beneath him?)

So, no, popping up on ALF doesn’t represent some early-career desperation on his part, as much as I’d like to make a joke about that. He just seems to be a great guy who likes helping out other shows that could benefit from his presence. Or maybe he just really enjoys the variety of working with different people on different projects.

Whatever the reason: what a fucking pro.

Also, interesting footnote: remember when ALF appeared in “The Springfield Files,” and Paul Fusco called The Simpsons afterward to tell them that he would have done the voice? Well, ALF spoke exactly one word in that episode: “Yo.” And the guy who voiced it? Dan Castellaneta.

Anyway, Castellaneta tries to talk Willie out of raising a fuss over Sendrax, and tacitly reminds him that Sendrax will sue his ass to hell and back if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut. There’s not much to the character here, but Castellaneta — to nobody’s surprise — does a great job veiling the threats behind the vague, PR-savvy chumminess. It wouldn’t be honest to say that he gives the character depth, but he does make the most of the expected, minor incongruity between his attitude and his intentions.

His friendly threats work on Willie, and Wright’s awkwardness here is fitting; he knows he’d be in serious trouble if he pissed off a massive corporation. (Wright’s also, of course, working with a genuine comic talent and not some concealed asshole under the floorboards, so his performance probably benefits from that.) Willie is so glad to have an “out” that he falls into this guy’s trap, and accepts gifts for his family in the form of Sendrax shirts, mugs, and hats.

Castellaneta even gets to twist the knife with his incredible delivery of “It’s always nice to meet someone who cares but doesn’t get annoying about it.” It’s a clunky line on the page, but one that his performance absolutely sells, and it puts a nice, cynical button on their exchange.

Then Willie catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror — bought off by unnecessary shit from a company polluting the environment — and realizes he’s doing the wrong thing.

It’s a nice, uncommon visual flourish for ALF. It’s nothing you haven’t seen a thousand times before, but that’s because it works. In ALF‘s specific case, it’s a chance to let the show explain something silently for once, and I respect that. By no means is it the subtlest of messages, but it does what it needs to do, and it does so without a puppet bleating the moral at us from a trench.

Willie goes back and makes a little speech about the importance of leaving a clean world to his children, one that’s not packed with garbage and overheating from greenhouse gasses. It’s…the kind of thing you expect sitcom writers to dash off when they’re trying to make a point, but not about anything they really understand.

It’s fine, though. Wright does what he can with it. He tries to sound choked up — in an emotional way; not his typical “I inhaled a cashew” way — and he puts at least 1/5 of his ass into it. It’s…admirable for him. It’s not impressive, exactly, but I’m willing to at least give him credit for the effort.

Castellaneta is moved, though…or claims to be. He offers Willie a job** at $75k per year, plus perqs, and it’s strongly implied that Willie makes far less than this at his current job. That makes sense in one way, because social workers make jack shit. That doesn’t make sense in another way, because Willie has three kids and can still afford to live in a fucking palace in LA.

Whatever. Salary shenanigans aside, Willie puts his Sendrax hat back on and asks for details. Another obvious but effective touch, carrying forward the visual implications from the mirror. Every man has his price, and Willie’s just learned his.

Subtle? Not on your life. But once again, somebody figured out a way to say something on this show without actually having to say it.

Kudos, “Stayin’ Alive.” You’re nothing great, but you’re impressively competent.

We then get another pretty good scene at the house. Willie’s passing out the Sendrax junk he was given (their motto: “We care,” which I stupidly kept trying to make out on the small props only to have ALF read it out to us later) and our naked alien hero caves immediately. Hey, free junk, right?

A perfect character reaction. I’ll give the show credit for that. ALF is the sort of idiot who’d be knocked off his ethical high horse by the distraction of worthless garbage.

Kate seems to be less impressed, but she doesn’t say anything. Willie keeps assuming that her silence means she’s second guessing him, or his motives, but she reminds him that she hasn’t said a word. ALF chimes in: “Kate! Will you get off his back?”

It’s…actually okay.

Willie tells her that if he takes the job, he might be able to effect change from within. It might be a small amount of change, but that’s far more than he can effect right now. It’s a fair point — even if it is after-the-fact justification — and it puts Willie in an interesting ethical bind.

Kate reminds him of the way they used to take on big corporations in the past: on Earth Day in 1970 (the very first Earth Day, whether ALF realized that or not) she and Willie organized a sit-in against a major polluter. And while there’s no reason to believe anything changed as a result of their protest, Willie is won over by the realization that he at least was on the correct side; he wasn’t cashing the polluter’s paychecks.

And, y’know, this is why “Stayin’ Alive” works so much better than those other “ALF has a lesson to teach us” episodes, and I’m only realizing it now, as I type this sentence: it has nothing to do with ALF. In previous episodes along these lines, whether it was “Tequila” or “ALF’s Special Christmas” or “Hail to the Chief” or “When I’m Sixty-Four” or any of that shit, it’s ALF getting on a soapbox and screaming wonderment at us until we have the good sense to turn this fucking show off and do something valuable with our time, such as murder our families with an axe.

