ALF Reviews: “Alone Again, Naturally” (season 3, episode 11)

So, here’s an odd one. “Alone Again, Naturally” has me conflicted. To be totally honest, I’m not sure I’ll even know how I feel about it until I finish this review. (How’s that for incentive to keep reading?!)

In most cases, it’s pretty basic, forgettable, baseline dumbassery. In other cases, it’s awful. But in other cases still, it’s really well-done.

It’s a patchwork episode, to be sure. It feels as though there was the germ of a great idea here (indeed, I’ll argue that there was), but not much thought went into building a sturdy episode around it.

As it stands…I don’t really know what I think. But I’m glad I watched it, and that’s a definite first for season three.

It opens with Willie and Kate coming home from grocery shopping, while ALF bitches about how long it took them. So, yeah, forgive me for not immediately throwing my arms around this one.

He starts grabbing food out of the shopping bags and eating it because he can’t wait for them to unpack. It’s pretty tiring to endure ALF in screaming-asshole mode, but it leads to a nicely chosen detail: Kate gets him to shut up and back off by handing him a copy of the National Inquisitor. (I hope to God its tagline is “Ignore Me.”)

Kate has gotten in the habit of picking up this magazine when she goes shopping, because it keeps ALF quiet for 30 minutes at a time. And I love this.

I fully believe that ALF would like this magazine. Heck, I remember when I was growing up and I worked at a campground. I’d pick up a copy of Weekly World News on my way to work whenever I had to run the shop during the night hours. I mainly bought it for the awesome (and massive) crossword puzzle, but I’d be lying if I said I never read the articles. It was silly, mindless fun, and while I don’t fault anyone who thinks that magazines like that are a waste of trees, I enjoyed it, and it helped pass some quiet hours. I can see exactly why ALF would find it similarly useful.

What’s more, he’s from space. He’s probably seen some pretty unbelievable stuff. “Reality” on earth may seem pretty mundane for him, so this should be a nice escape. It’s fictional, but it’s also a collection of fantastic tales that may speak to him of a much more exciting world outside the Tanner house. Accurate or not, it’s a way to do a little mental traveling.

It also fits in with his predilection for cultural “junk food,” such as radio call-in shows and reruns of Gilligan’s Island. ALF likes garbage, and that works perfectly. Why wouldn’t he? He’s a space alien. It’s enough of a stretch to think that he’d understand Earthling entertainment at all…let alone be able to tell high entertainment from low. (And, I might add, it would be even more of a stretch for him to buy into such a hazy distinction.)

Then we hear him bellow in the other room, and Willie and Kate open the door to see the funniest thing ever on this show.

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

Seriously.

I had to pause the episode because I laughing so hard. That’s never happened before with this show, at least not that I can remember.

Of course I think I was supposed to feel sad or concerned or something, but seeing a lifeless ALF on the floor next to the couch has made this entire review series worthwhile. (It also reminds me of a great sequence in “Homer vs. the 18th Amendment,” in which news of prohibition causes the residents of Springfield to faint, and I really want someone to edit this in.)

The credits then begin, ensuring that this is a cliffhanger. “Why is ALF laying on the floor?” being just slightly more gripping a question than “Why am I watching this?”

During the opening sequence, I happen to notice that the credited writer for this episode is Paul Fusco.

Oh boy.

Yeah…this, more than maybe any other episode so far, represents Paul Fusco’s artistic vision.

I don’t want to give away the ending or anything…but the fact that I’m conflicted at all after a Paul Fusco episode has got to be a compliment in itself.

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

After the credits ALF wakes up and says, in a panic, “No more portly women!”

The fake audience laughs. I have no clue why.

Was he dreaming about being sexually assaulted by tubby ladies? Who knows. The fact that I even have to ask myself that makes me wish I died weeks ago.

As shitty as that moment was, though, I have to give the episode full credit for the fact that we get a really interesting turn. And for the first time in God knows how long, I’m actually curious about seeing where the episode goes.

I’m hooked. I really am. At long last, I care about what’s going to happen.

At first I had no clue what we were watching. I figured ALF would become a staff writer for this stupid magazine, writing first-hand accounts of bizarre things in the unknown universe which the editors assume is just creative writing. You know. A version of “A Little Bit of Soap” that remembers its main character is a space alien.

But it’s much, much better than that.

See, ALF fainted because of an article on page two, about a couple in Barstow that lives with an alien.

And while I was all ready to complain about this — if he regularly reads this National Enquirer equivalent, surely he’s seen similar stories a thousand times — Kate piped up for me, voicing that very note of skepticism.

ALF assures her that this story is different from the others, and Lynn, reading it, identifies some odd similarities.

The alien in the story is short. Fuzzy. Big ears. Long snout. He has an odd fixation on cats.

Brian helpfully blurts, “THAT SOUNDS LIKE ALF,” in case you didn’t associate that description with the creature you see sitting right there in front of you. He might as well have appended “You fucking idiot.” Maybe Brian’s role on this show has sunk to interpreter for the blind.

This is interesting for a number of reasons, and while I’m not jumping to the conclusion that there is another Melmackian hanging out in California, whatever the episode decides to do with this premise, I’m certainly willing to play along.

After all, We know that ALF, Skip, and Rhonda all survived the explosion, but in a civilization that traveled to other planets frequently, it’s certainly likely that other Melmackians survived, too.

Whether or not they’d come to Earth is a whole other story, and the likelihood of that much is definitely debateable, but coming across a story like this in a tabloid is as interesting to me as it is to him. My mind swells with possibilities…and I’m sure ALF’s does, too. This is the promise not of a 30 minute plot, but of possibility, which is something this show as a whole so frustratingly lacks.

My hopes are up, for better or worse.