Here, it’s Willie’s struggle. He doesn’t come with The Right Thing To Do pre-installed, like ALF does. He’s (comparatively) human, and he’s juggling more complicated considerations. At the very least, there’s a kind of inner conflict. He has to think through a decision with no clear right answer…and whether you like this episode or not (trust me, I won’t think less of you for not) you have to admit this is a much stronger, smarter way to approach the question.

ALF’s instant moralizing in those episodes rang false at best, and were fucking grating at worst, because he’d shift all of a sudden from “destructive dickbag” to “Holy Space Christ who is so free from Earthly concerns that he is able to teach us the lessons we’ve sadly forgotten.” Then, of course, next week he’d be a destructive dickbag again.

You know what “Stayin’ Alive” says? It says that’s bullshit.

And it is. ALF isn’t some paragon of loving selflessness…he’s a bored little asshole. It’s not passion that causes him to latch onto a concern for the environment…it’s the fact that he has nothing else to fill his time. That’s why he no longer seems to care once Willie brings him one of those solar calculators the size of a business card with Sendrax written on it. ALF’s not dedicated to any cause…he’s just in desperate search of something to occupy his time. He’s distracted into caring about the environment, and just as quickly he’s distracted out of it.

It’s Willie who needs to make a stand…not ALF. And that does fucking wonders for this episode.

It’s still not good…but it’s far and away the strongest of ALF‘s didactic sub-series. And I think, therefore, it’s pretty instructive as well.

Anyway, Willie decides to tell Dan Castellaneta that ALF doesn’t need him; he can go do his stupid cartoon show nobody will ever watch.

Willie gives a big speech full of OZONE FACTS and really hammers home the point that even a minor change in global temperature can spell the end of the world, but Castellaneta doesn’t give a shit; Sendrax fired him, and he’s on his way out.

His speech isn’t much more than a retread of the one we got before, but Castellaneta here is fantastic. He keeps trying to give Willie more Sendrax things (including pencils, paperclips, and his desk phone) before cheerily insisting, “Go on, take anything! I hate these people!”

In the mouth of anyone else on ALF‘s payroll, that line would have flopped. Castellaneta hits a fucking grand slam. It really goes to show what talent can do, even on a show like this.

LOOK AT THIS GUY HE IS SO FUCKING GOOD

Seriously! Look at a screengrab and you can just tell he’s being funny. Like…actually funny. Not just making faces while a puppet looks at pornography.

Anyway, Castellaneta decides to do some good on his way out. He calls one of the Sendrax plants and tells them that the instruction to stop making CFCs came down from the top…so the plant stops making them.

…okay.

It’s…that easy, I guess? Factories must have just had a big switch on the wall, and prior to 1990, they were all set to “CFCs”. By 1994 (yes, ALF was four years ahead of its time on this) everyone started flipping them to “NO CFCs”.

What…was Sendrax making, anyway? I mean, overall. Was it just a CFC factory? Like…it was literally just making pollution?

Surely there was some product or service it was providing. If they all along had the technology — on hand and ready to go, as this suggests — to provide that same product or service without polluting as much, why didn’t they do that from the very start? It would have shut up this Gordon Shumway character, they wouldn’t have had to threaten massive legal action, and they wouldn’t have had to offer some stammering nobody a $75k job to keep him from making waves. Plus they could have had a surge of really awesome PR.

It’s just…weird. Everyone was clamoring for Sendrax to do something, which it turns out it can do in a matter of seconds with no loss of profit or efficiency, but instead the company knowingly made its own problem worse?

Ugh, who fuckin’ knows. Let’s go to Moe’s.

Anyway, Dan Castellaneta tells Willie that within a few days the plant will realize there was no order from the top to cease making CFCs while they make whatever the fuck else they make, and they’ll start making them again.

…unless Willie contacts the media and spreads the story that Sendrax turned over a new leaf, effectively forcing their hand lest the public backlash get even worse.

It’s nice. It addresses one logistical concern here. Not nearly all of them, but one is about three more than ALF usually addresses, so, that’s nice.

Then Willie asks him if he was offered the job in order to buy his silence, or if they really thought he’d be a great asset to the Sendrax team. Dan Castellaneta says, “You’re a crack-addled putz. Stay away from my family.”

In the short scene before the credits, Kate threatens to murder ALF with a meat mallet.

Really, she does.

I know I always make jokes about people killing ALF with a funny kitchen implement, but…

…fuck.

I…

I mean…fuck…

…the…the show actually made that same joke itself.

And last week, “Mr. Sandman” stole my thunder in joking about Lynn’s sex life. It…my joke…the…the things I invented, ALF invented, too.

I…

…this is like looking in the mirror and seeing that I’m covered in ALF merchandise.

I have more in common with my enemy than I think.

I just need to lie down.

…just…for a while…

Countdown to ALF getting sniped in front of the Tanners: 3 episodes

MELMAC FACTS: ALF has seen two planets destroyed. One was Melmac, obviously, but he doesn’t reveal the name or circumstances of the other. His explanation: “A guy has to have some secrets.”

—–
* You know what this footnote should say.

** I buy most of this exchange, but I’m really not sure why the guy abandoned his earlier “We’ll sue you to Kingdom Come” fallback. That was already sort of his escape hatch if palling around with Willie didn’t work…and now that it doesn’t work, he offers the guy a job instead. It’s…weird. But it’s also ALF.

The size of last week’s guest cast list — and the pedigrees of its guest cast — meant I spent more time than usual clicking around IMDB to write the review. (Usually I just check to see if anyone’s done porn and jet.) While I was there, I happened to see a brief description of “Mr. Sandman.”

And, you know what? For the first time in I don’t know how long, I looked forward to an episode.

Really, I did. The summary — ALF and Willie get stranded in the desert — reminded me instantly of season two’s “Night Train,” which, at this point, is destined to be ALF‘s crowning achievement. (In second place: the National Enquirer‘s eternal hounding of Max Wright.)

So far, season four has been a big pile of shit. And please remember that this is coming from someone who already hated the fucking show by the end of the first episode. ALF started off pretty terribly…I adjusted to its astronomical crap-factor, and then it got significantly worse from there. As season four winds down it’s finding new (and somehow not creative at all) ways to get a thousand times more horrible than it’s even been in my worst nightmares.

But “Mr. Sandman” has a can’t-miss premise, and it’s the same one that drove “Night Train.” All it has to do is stick Willie and ALF somewhere, and see what they say to each other.

Granted, you’d be forgiven for thinking the answer will be “Not much.” After all, they aren’t characters. But “Night Train” convincingly portrayed them as characters, at least, even if very few of the other episodes even hinted in that direction. “Night Train” wasn’t just good by ALF standards; it was a solid episode of television. It’s the one you should show your friends if you want to trick them into thinking ALF was a great show, and it’s also the least ambitious episode imaginable. It’s two idiots in a traincar, passing the time until they can get off and go home.

And it’s great.

It forced the writers to have these two talk to each other. For once ALF couldn’t just do a soft-shoe in the living room while Willie made faces; they needed to keep each other company. And, therefore, the writers needed to think about what they’d say. They needed — at long last — to write.

“Mr. Sandman” has the same luxury. It’s not just a solid premise; it’s a premise the show has already proven it can pull off, in spite of hacky jokes, in spite of two leads who want nothing more than to gouge each other’s eyes out when the cameras stop rolling, in spite of every aspect of the production feeling like it was staged by The East Nowhere Middle School Players, “Night Train” worked. It found something it was good at…and then it did that thing.

So I’m setting “Mr. Sandman” up for failure, aren’t I? I’m not just saying it can be good…I’m saying it will inevitably be measured against the best episode this show’s ever done.

But…well…that can work in its favor; “Night Train” set the bar so high that “Mr. Sandman” could easily be worse, while still being miles better than most of the other crap this show’s done. To be honest, it could be one sixth the episode “Night Train” was and still end up high on my list of favorites. So, yes, I’m comparing it to the show’s lone evidence that it could have been great…but it’ll also be compared to the 90 episodes or so of total dreck that make up the rest of ALF. It can fail and still succeed.

“Mr. Sandman” has the virtue of a proven premise on its side. What it chooses to do with that…well, that’s up to the writers.

Also it’s episode 4-20 so smoke ’emmmmm

This one starts out pretty well. Willie’s Aunt Pat — whoever the fuck that is — dies and leaves him his great grandfather’s old mining equipment. Who gives a shit, right?

Well, yeah. Right.

But it gives the family a chance to sit around interacting like a family. Brian and Eric are not invited, because even these assholes know what dead ends those characters are.

…speaking of which, where’s Neal? Doesn’t he care that his Aunt Pat is dead? Did anyone tell him? Does he not wish to paw through this stuff and share memories of her as well? Actually, has anyone even heard from Neal lately? And shouldn’t somebody be investigating that odd smell coming from his apartment?

Whatever. Point is, we get a nice scene in which Willie tries to get the family to understand the historical (and personal) value of this turn-of-the-century mining equipment, while Lynn and Kate have a hard time seeing it as anything more than beaten-up old junk. They banter together believably, each understanding the other’s perspective, but knowing it’s more fun to give them a hard time anyway.

At one point, ALF says, “Just think, Lynn. Some day, all this will be yours!” He laughs while delivering the line, which is something I’ve never noticed him do before. It’s just a small chuckle in the middle of a word, and I don’t think it was deliberate.

We’ve heard ALF joke around enough by now (more than enough) and the mid-word chuckle has never been a tool in his verbal arsenal, so I think Paul Fusco just enjoyed delivering the joke enough that it accidentally became part of the performance. Which I’m fine with, because it works, and it makes the scene feel that much more natural.

Anyway, Lynn finds a treasure map inside of an old canteen, which…yeah, that’s a pretty dumbass way of kicking off your plot unless you’re in an episode of Scooby Doo,* but the scene was good overall, the dynamic seems promising, and we already know the show can pull this off. I don’t care how clunky the setup is; it could honestly be as jarring as Brian running into the room and saying, “Dad! ALF! What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be lost in the desert this week.” I’d be perfectly fine with that.

In fact, the whole “shoddy setup / worthwhile payoff” thing carries just about through the episode. It happens enough to make it worth sticking with, but not enough to actually make it work overall. I don’t know. I can imagine some viewers being more forgiving of it than me. And, for probably the first time ever, I wouldn’t even blame them.