Lynn questions this alien’s similarity to ALF, though, when she reads that it subsists on a diet of yogurt and lightbulbs. For ALF, though, this is just further evidence: it sounds exactly like his cousin Blinky.

This is a fantastic what-if, and one that actually has something to do with the fact that ALF is an alien.

Those kinds of what-ifs are rare, but they’re responsible for some of the series’ best episodes. What if wildlife from Melmac stowed away on ALF’s spaceship? What if ALF befriended a blind woman? What if ALF isn’t alone on Earth? All rich topics to explore, for sure. Instead, though, in spite of all the spectacular what-ifs that extraterrestrial characters provide, we more often end up closer to “What if Kate’s mom married some guy and ALF had the hiccups?”

For the first time in ages, the show is at least attempting to make good on its promise.

“Alone Again, Naturally,” I’m on your side. This is yours to lose.

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

Willie, oddly, acts like a human being. He tries to ground ALF in reality, and prevent him jumping to conclusions.

Yes, he says, the details may seem to fit…but it’s still a magazine that prints fiction. And no matter how convincing the story is, the odds are very much against a space alien crashing to Earth and living in secret with a family…

…at which point he trails off.

It’s funny. By this point ALF’s residency in the Tanner home is normalized, and with every day that passes it must get easier and easier to forget that this situation is really fucking strange. In fact, it’s probably not until something like this happens that it really registers, and the face Max Wright makes as the penny drops is perfect.

His first face, that is. For some reason he then makes the second face pictured above, and I don’t care how good a moment this was; once you resort to a string of funny faces to sell your gag, you’ve convinced me your gag isn’t worth selling.

It’s a shame, because the words would have been so much better on their own. But I shouldn’t be surprised that the writers don’t trust themselves. I usually don’t, either.

Willie picks up the phone and calls the family referenced in the story.

He intends to end this fantasy by proving they’re lying, I guess, but all he does is ask, “You don’t really have an alien living with you, do you?”

We don’t even hear their end of the conversation, so we just have to take Willie’s word for it that they said “Yes” in a monumentally convincing tone.

It’s weird. Considering how easily he gives in, and the way the rest of the episode plays out (Willie shows up at their house uninvited, even though this would be a perfect narrative place for him to be invited), I’m not even sure, from a writing standpoint, why he bothers calling.

Anyway, ALF says wants to go to Barstow, but Willie tells him to eat a dick. Then ALF sings the theme song to The Patty Duke Show.

That’s it. He just stands in the middle of the room and sings it for a while.

So, yeah, an irrelevant musical spotlight on ALF? Paul Fusco did write this after all.

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

This performance of the title theme to a sitcom that no human being alive remembers somehow convinces Willie to take his space alien to Barstow.

Why?

When Willie said, “No, fuck you,” I figured he had some kind of concern about this being a wild goose chase, or a trap, or a prank, or any number of dumbass things.

But really he was just stalling in the hopes that ALF would sing? I…guess so? Jesus Christ.

And of course ALF is in the front seat while Willie drives on a major highway because fuck worrying about revealing this alien to the world anymore. I guess everyone in L.A. has already seen him by now, and two people in Barstow are about to, so who gives a shit?

I’m not sure why Willie is taking him anyway. When they get to the house, Willie makes ALF hide in the car while he himself investigates, which is perfectly fine. But why not investigate alone, and then report back? If Blinky lives there, he could go back for ALF. If he doesn’t live there, there’s no reason to risk any of this crap.

Granted, he does say that Barstow is three hours away, which is indeed a significant two-way drive, but if you’re more concerned about gas money than about the government kicking down your door and gutting your space alien while your children watch, then forgive me for not caring much about that either.

Anyway, ALF hands Willie a cotton ball and asks him to sniff it. Willie, like any rational human being, does exactly this. He takes a big, enthusiastic whiff of this mysterious thing that was handed to him without any context by the naked alien who lives in his hamper.

Then he asks what it is, and ALF says asbestos. Willie throws the cotton ball and makes more funny faces, while the fake audience of hooting retards goes bananas.

It reminds me of a scene in Futurama, when Bender’s “evil” twin sprays toxic gas in Fry’s face and then says, “Get it? It’s chlorine!”

The joke there is pretty clearly the absence of a joke, which is something we can expect the talented writers of Futurama to pull off. Here we just have a few minutes to kill in the middle of an episode, so what the hell, let’s sniff some cotton balls.

Then ALF starts talking about how well Blinky is going to fit into the family, and the scene ends.

…why?

That’s the conversation I want to hear more of.

What does Willie say? How does ALF reply? This is an issue that needs to be discussed, and somehow I don’t think Willie and ALF are going to be in agreement. Why can’t we hear that discussion about whether or not ALF will get to live with his cousin Blinky? Or even get to see him again after this?

We can do things with that. Things that advance the plot and define the characters and give us something to chew on long after the episode is over.

Instead, we get a game of Smell This, Willie. (Thank God for commas, eh?)

God, this scene sucks.

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

They get to the house and Willie goes to check it out. I know the ALF crew didn’t get along with Max Wright, but did it extend to the a refusal to not iron his shirts?

Look above his belt-line. Just look at that shit.

An old woman answers the door and takes Willie into a room full of bizarre curios, like Billy the Kid’s mustache. She used to run a traveling exhibit until the tent caught fire, so now she just lives with this shit all over her house. It’s a convincingly awkward scene which doesn’t quite tip over into cartoonishness, but it’s also not particularly funny. It’s establishing character, which is certainly good, but it’s unfortunately not going to pay off in any worthwhile way.