Also, before we dive into the episode proper, “Mr. Sandman” is the first in a series of episodes named after the characters from Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. I look forward to the rest of the cycle, which includes “Don Flamenco” (Brian is kidnapped by the Spanish mafia), “Little Mac” (ALF founds a fast food restaurant to compete with McDonald’s), and “Bald Bull” (Mr. Ochmonek sustains a head injury and believes he’s a famous pornstar).

I hope you don’t mind me doubling back to make that joke. IT WAS WORTH IT.

After the credits the family talks about the map for a while. Oddly, the show leans into the whole “X marks the spot” cliche. In fact, there is a big, intriguing X on the map, which they all assume means treasure is buried there. And they discuss this…while Lynn holds a magazine with a giant X on the cover so that the camera can see it. I kept expecting someone to make a joke about that, since it seems to so clearly be a deliberate setup to some kind of visual gag — or maybe ALF excitedly stabbing her to death with a shovel — but nothing happens.

Maybe there was a payoff cut in the editing room? It’s possible it’s just a coincidence, but I sure as hell don’t see magazines with the giant letter X littered around in other sitcoms, so I don’t think that’s likely. I dunno…it’s just odd to hear everyone talking about a big X while Lynn holds a big X and the two things have nothing to do with each other. It would be like Willie making a joke about maggots potentially getting in the house while the decomposing corpse of Lucky II is being actively eaten by maggots in the background.

Kate expresses skepticism about her real-life family discovering a cartoon treasure, which is her job as the only character on this show with two brain cells to rub together. ALF then declares that they cut her her out of the arrangement and split the gold four ways…or three, if they can “get rid of the kid.”

It’s not just me, right? Season four really is making a lot of jokes about how worthless a character Brian is. Kate tells ALF, “You’re not getting rid of any kid,” which makes sense in the context of the scene…and also the show as a whole. Maybe the writers at some point did pitch the idea of getting rid of Brian, and the network — or whatever producer was getting blowjobs from Benji’s mother — wouldn’t let them. That’d explain both why he’s hung around so long without having anything to do and why the frustration would finally be seeping through. The what-if-we-get-rid-of-him / no-you-aren’t-getting-rid-of-him exchange just feels too…honest, for lack of a better term.

So, whatever, nobody’s killing Brian, but we do have a treasure map.

What will they find? Probably nothing. That’s my guess. Or maybe they’ll find Grandpa Silas’ corpse there and ALF can have sex with it.

But, obviously, there will be no actual gold. And that’s okay. What’s more, I have to admit that I like that this plot is so flimsy.

Seriously. “Let’s go dig up some lost treasure” isn’t something you’ll hear anybody say in real life, but that’s what’s so refreshing about it. This is a show about a masturbating space hamster who lives in the laundry basket…it’s about fucking time we had an off-the-wall plot. Fuck the cat dying or Willie angling for a promotion or Kate reconnecting with college friends or Brian being trapped in a well for six weeks because nobody realized he was gone. Do something crazy, for fuck’s sake.

Wherever this goes, however it goes, I’m on board with this. We’re watching the most batshit insane sitcom in television history…and it’s finally loosening up. I’m all for everything about this.

Yes, give them a treasure map. And don’t stop there. Maybe ALF and Willie will disturb some old prospector’s ghost and have to spend the episode bringing his soul to peace. Maybe ALF will murder a highway patrolman and he and Willie have to find a spot in the desert to dispose of the body. Maybe they get out to where the X is and find a note that says DO NOT SEEK THE TREASURE, signed by alternate versions of ALF and Willie from the future!

Let’s go bonkers with a wackadoo plotline. Why not? The simple, stranded pairing of ALF and Willie means “Mr. Sandman” has every chance of being good, but even if it’s not it can at least be memorable.

Willie gets so excited about the treasure that he makes the same face I make when toilet water splashes onto my butt.

The conversation goes a bit off the rails here…and that’s saying something, because it was already about Willie running off and digging up Curly’s Gold. ALF makes a joke he made in a previous episode that you can research yourself if you’re so fuckin’ interested, in which he says he checked his calendar and he’s free this weekend. But this time Lynn points out that they can’t go…it’s a three-day weekend and they’d planned a family trip to San Diego.

You know how sometimes you guys think I’m too hard on Willie, and try to defend him as a good guy? Well, this scene, in which he tells his daughter specifically to go fuck herself and his family in general to go fuck themselves, should be required viewing.

Seriously. Think about this dickery. Willie made plans with his family for one weekend out of the whole year. One specific weekend. He was taking them to San Diego, and they all counted on that, and didn’t make other plans. Why didn’t they make other plans? Because they’re not walking shitbags, like Willie here, who cancels on them at the last minute to go looking for imaginary treasure with his naked alien sidekick.

He doesn’t think twice. He could go literally any other time with ALF. Shit, he could take a day off of work and go during the week without inconveniencing his family one bit. Instead he cancels the only thing they’ve planned to do as a unit since…what? “Come Fly With Me”? To do something without them, which he could do at any other point in time.

He’s practically going out of his way here to upset them. It’d be like your father saying you’re not having a party for your tenth birthday, because he’d rather eat a cheeseburger. What the fuck kind of excuse is that? You do the thing you promised your family instead of the thing you can do any other god damned time.

Willie says they’ve been to San Diego, so there’s really no point going again. Which goes to show just how much this great social worker values quality time with his wife and kids.

Kate, exasperated, says, “Fine. This is the ninety-fifth episode of this shit that I’ve been in, and I’ve gotten my way exactly never. Just do whatever your dumb ass wants to do and I’ll sit here and keep the baby from dying.”

The Tanners decide that it’s safer to pose in front of a big oil painting of the desert than it is to actually visit one.

I mean, okay. This show has a budget that couldn’t even stretch to include an official Noiseless Chatter mug, so I can’t be too hard on it for looking shitty. “Night Train” also looked shitty, and that didn’t hurt it any. It’s shitty writing, rather than set design, that really gets to me, and so far…we haven’t had much of that. Yeah, the treasure map is fucking dumb, and yeah, Willie was an asshole, and yeah, his family deciding to let him wander the desert with an intergalactic pederast is pretty absurd, but who cares. The plot needs to get moving somehow, and it brings us naturally to a really good joke:

Kate and the kids are about to leave these two assholes to their fates. Willie pulls out a compass and attempts to give them some idea of where Silas Tanner lived. He says the guy “lived two miles…two…miles…” and then turns the compass a bit, gives up, and finishes, “out there somewhere.”

It’s a good joke, and a fairly natural way of foreshadowing how ill-equipped these bozos are for the adventure they’re about to take. Of course, it’s ALF and Willie, and they’re ill-equipped to make fucking toast, but still, the show is trying. And it’s another good illustration of a clunky setup leading to a worthwhile payoff. I’ll take it.

Kate says goodbye, loads the kids into the car, and drives straight to wherever the fuck Joe Namath lives.

Willie and ALF rearrange the styrofoam rocks and pretend to have walked for miles. There’s another good line when Willie tries to reassure him that they’re going the right way: “According to the map we went through Dead Man’s Gorge, we climbed up Dead Man’s Bluff, we turned left at Dead Man’s Canyon, so by process of elimination this has got to be Dead Man’s Rock.”

This show is garbage, don’t get me wrong, but every so often it contains a line I could imagine having written myself…and one I’d be proud of if I had. That’s one of them.

I really do like it, even if I think it plays better in print than it does verbally. Of course, if Max Wright is delivering your line, anything other than choking on a ping-pong ball is going to play better in print than it does verbally.

The big reveal here is that ALF drank all the water they brought. Which is…odd, because Willie is carrying all of the jugs and canteens. This means that…

1) ALF managed to get into the bags, pull out the water containers, empty them, and return them to the bags without Willie noticing, and

2) Willie somehow didn’t realize that the load he was carrying decreased by around 100 pounds.

The fuck, all around.

There’s a decent line when ALF tries to calm him down: “Oh, what’s the big deal? You’ve got a whole desert out here, for heaven’s sake!”

I think that joke works just fine on its own, but when they overtly explain that ALF has confused deserts and oceans…it still works for me. Sometimes (in fact, almost every time) explaining the joke ruins it. But here, perhaps just because of how long it takes to sink in for ALF, and the fact that even if he was confused he should have seen with his own eyes that he was mistaken….I don’t know. It still works for me.

I’m trying to rationalize a stupid thing that made me laugh so just ignore my rambling and appreciate with me the fact that we hit the act break on a high note.

Interestingly, this is another one of those rare episodes (like “Mind Games”) with significantly uneven acts. We end act one about eight and a half minutes into the episode, leaving around 15 minutes for act two. That’s a big difference, and I take it as a good sign…at least potentially. Now that all the setup is done, maybe we really will get to settle into a nice, natural groove for the rest of the episode.

Fingers crossed, guys. I need this.

Fuck my needs.

Seriously, the first couple of minutes of act two are just Willie digging in the wrong place and ALF pointedly refusing to help him. Willie calmly — if not intelligibly — reminds ALF that since he drank all the water he should really be pitching in to help. ALF counters by being ALF.

It takes too long and does nothing but eat time…which is really worrying when we already know so much of the episode is left.

There’s a pretty okay bit when ALF eats bugs off a piece of wood — a cute nod to his resemblance to an aardvark — and he tries to justify it by saying he’s thirsty and he’s only sucking the moisture out of them.

But…you know what? This episode is starting to stink.

Lots of setup to get us into a great situation…which we immediately squander by having nothing happen.

Granted, it’s not terrible, and that alone elevates it above (almost) everything else in season four. Really, it does. And “Mr. Sandman” deserves credit for that. I may never care to watch it again — scratch that, I will never care to watch it again — but grading on a curve does this one a world of good.

That’s admirable, in its own way. It means you don’t need to shift your entire worldview to see it as a good episode…you just need to squint a bit.

So what’s holding it back? A fun premise and an effective pairing…why isn’t it working? What did “Night Train” have that “Mr. Sandman” doesn’t have?

It’s hard to say…and at the same time, it’s not.

Hard to say, maybe, because they’re both episodes in which ALF and Willie are stuck somewhere and need to talk to each other, and there’s no reason that that basic premise can’t lead to two (or even 10) good episodes.