Her husband comes in and tells Willie flatly that there’s no alien, but the woman insists there is. The dynamic between she and her husband is an interesting one. At first he comes off as brusque and rude, but before long it becomes clear that his wife isn’t all there, and he’s just tired of having to deal with her delusions. This is best exemplified when she disagrees with him about the pronunciation of his own name. That’s a well-chosen detail, and I now know more about their relationship than I do about Willie’s and Kate’s.

She says the alien is out somewhere, so Willie can’t see it. Then she produces a small box and says a Polaroid of the alien is inside, but Willie has to pay her if he wants to look at it.

Anyone with the barest minimum of brain activity would clock that she’s scamming him, lying to him, or babbling hallucinated nonsense to him, in around zero seconds.

Willie, however, hangs out in the living room, participating in this conversation as though there’s nothing strange at all. He even pays her $10 for a glimpse of the photograph, after her husband helpfully advises him to save his money.

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

Willie, you fuckbrain.

It turns out to be a picture of a dog with antlers attached to it.

Wow, what a shock. It wasn’t a real alien. Who would have guessed? Fortunately he stops short of paying her to see a picture of the alien’s space ship…but since we later find out that that was his last $10, we probably shouldn’t give him too much credit for learning from his mistakes.

Willie finally begins to tentatively suspect faintly that something might be slightly amiss, and he leaves.

But when he gets back in the car, he looks over and sees ALF doing this:

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

Which makes Willie do this:

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

Quite how Willie made it back into the car without passing ALF on his way to the door, or how he didn’t notice the seat was no longer occupied until this moment, I don’t know.

Even less do I know what the living fuck Willie does after he sees that ALF’s missing, since ALF has the time to have an extended conversation with the woman and her husband in their living room.

Get your ass in gear, Willie! Or at least start the car and drive home, confident at last that your troubles are over.

The old lady is excited that she might be able to make some money off of this creature, but her husband doesn’t want his wife starting up her old sideshow days again. Both of which considerations, bafflingly, seem to take precedence over the fact that there’s a pantsless space alien in their living room.

Eventually, after the spousal argument dies down, Willie rings the doorbell. It sure as hell took him long enough.

The woman tells him to buzz off, so he keeps ringing the doorbell and then she answers it again with a crossbow.

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

And that’s a legitimate laugh.

Really. It’s a perfect bit of visual comedy, and I love it.

Willie backs away, and then calls Kate from a phone booth to explain to her the hilarious Polaroid scam we’ve already seen for ourselves.

If you didn’t like seeing it first-hand, then having Max Wright doggedly relate it, detail for detail, from the inside of a phone booth in the pouring rain is unlikely to enhance its quality in your mind. This guy could be explaining how he saw the towers come down on 9/11 and you’d think he was reciting the side effects of Cymbalta.

Then we cut back to the house and…

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

Okay, another legitimate laugh. This episode has had a few, but I’m pretty sure only one of them was intentional…and it’s not this one.

The woman babbles for a while about how much money she’s going to make off of him, and her husband tells her to shut up and come to bed.

Neither of them seem particularly interested in or worried about the fact that an extra terrestrial lives with them now, but at least she tied him up for the night. All the Tanners did was show him where they kept the booze and their children.

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

Willie climbs through the window, and then sits around with ALF babbling about all manner of pointless bullshit instead of untying him. The husband eventually enters with the crossbow, because short of that this scene is never going to progress.

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

We do get a really fun setpiece out of it, though. Willie attempts to bluff his way through the situation, informing the man that ALF is a creature of unimaginable power…a concept that both the man and ALF struggle to understand.

It’s funny, the way that this bit plays out, with Willie trying to convince the old man that he’s telling the truth, while at the same time trying to get ALF to understand the lie. It’s a funny setup, and the execution is nearly as good, with all three characters struggling to convey or accept what’s happening, without there being time for explanation.

Really, it’s good. And it gets even funnier when ALF catches on and starts moaning and waving his hands at the man, ostensibly demonstrating these powers, while the man just stands there confused.

It’s simple but effective visual comedy…the kind of thing that a low budget sitcom has every right to resort to, and coming at the tail end of a confused episode like this, it works quite well. It’s an absurd, left-field punctuation to a story that wasn’t quite sure what it was about to begin with…and I mean that in a good way.

Since the man doesn’t back off, Willie doubles down on the deception. He says that in ten seconds the man will be “flatter than a flapjack” if he doesn’t let ALF go…which only makes the man more curious. Willie counts down from 10 to one while the stranger stares at him…and then counts back up again.

It’s funnier in action than it probably sounds here. I really like it. Willie’s floundering is when Max Wright’s very particular set of skills, skills he’s acquired over a very long career, come in handy. They enrich Willie rather than distract from understanding his character, and in this case almost — almost — manage to retroactively define who he is.

It’s a fun scene, which would be enough, but it even offers up a nice character moment when the wife comes out of the bedroom…and her husband decides to play into Willie’s ruse.

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

The husband doesn’t want his wife to start up the traveling freak show again, so when she enters the room he pretends he’s in the throes of ALF’s unimaginable powers, and he tells her that he’ll be killed if she doesn’t let them go.

It works, even if the whole “I’ve decided you can go free” ending is pretty anticlimactic in a show that keeps trying to place the utmost importance on ALF not being seen by anyone, ever.

While her husband distracts her, Willie opens the door to escape, but ALF just stands there watching the argument. Willie beckons to him, and then ALF says, “Oh, yeah!” and starts doing his moaning and hand waving imaginary magic again.

Willie’s exasperated reply (“Not that!”) is delivered perfectly, and the whole scene, batshit crazy as it undoubtedly is, helps to elevate — if not redeem — “Alone Again, Naturally.” In fact, a lot about this episode’s setup and conclusion works just fine. The problem is the connective tissue between them, which just feels…undeveloped.

So Willie and ALF escape, and the episode’s as good as over.

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

…only, it’s not. At all.

The short scene before the credits is what does redeem the episode. And it takes an absolutely perfect, well-earned turn.

We see the ride home, with ALF and Willie driving in silence through the rain, before, finally, reflecting on what just happened without actually talking about it.

And you know what?

This is good.

This is kind of really good.

It’s probably the best exchange these two have had since “Night Train.” In some very specific ways, I’d argue it’s even better.

There’s something about the way these two dance around what they mean to say…the things they choose to hold back, or to be vague about. Typically these are just the potholes of bad writing, but in certain contexts, deliberately or not, they manage to enrich the material. The negative space between what is said and what is felt defines the conversation. It makes it difficult. It emphasizes distance…however much those having the discussion would like to cross it.

It’s just…I don’t know. It’s a perfect ending for a less-than-perfect episode, and it very nearly tricks me into thinking I’ve been watching something far better all along.

My description can only do it so much justice, so I’ll put some of it here, unbroken, so you can see.

WILLIE: I’m sorry it didn’t work out.
ALF: Me too.
WILLIE: But I’m glad you’re safe.
ALF: Safe and alone. Species-wise.
WILLIE: You know…we all feel alone at certain times in our lives.
ALF: Feeling alone and being alone are two different things.
WILLIE: I’m sorry, ALF. I wish there was something I could say.
ALF: I actually believed it, Willie. I really convinced myself there might be others of my kind here…

And it continues on from there. No jokes. No silliness. Just two sitcom characters driving through the rain, realizing that they have feelings, and wishing they didn’t.

Is it better writing than usual? I don’t know. I’d like to think so…but maybe not. It’s certainly better acting than usual…and the mood has been established better than usual. And I care more about these two characters than usual. So certainly that counts for something.

It’s a lovely scene, and it explores a what-if. In this case, it’s a sad one. It’s a what-if regarding ALF’s excitement being dashed. It’s about the emotional toll that belief takes on him. It’s about how unfair the universe can be, and how uncaring.

And while it deserves a more solid episode ahead of it, the conclusion is strong enough that I’m willing to give “Alone Again, Naturally” the benefit of the doubt.

It’s easily the best episode of the season so far, and I might even go so far as to say it’s a good one.

It’s not without its flaws — not even close — but it raised a question. It gave us a fun shaggy dog story masquerading as an answer. And then it actually answered the question in a satisfying and understated way.

I like this one. God help me, Paul Fusco…you pulled a bait and switch, and I fell for it.

Thank you.

ALF, "Alone Again, Naturally"

At the very end of the scene, ALF gazes out the window and believes he sees Blinky in the back of another person’s car.

It’s left ambiguous. ALF is convinced he saw this, but Willie says there was no other car.

ALF could be daydreaming, or maybe Willie just didn’t see the passing car through the heavy rain.

Either way, the lack of a definite answer doesn’t make it any less affecting. It’s a nice, mysterious note upon which to end a surprisingly melancholy episode.

It’s left open-ended, with just enough potential for hope, however illusory, that it doesn’t feel tragic.

“Alone Again, Naturally” isn’t the best that ALF is capable of, but I’m okay with that. I like it for what it is. The trip might not have been perfect, but the ride home is downright devastating, and it gives meaning and weight to the experience.

I’ll take that gladly, because it meant somebody cared enough to do this one effectively.

And if that someone was Paul Fusco? Then I just wish that we got to see this side of him more often.

MELMAC FACTS: Melmackian junkfood included “pudding in a shoe,” which was best homemade. ALF had a cousin called Blinky, who was given that nickname because he ate lightbulbs. “I’m so excited I could squirt” was an expression on Melmac, though I sincerely wish it wasn’t.

Guest Post: Eyeing Up ‘Net Privacy

The Simpsons, Thomas Pynchon

The following is a great article on artistic discussions of the deep web, online privacy, social responsibility, and more, courtesy of UK-based reader Patrick Massey. I found this fascinating, worrying, and enlightening in equal parts, and I hope you experience some mix of those three things as well. Take it away, Patrick.

A “Marco Polo” of the contemporary public sphere: “Internet” and “privacy.” The two phenomena are often yoked together in the news: the various problems of data access (who should be denied it? Whose data should be sacrosanct? What justifies access sub rosa?) swap pre-eminence in public consciousness as the Big Three of ‘net privacy–Snowden, Assange, Manning–swap the limelight. (In this essay, “‘net” refers to both the readily accessible surface Web, typically but carelessly referred to as “the Internet,” hence my coining an alternative term— and the Deep Web, the Internet’s large, largely criminal underbelly.)

In this essay, I want to consider how, not the news, but contemporary visual culture (i.e. screen and theatre of 2013/4) visualizes and/or fails to visualize ‘net privacy. I hope to address familiar issues of ‘net privacy via less familiar co-ordinates. Of course, William Gibson and other genre authors have been addressing cyber-issues, crafting cyber-aesthetics for years; but here I’m thinking of a) the real world ‘net in b) mainstream works of c) the last two years.

SCREEN MEDIA, and The ‘Net/Screen Problem

Documentaries aside (though cf. Terms and Conditions May Apply, Citizen Four), Internet privacy is surprisingly scantly treated in ‘13/4 screen culture. The two so bracketed, ‘net-oriented films I remember most readily–Her and Transcendence–privilege online addiction and a deus ex machina Johnny Depp over issues of ‘net privacy. Even Assange bio The Fifth Estate is more reportage, a primer on its subject and Wikileaks, than a meditation on abstractions or themes (and even then, Assange’s relationship to the media is privileged over ‘net privacy).