But it’s not hard to say, because it’s the difference in context that prevents it from mattering.

I understand that that’s a bit…odd to say. After all, what was the context of “Night Train”? Two idiots in a boxcar, waiting for the next station to come around. Those are the lowest of possible stakes. Sure, maybe somebody would see ALF when the train stopped, but that was never a concern within the episode, and it’s easy to assume Willie would have tossed his jacket over him and pretended it was his deformed son.

By contrast, “Mr. Sandman” has buried treasure at stake…along with dehydration, heat exhaustion, and being lost in the desert without anyone ever being able to find them. (Xeroxing the map for Kate would have been a smart idea, which is why nobody thought to do it.)

But with stakes raised on such a visceral level, the episode seems to think that it can coast on those, and as a result it doesn’t work as hard.

After all, Willie could die. ALF could die. Stakes are naturally high, so…hey, we don’t need to do much but have them dig a bunch of holes and waste time.

In “Night Train,” by contrast, there was no danger, so the conflict had to come from the language. And it did. It was a conflict of self, with both ALF and Willie revealing more about who they are than they ever had before…and ever have since. ALF came to terms with the fact that he squandered much of his life anyway, so being trapped in a few rooms on Earth isn’t the downgrade he’d like to think it is. After all, he lost his planet for good before he ever got to truly live on it. Now he has a second chance to build a new life…and even if it’s not ideal, it’s an opportunity to do the things he missed out on the first time around. That’s meaningful to him…understandably so. It’s the possibility for rebirth among very literal death.

Willie as well has to face himself. (Face out, hold out, reach out to the truth of his life seeking to seize on the whole moment, to now…break…awayyyy…!) He spent the early part of the episode romanticizing his own past…and now that he’s reliving it, on the rails again, he realizes that he’s happy his life changed. Yes, he has a wife and kids and job now that, in a sense, hold him back…but in another sense, they give him something solid in life. They represent something he’s built. Something he wants. Something to miss when he’s off doing boneheaded things like this. The conflict for Willie was originally his lost sense of adventure, but it’s resolved by Willie realizing he’s happier now, and it was a more than fair trade.

So, yes, they both had individual journeys, but what’s best about it is that ALF and Willie were invested in each other’s journeys, without realizing it. ALF’s tall tales of space adventure made Willie feel insecure…which is why he shared his train-hopping past to begin with. That caused ALF to trick him into hopping a train…because ALF’s tales were lies. He made Willie feel dull, while at the same time being envious of him, because at least Willie’s small adventures really happened. They both have a reason to make this episode happen. Neither of them say, “Hey, look, a treasure map.” But they both say, “Damn, life used to be way better than it is now, huh?”

The train ride matters to both of them…which is why the episode’s seething frustrations and eventual camaraderie matter, too. There was an actual, identifiable, relatable journey there. The external stakes were low — again, there was no danger — but the internal stakes could not have been higher. And, watching, we felt that.

Here? In “Mr. Sandman”? Sure, ALF and Willie might die, so the external stakes are high…but internally, why does this matter?

ALF doesn’t care about the treasure. Willie doesn’t care about the treasure. Yes, finding treasure would change their lives, but this isn’t speaking to a large-scale dissatisfaction with who they are. This is just “Money would be nice…” and then some shitting around until the episode ends.

It’s the difference between two days in your own life. One day you think, “I don’t like that I’m broke. I wish I could win the lottery.” On a different day you think, “I don’t like who I am. I wish I was somebody else entirely.”

There’s a difference. You know it’s a significant one. I know it’s a significant one.

Applied to sitcom characters, each setup can lead to a good story. But one story affects the next half hour, while the other affects how we’ll view every half hour to follow.

It’s tough. I really want to like “Mr. Sandman,” but it feels a bit…lazy to me.

Yes, I realize that every episode of this fucking show is lazy, but usually lazy means that the characters all sit in a circle and watch ALF do impressions for 22 minutes. Here we built a new set, explored Willie’s lineage, sent the two main characters out on a fun adventure…and then got lazy.

It was so close. I’ll even go as far as to say this is a great first draft.

But it’s not great TV.

We seem to draw near a nice shift in dynamic when Willie forces ALF to dig for a while. Willie’s upset, ALF’s being a dick, and, finally, they’re at each other’s throats…but it just turns into a joke about how quickly ALF gets (or pretends to get; it’s not clear) a blister.

Then Willie realizes that ALF is hotter than he is, thanks to his fur, and tells him to get in the tent and rest.

And that’s…it really. The tension just sort of went away rather than escalating or being dealt with, which is odd. It’s like one of the writers noticed the story going somewhere and said, “Whoa, get that out of there.”

The rest of the scene is just standard jokes about the map being upside down, digging in the wrong place, and — it pains me to report — ALF shitting noisily into a hole.

You wanted to know why “Mr. Sandman” never becomes “Night Train”? That’s why “Mr. Sandman” never becomes “Night Train.”

We get a short scene of Kate, Lynn, Brian, and Balder Brian in a cabin.