In mainstream C21 cinema in sum, ‘net privacy is principally a means to emotive ends. In Hard Candy, Chatroom, and Trust, the abuse of ‘net privacy does not itself merit attention–rather, it enables plot-wise the kidnaps et al that define and rather pre-occupy those thrillers. Even in the Catfish franchise [’10 film + current MTV series], any interrogation of ‘net privacy abuse is suborned to affect: to first terror (“who are these people?”), then horror (“look at those people!”). Although Catfish et al can be, indeed have been starting-points for discussing ‘net privacy, that discussion doesn’t happen in the films themselves.

Such scanty treatment of ‘net privacy on screen owes not only, I think, to auteurs’ simply “not having got round to it”, but also to a fundamental, broader disjunction between the ‘net and screen media. The ‘net does not readily lend itself to concrete visualization. One must get figurative, experimental; but screen media tend towards “meatspatial” settings— realities, however fantastical or futuristic. Consider Star Trek’s holodeck: always a real-world milieu, often Earth-historical, never a Tron-scape. Consider too the recent backdoor pilot for CSI Cyber: introducing a series oriented around the Deep Web, yet resorting latterly to “Female (Early 20s)” showing hard copy evidence of her online chat-room ignominy to meatspatial paparazzi in a meatspatial VEGAS: EXT.

Star Trek, Holodeck

I might suggest three reasons for this disjunction. First, the chokehold of corporate network funding and the likelier non-profitability of experimentalism [versus the realism that characterizes the “New Golden Age” of television]; the desire to fully exploit and justify investment in physical sets; and third (and still more tentatively proffered), the Internet’s being TV and film’s unheimlich, uncanny counterpart, perhaps frustrating the interrogation of the former by the latter… Heady stuff. But the bottom line for us is: if the Internet in sum cannot find a screen aesthetic, what hope for its clandestine, its even less readily visualized cyberspaces? And what hope consequently for addressing ‘net privacy?

Happily, ‘net privacy has been better visualized in theatre of ‘13/4— a medium naturally more amenable to the figurative and the experimental.

THEATRE, and Romancing the ‘Net

In The Net Effect, Thomas Streeter posits romanticism as a key co-ordinate in ‘net studies. He primarily argues that neoliberal forces propagate a romantic individualist idea of computing, and that “capital R” Romanticism can help us understand the social meaning of computers.

With this precedent in mind, I turn to ‘net privacy in theatre of ‘13/4. All the plays I’m going to consider deal with perversions, criminal iterations of ‘net privacy. But none less than Keats was ‘half in love with death’; and however perverse their content gets, these plays evince, if not a Romantic aesthetic per se, then something sufficiently akin that I’m going to draw formal Romantic parallels and beg your indulgence.

Jen Haley’s The Nether deals with online pederasty in a private “Hideaway” [Haley’s device]. In fashioning the Hideaway, Haley eschews a complementarily grimy, abject aesthetic for irony: it is an archetypal country estate, with trees, gazebo, and fishing-pond. Notwithstanding its nominally Victorian context, a Romantic aesthetic— Blakeian innocence, a “Lakeland Poetic” idealizing of Nature— surely underpins a milieu that presents like this:

The Nether, The Hideaway

Blakeian also is Iris, the Hideaway’s resident, white-clad sprite–and “willing” victim of virtual child abuse. Innocent prima facie, but horribly au fait with abhorrent experience (“Perhaps you’d like to use the axe first”): Iris embodies the disjunction that hinges Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. Note finally how, according to its creator, “it’d upset a balance” in the Hideaway to suggest that Iris could grow older: anyone whose mind went to the Romantic organic conception of nature, give yourself a mark.

Price’s Teh [sic] Internet is Serious Business is a reportage piece about the respective rise and fall of the “hacktivist” groups Anonymous and LulzSec. Its dominant aesthetic is anarchic: a ball pit abuts the stage, from and around which emerge Socially Awkward Penguin and other costumed memes. Bright lights, Harlem Shake: you get the drift. At first sight, privacy is not the word here. But Price also depicts hackers’ private forums— and here, the staging tends towards lyricism. Computer code is recited as poetry (cf. Chandra’s recent equivalence of the two, if intrigued); databyte flow, enacted as dance. Here, literarily and physically, is a lyricism where elsewhere is jouissance: thus is privacy “Romanticized” (cf. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Dvorak’s New World Symphony…).

James Graham’s Privacy tacks otherwise to Haley and Price. Graham’s is a synoptic approach to ‘net privacy, a condemnation of illiberal governmental/corporate/ security state malpractice as regards ostensibly password-protected public data. Such factuality is not the Romantic way, likewise Privacy’s format: a hybrid of verbatim enactments of his [The Writer’s] interviews with real British Establishment figures (Shami Chakrabarti, anyone? Well, Google her sometime); lectures; and fourth-wall—breaking audience participation. For good measure, Privacy rides roughshod over the Romantic exaltation of the subject: an array of thumbprints is the default [screen] backdrop, and the “subject” of the audience participation (having given prior permission) has her real-world online footprint, herself by proxy dissected onstage.

Privacy, James Graham

Despite all this, Privacy retains a double pertinence. First, it acts as a counter-proof: as its core is non-Romantic, so Privacy does not depict privacy itself [cf. Haley’s Hideaway, Price’s hackers’ forums] but exposes, is an exposé of its absence. Second, its aesthetic rather taps into the “other end” of Romanticism, where rapturous apostrophes fade into disquiet, into sublimity: the awesome dimensions of Big Data, the staging [that screen, those magnified thumbprints] vis-à-vis the actors and the script’s analytical impulse.

So: 2 1/2 proofs and a counter-proof, we might say, of a relationship between ‘net privacy and a quasi-Romantic aesthetic. My humble explanation: that the ‘net (especially the Deep Web) remains so broadly un-comprehended, its depth so untapped, as to inspire from us what “the naked countenance of Earth” [Shelley] inspired from the Romantics.

PYNCHON: A Quick Nota Bene

In another world, where space and time were as playthings, I’d fully discuss Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge: the only “literary” fictional novel that readily comes to mind that not only foreground ‘net privacy as a theme, but actually figures it as a distinct, visualized cyberspace–DeepArcher; conceived of as a ‘grand-scale motel for the afflicted’, for Pynchon’s kindred preterite [cf. Gravity’s Rainbow, or Google judiciously]; variously iterated as train concourse, desert, and galactic Void; and ultimately a Purgatory for leads, lovers, and 9/11 victims all encountered (and killed off) in the narrative. (On a complementary note for that latter point: Kabbalistic imagery and lexis is deployed in descriptions of the Void). Would I could share my MA dissertation with you all; but I’ll highlight simply this: doing what even screen media cannot (at least easily), and in keeping with his typical trickster mode, Pynchon visualizes ‘net privacy chimerically; that one cannot identify a definitive DA-scape is the whole point. A nicely postmodern note, I hope, on which to finish considering contemporary cultural visualizations of the ‘net.

ALF Reviews: “My Back Pages” (season 3, episode 10)

“My Back Pages” is named after a Bob Dylan song. I’ll get that out of the way right now, since it was bound to happen sooner or later. My all-time favorite musician has an ALF connection. So it goes.

I guess it’s not really anything to get that grumpy about. As I’ve said before, somebody on the staff had pretty solid taste in music, based on the episode titles and on the choices of songs used (and referenced) in the episodes themselves. Alongside the competent (and often very good) puppetry, the nods and winks to music history represent the only observable passion in the show.

It’s an odd choice of title, though. For one, it’s not one of Dylan’s more popular songs. (Though it is one of my personal favorites.) It’s also a title that doesn’t occur anywhere in the song itself, meaning that folks who have actually heard it might not know what it’s called. It’s especially puzzling when the theme of the episode — though by no means incompatible with the theme of the song it’s named after — would have fit perfectly well with the more recognizable “The Times They Are A-Changing.”

It’s also odd because the pivotal moment in the episode occurs when Willie and Kate reminisce about Woodstock…and Dylan didn’t play Woodstock. Crosby, Stills, and Nash played Woodstock, and later released a song called “Woodstock,” so why not just call the episode that?

I bet nobody out there will suspect that I’m stalling.

Blah, whatever. “My Back Pages” opens with the funniest god damned thing I’ve ever seen this puppet do: it shuffles into the room all disheveled and verbally abuses Brian for picking a sock off of him.

It’s wonderful. It’s almost as though ALF really exists, and his time in this shitty show is taking the same toll on him that it is taking on his human costars.

It’s really funny, and for the wrong reasons. ALF’s grouchiness is totally out of scale with the situation, making this seem like behind the scenes footage of an alternate universe recording session, where ALF really was some washed-up comedian starring in a terrible sitcom he thinks he should be above.

This illusion is sustained by the fact that Benji Gregory appears to be legitimately angry in the above screengrab, as though he’s finally snapped, too.

It’s wonderful stuff, because the visible misery of the cast relieves me of a little bit of my own.

Honestly, though, there’s a kind of pulsing anger that flows through this episode, and it’s really odd. This isn’t one of those episodes where ALF pisses everybody off…it’s just a silly story tossed out as an excuse to get Willie and Kate into some dumb costumes. It should be lighthearted and airy. Instead it’s tense and miserable.

ALF fell asleep in the dryer, or something, and I guess someone turned it on. You’d think there’d be some kind of explanation, but there’s not, so it plays more like ALF just rolled out of bed after a long night of binge drinking and is looking for someone’s wife to hit.

He bitches to Willie for a while about wanting a proper room of his own, and Willie tells him to go fuck himself. ALF replies, “Fine. Just remember this the next time you complain about fur in your shorts.”

It’s not much of a joke (if it’s…even a joke?), but I point it out because the line is clearly overdubbed, with an entirely different sound quality. It’s obviously ADR, but the fact that he’s a puppet means there’s no hope of lip-reading what the original line was.

Any guesses as to what the punchline could have been? I honestly can’t imagine anything worse than the one we got.

ALF, "My Back Pages"

After the credits we see ALF in the attic. He walks around and then he falls over for no reason and says, “I hate it when that happens!”

The audience laughs.

At what? I have no god damned clue. ALF hates it when he trips? Who gives a shit? What kind of writing is this? That’s not a joke. Is it? What is this show doing to my sense of humor? Why can I no longer identify what does and does not qualify as a joke?

Willie and Kate come upstairs to see what the fuck he’s doing now, and he tells them they really need to look into Public Storage. “We have,” Kate replies. “They won’t take you.”

And, okay, that’s pretty funny. Both Anne Schedeen and Jack LaMotta get a handful of good lines in this episode, which I’d love to interpret as some kind of peace offering on behalf of the writers.

Willie finds one of the leather straps he used to use on hobos in the crack dungeon, and he and his wife reminisce about the good times, before the National Enquirer stepped in.

They also find a dime-store silver peace sign, completely lacking in detail, attached to nothing, and the two of them beam over it like it’s some beloved talisman of the past.

Which it might be…but man, these two must have been some pretty lame hippies if they bought a peace sign at Hobby Lobby and called it a day. Didn’t hippies…make things? And didn’t they like vibrant colors and exaggerated shapes?

It’s a shame that the props department didn’t put any thought into this. An believable memento with personality could have told us a lot about their personalities. Or maybe it does. These two are just vague, flat representations themselves. Why should their cherished knick-knacks be any different?

It does lead to a funny line, though, when ALF sees it and says, “I’m impressed. When did you guys own a Mercedes?” That just about redeems to plainness of what we’re supposed to believe is an important and evocative memento.