Kate, apparently, has had a bad feeling all this time. She tells the kids to pack up so they can go rescue those two fuckers who can’t be trusted to cross the street on their own. The kids protest, though, with Lynn making some good points, including the fact that this is what Willie and ALF wanted. It’s a nice — if unexpected — bit of earned bitchiness from her. Those two assclowns robbed her of her vacation plans, so let them deal with their own consequences. She also mentions that nobody knows where those knuckleheads are, as Xeroxing the map would have been a smart idea which is why nobody did it.

It’s not an especially important scene, but it gives the other actors something to do, and both Kate and Lynn get some good material. Lynn’s protest is believable — she lost out on one vacation and she sure as hell doesn’t want to end this one just as she finally started enjoying it — and Kate’s “bad feeling” further positions her as the only true human being on the show. After all, if your doddering, elderly husband following a talking yam into the desert doesn’t give you a bad feeling, what kind of monster are you?

There’s an odd little bit of comedy that doesn’t quite work, with Lynn heading out to attend a frat party fuckfestival in a nearby cabin. I think we’re supposed to believe she’s still dating Robert, but I don’t see this as a continuity issue. I doubt mime sex is all that great. It’s probably just a lot of exaggerated gestures meant to represent finding the clitoris.

I know I make a lot of jokes about Lynn’s sex life, but this is probably the most overt an episode has ever actually been about her porkin’ side. She actually is going to a frat party to get railroaded by a bunch of strange guys she’ll never see again. So…

…huh. Either I was more insightful than I thought, or I’ve willed a demon to life. Either way her mother doesn’t give a shit.

We now return to Willie and ALF in Desert Des-asters.

At some point while we were away, ALF saw what he thought was a plane, and so he started a signal fire. It was actually a vulture…and he ended up setting himself on fire. A very cartoony gag, but it’s cute enough, and like bananas in the coffee maker and skating rinks in the living room, it’s funnier to imagine than it ever would have been to see. It’s one of those times that the show’s low budget and logistical limits actually help to sell the comedy.

Honestly, if that were all that happened here I’d be perfectly happy, but it leads to another nice moment when ALF defends his actions by saying the vulture might return with help. “Yeah,” Willie replies. “More vultures.” Which I enjoy on at least two levels.

Credit where it’s due; this episode has a few pretty good gags.

ALF and Willie are both frustrated, and ALF — for once not being ALF — does attempt to salvage the situation. He says that they may not have food, water, or shelter (the latter two were destroyed in the fire), but they still have air…and each other.

Willie flashes him this look:

…and ALF says, “Well, we have air.”

It’s not great stuff…but it’s good stuff. And God knows season four’s been short enough on that…

I think a major difference between this and “Night Train” is the fact that the tension between ALF and Willie fueled that plot, and informed the way they came to support each other. Here it’s just tension between ALF and Willie.

It’s funny, yes, it’s not as funny. Why not? Well, the personal stakes are lower, the emotional investment is nil, and there’s no sense worrying about whether or not they survive the ordeal because there’s no way next week’s episode stars two skeletons.

The tension in “Night Train” went somewhere. “Mr. Sandman” is content to just have tension.

And “Mr. Sandman” just about works on its own merits; I’ll give it that. But it also gets lost within its own shadow. It was capable of so much…which is why it’s frustrating that it settles for so little. Most episodes of ALF are a couple of rewrites away from being good. “Mr. Sandman” is a couple of rewrites away from being great, which makes it that much more frustrating to watch.

ALF offers to cook dinner, but Willie reiterates that all the food is gone. Not all the food, though; ALF collected some “miniature desert lobsters.” He holds up a matchbox as evidence of this, and Willie scampers over excitedly…

…but I have no idea why. What the fuck did Willie expect them to be? Surely there wasn’t going to be anything worth eating in there. Why was he interested? Why was he so quick to grab the matchbox and clutch it to his chest like it was going to save them? I know he’s hungry, but he should know it has to be full of bugs or some shit. Jesus, even if he did think ALF managed to hunt and kill something, it’s not going to fit in a matchbox unless it’s bugs, Willie you fucknut.

Sure enough, it’s scorpions. Willie tells this to ALF, and ALF says, “They were all born in the same month? What are the odds?”

You know…okay, this is no “Night Train.” But that was funny. Again, clunky setup, but the punchline was cute.

If you look at “Mr. Sandman” as that episode’s comic inverse…it carries its weight pretty well. Pretty well, but not exactly successfully. And that’s the main problem here; it’s not what it so nearly was. For some folks out there, that’s enough. Again, I wouldn’t blame them. For me?

Ugh…just tighten the nuts a little bit more and we would have had such a smooth ride.

Muddle through the shitty setups, and you’re rewarded with some decent payoffs. That’s the mantra that will carry me through “Mr. Sandman.”

Such as when ALF hallucinates a bunch of shit, and drones on endlessly about a couple stealing their cooler and asking a lifeguard if they can move closer to the water and stuff like that. It’s not funny at all, but it introduces us to a slightly crazed ALF who digs tirelessly when Willie falls asleep, and…

Come on. That looks like shit, yes, but it’s funny. And it’s such an unexpected angle for the show that I need to give it credit. This is a shot that took some effort. And I laughed.

Anyway, ALF dug through some wooden planks thinking he found Silas Tanner’s vault, but plummeted down into some water.