ALF, "My Back Pages"

Then we get a slightly different angle of the room and see a box of “XMAS GARLAND!” If ever a two-word phrase deserved an exclamation point, it’s surely that one.

ALF tells them to throw all their old shit away so he can expand his shrine to the Tanner ladies into the attic, and I’m okay with that seemingly dickish request. ALF might not understand human sentiment, and it makes sense that he’d ask why boxes full of crap they haven’t looked at in years gets to hang around while the family is facing space concerns.

Then again, ALF went back to gather up all of his mementos instead of using that time or that space in his UFO to rescue any of friends or family members before his planet exploded.

So, no, he’s not confused. He’s not even just dickish. He’s a massive pile of dicks.

Willie and Kate explain that it’s not junk…it’s part of who they are. “Or who we were,” Kate adds.

And…I don’t buy it.

We’re three years into knowing these people, and we’ve been told who they are (and were) several times already. “Hippie” was never one of these things, and nothing we’ve been told has stuck anyway.

This is just an excuse to get them into silly costumes, which is an approach to comedy writing somewhere on par with having a character fall over and then say, “I DO SO HATE TO FALL OVER!!”

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s sad that the idea of learning more about these people used to fill me with hope for the next half-hour, and now it just makes me want to skip the episode.

Part of me, admittedly, was defensive because “Night Train” already told a story about the difference between Willie the Idealist and Willie the Murmuring Scrotum. What’s more…it told that story really, really well. It’s a firm contender for my favorite episode of ALF, and while that sounds like I’m damning it with faint praise, I’ll say this clearly: I really did enjoy that episode on its own merits.

To have “My Back Pages” rip that very welcome backstory out of the character and replace it with love-beads and some silly wigs…well, it’s fighting an uphill battle to say the least.

However, since this episode shows us Willie at Woodstock, and we assume he was around 45 at the time this aired (his age as of “Jump,” anyway), that would have put him in his late 20s when he attended the legendary outdoor music festival. Since “Night Train” told us that he rode the rails at 17, both of these backstories can slot comfortably next to each other.

The fact that I still hate “My Back Pages,” then, is entirely down to its own internal failures, and not due to any kind of conflict with a superior episode.

Rest assured: you’re watching shit.

ALF, "My Back Pages"

Willie and Kate find some old filmstrips (and I admit I know very little about late 60s filmstock, but this sure looks a fuck of a lot like a spool of thin, white ribbon) which are, we are told, the home movies they shot at Woodstock.

…and fuck off.

Really now. Fuck the fuck off.

What “home movies” were shot at Woodstock? Honest question. In 1969, on Max Yasgur’s farm, where for one long weekend the closest thing we’ve ever had to a functional utopia came and went, who was shooting home movies?

I’d be glad to be proven wrong, but as far as I know there really isn’t that much footage of Woodstock outside of the professionally-shot stuff, which largely became the documentary Woodstock. I’m sure there were at least a few amateur videographers in attendance, but there is not much film in existence to prove it.

Additionally, any film equipment back then would have been extremely expensive (which is probably why hippies wouldn’t have had it in the first place). It wasn’t until the late 80s or early 90s that camcorders became popular, and even then they were quite expensive. That the Tanners could afford one in the present day of the show is believable, but “My Back Pages” wants us to assume they had one two decades before they were invented.

So this footage should be extremely valuable. Like, urgently valuable. This film represents a newly discovered angle (at least) on anything that Willie and Kate caught on camera. And in some cases — say, had Willie been filming while Pete Townshend cracked Abbie Hoffman in the head with his guitar — it would represent the only angle. This is a reel of immaculately preserved gold.

This episode aired around twenty years after Woodstock. If the Tanners have really been sitting on never-before-seen footage of the event, they should easily be able to sell copies of this to the media, to documentarians, to hobbyists…to absolutely anybody with any kind of interest in American, musical, or cultural history at all. The question of how they managed to film it on a spool of white ribbon in the first place is one thing, but the question of how valuable it is never occurs to anyone. And that’s driving me insane.

I can’t wait for next week, when Willie and Kate remember that they recorded the Kennedy assassination with their iPhones.

ALF, "My Back Pages"

Whatever. They set up the filmstrip that we’ll see once and which nobody will ever refer to again. Lynn comes home and ALF smacks her in the face with a fistful of peanuts.

Fine. Who cares. This is Lynn’s thing now, getting hit with food and raising her arms in dismay. (The latter half of that is certainly my thing now.)

It can’t be a coincidence that this occurred in back-to-back weeks, can it? Like…this has to be a conscious attempt at a running gag.

…right? Please tell me they didn’t write LYNN GETS HIT WITH FOOD OR SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW in two consecutive scripts without realizing it.

ALF throws peanuts fucking everywhere because who the fuck fucking fucks. At least Lynn grabs a handful and throws them back at him. That’s my single favorite moment in all of season three so far.

I told you, everyone’s pissy in this episode. It’s automatically the most realistic installment yet.

ALF, "My Back Pages"

Mr. Ochmonek comes over, and before he hides ALF complains about never getting to meet anyone. Which is pretty ridiculous, since by this point ALF has directly interacted with more people than any of the humans on this show. The writers don’t realize that they can’t pull this shit anymore, do they?

Mr. O busted up Willie’s weed whacker, which would probably make him a dick, but after all the crap Willie’s said and done to him, this is nothing. Mr. O could decapitate Lucky on Willie’s porch and he’d still rank as the better neighbor.

Anyway, the Ochmoneks are off to play bridge with some other people, and Mr. O asks if he can borrow some bridge mix. Willie says he doesn’t have any, so Mr. O says, “I guess we can’t play bridge.” Then he thinks and asks, “Got any gin?”