So, yeah, there was no gold. Ol’ Silas found an underground reservoir or something, and that’s what he marked on the map.

It’s…an okay resolution. We all knew ALF and Willie wouldn’t get rich from this gambit, but the reveal of the aquifer, or whatever it is, comes so close to the end of the episode that there’s nothing the writers can really do with it.

Just kidding. They do one thing with it: a number one. ALF pisses in the water so Willie can’t drink it. So…huh. I figured the discovery would be what prevented them from dehydrating…so, y’know, it’d be one of those “we didn’t get what we wanted but we got what we needed” endings.

But it’s not.

ALF just pissed in it.

That’s it.

There’s literally nothing else to it.

That’s the punchline of the entire episode.

Remember “Night Train”? Of course you do; I’ve been talking about it for the past 6,000 words. Remember ALF and Willie looking into the sky, wishing on shooting stars? Remember ALF wishing he had his planet back? Remember Willie bringing him beans at the end? Remember them singing “The City of New Orleans” together?

Well, here ALF pees.

You watched 22 minutes of buildup to ALF taking a leak.

Even if you look at “Mr. Sandman” as the comic inverse of that better episode, I think it’s fair to say that it disappoints. It’s one thing to chuck out the emotion in favor of the comedy, but if you do that, I’d expect to be left with something funnier than this. In other words, yes, we chucked the emotion, but we didn’t add more comedy to fill the void. It’s just the same amount of comedy spread over a larger surface.

And, come on, even if you love this one you have to admit that surely there could have been a punchline to this experience that wasn’t squeezed through ALF’s urethra.

On the bright side, at least the writers refused the temptation to make a joke about them finding a river of gold.

In the short scene before the credits, we learn that Kate went to get them early after all. How she found them without the map — which was the whole reason she couldn’t go in her previous scene — is never addressed.

What is addressed is that some coyotes came and pissed on ALF, and he retaliated by pissing on them. In case you were disappointed that the episode built to only one urination joke, I guess.

“Mr. Sandman” wasn’t horrible. By season four standards…it was pure gold. B-)

…sorry.

I know I say this a lot, but, man, this one could have been something. And while my reluctance to engage with it as purely comic — as opposed to the multi-faceted “Night Train” — undoubtedly hurt my enjoyment of it, I can say it still wasn’t funny enough to coast entirely on its gags anyway.

It genuinely had its moments, and I appreciate those. It had a fun premise, and I appreciate that. But it was still lazy and padded, and respected its audience only to whatever degree was necessary to give them three piss jokes instead of one.

Honestly, I get the sense that this could have been a great episode in season two, or even season three. Back then, as odd as it feels to say, I think somebody would have put forth the extra effort to make it something special. After all…it was so close.

But by season four, the cast is burnt out, the writers are burnt out, the production crew is burnt out, and everybody’s just waiting to go home for the last time. It’s a lot like “Make ‘Em Laugh” in that regard; it’s an idea that earlier in the show’s life received a lot more care and attention, and was better served for it. Now it’s a matter of ticking the boxes, meeting the minimum required effort, and dragging ALF one episode closer to its termination point.

I can’t blame them. If I’m this spent just from watching the show I can’t imagine how exhausted I’d be from making it.

But it’s disappointing, because this is what’s left. This is all we see now. Nobody who discovers the show today cares that ALF was almost over at this point; they just want the episodes they’re watching to be funny. That’s our only expectation this far down the line. Backstage turmoil and politics and frustrations don’t matter; it’s the quality of the work that endures or does not.

So, no, I can’t blame the show for not finding gold this late in the game. But I can still be disappointed that it didn’t…because as much as I hate ALF, it would have been nice to see it demonstrating one last flash of potential this close to the end. One final assurance that, in another place and time, ALF might have worked.

Oh well.

We’ll always have “Night Train.”

Countdown to ALF being put to sleep in front of the Tanners: 4 episodes

MELMAC FACTS: Willie’s great grandfather was a prospector named Silas Tanner, and he died in 1897. Odd that we still don’t know his father’s name, or even if he’s alive. Willie’s Aunt Pat is also dead, as of sometime before this episode. ALF’s great uncle Louie-Louie was a prospector, and started the great Foam Rush of ’08. The year could either be evidence that Melmac’s calendar is further along than ours (this episode aired in 1990), that Louie-Louie was extremely old, or both. Melmac’s economy was based on “the foam standard,” which is a fucking lie because “Baby, You Can Drive My Car” taught us that their economy was based on lint. “Stupid” on Melmac was slang for someone who was rich. ALF is a drone alien, not a worker alien, and he was known on Melmac as The Whizz Kid. URINATION.

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* The show is admirably savvy about this, with ALF excitedly comparing the situation to ones you see in cartoons. Kate replies, “Life doesn’t imitate cartoons. Well, other people’s lives don’t.” This is the kind of meta-awareness you see in shows constantly today, but at the time this would have been a pretty rare kind of joke for a network sitcom, and Schedeen’s delivery, as ever, saves it from sounding lazy. Yes, the writers may have taken the easy way out with their plot, but Kate — the character Kate — has a reason to respond this way within the show’s universe, and that makes it feel, shockingly, real.