It’s a stupid, stupid, stupid joke that begins and ends with a pun…but it works.

Jack LaMotta’s delivery sells it, as it so often sells things like this, and the fact that he only pops up to make the joke and then disappears helps it a lot. It’s an interlude, and a welcome one, before Willie begins his filmribbon. (Funnily enough, ALF even refers to this exchange as the cartoon before the main event. It’s a nicely observed bit of meta-humor.)

I don’t think the writing for LaMotta is any better than it is for anyone else on this show; I think it’s just a matter of the fact that he, like Anne Schedeen, studies his lines, and decides how to give them heft. In Schedeen’s case, that often comes down to good acting. In LaMotta’s, it’s more about being as funny as possible in as little time as possible. Two very different executions, but they come from the same place: the all-too-rare desire to do good work.

ALF, "My Back Pages"

Then we see the film and suddenly I understand how Willie obtained it: he ordered it from a stock footage company. It’s just a bunch of clips of hippies standing around, shuffling around, looking around. Great stuff, Willie. Maybe eventually we’ll see some examples of his photography, like a smiling black man and a smiling white man shaking hands in a boardroom.

There’s some sitar noodling in the background, which is unbroken through the scene transitions, so I guess Willie not only had expensive film equipment, but an entire editing suite at his disposal. Fuck this show.

Conveniently, ALF cuts to a different angle before Willie says, “Look! There’s Mama Cass!” Because that would have cost something, as would playing any actual Woodstock music instead of the pack-in disc from Sitar for Dummies.

ALF, "My Back Pages"

We see Kate on the screen, with Willie helpfully pointing out who we’re looking at, because it’s not like her own children or the alien who tries to fingerfuck her every time she takes a shower would recognize her.

And okay, okay. I know; she’s dressed a lot different in the film than her children or her lodger have seen her. That’s okay. But it leads me to wonder what future generations will do for their flashback episodes.

The Simpsons might provide some kind of answer, as Homer and Marge’s backstory involved similar late-hippie culture, and Principal Skinner’s involved a stint in Vietnam. At least, that was the case at first. Later on the show had been on long enough that these things no longer made sense for characters their ages, and another flashback episode showed Homer and Marge coming of age in the 90s instead.

The thing is, though, that the latter didn’t offer much in the way of opportunity for humor…or for sweetness. The culture of the 60s (and the specific iconography of Woodstock) stood for something…even if it was something intangible. (Or, if you’re being less generous, false.) It was representative of a conscious turning away. It was an entire generation standing up and saying, “No, I don’t want that. I want this.”

Volumes will continue to be written about what this actually meant or did not mean, but it’s fair to say that it meant something. It was liberty, and it was irresponsibility. It was the celebration of a future that never got here, and a denial of the present that already was. It was a chance for the young to spring forward into a childish idea of adulthood with the ability to make all of their own choices, but with none of the experience or foresight to make them intelligently. It wasn’t a culture of contradiction, exactly…it was more like a culture of often beautiful confusion.

…which is why it makes for such a nice setting when it’s time to visit “the past.” The fashions may look silly, but much of the music is timeless. And the entire backdrop serves as both a wistful dream and a cautionary tale. It’s a rich and evocative setting.

The 90s? Well, according to The Simpsons when it dipped a toe into that possible past, it was grunge music and slow internet. Ha ha.

There’s a reason That 70s Show was actually pretty good, made stars out of much of its cast, and continues to have a life in syndication, while That 80s Show barely staggered through a single, abbreviated season. And it’s because, to be totally frank, some generations are simply more culturally rich than others.

As sitcoms move forward — and as we grow older — we’ll see more and more of them building backstories that involve the Gulf War, the dot-com bubble, the Furby. But that will be out of necessity, and it will happen by default. It won’t happen out of love in the same way that the endlessly revisited 60s do. Or the similarly revisited 70s. Or even the ironically revisited 50s.

And so we beat on, boats against the current, away from richer kinds of culture. What we move toward remains to be seen. And I’m not particularly looking forward to it.

ALF, "My Back Pages"

Oh, shit. We’re still watching ALF?

…alright.

We see Willie in the film, so either he and Kate handed the camera back and forth to each other a shitload of times, or there’s a third person who filmed this for them whom Willie and Kate couldn’t be arsed to name. ALF says that Willie looks like a fucking idiot and the family does this:

ALF, "My Back Pages"

What an insightful episode.

It’s extremely disappointing that “My Back Pages” just goes for the sight-gag of Willie looking like a dolt (and then has ALF say as much, presumably for the benefit of the blind), instead of mining any comedy from the contrast between the Summer of Love and the Me Decade.

No, it’s enough that at Woodstock some of the guys had long hair and that’s hilarious.

Viewing this event through alien eyes should have been interesting. For all the great music and provocative imagery that came out of 60s counterculture, we so often end up boiling it down to a handful of symbols and touchpoints. We accept that it was something, but if you weren’t there (and, surely, in many cases even if you were), it’s impossible to know what it meant. How it felt. Its human impact as opposed to its accepted social impact.

The absolute best way to explore that significance? Through the eyes of somebody who, somehow, has never even heard of Woodstock. Somebody like…I dunno…a cunting SPACE ALIEN?

We don’t get that, though. While ALF indeed raises questions about it, they’re answered (in a moment) by a simpleton. Willie isn’t just a bonehead who himself couldn’t identify with the movement beyond the symbols and touchpoints; he’s a voicebox for the writers who seem to believe that there really wasn’t anything else to it.

There’s no reason to believe that the staff understands what they’re talking about, and that’s frustrating. Vineland, a novel by Thomas Pynchon, explores exactly this territory…specifically, the distance between 1969 and 1984. How did America let its idealism falter so severely? How did we go from peace, love, and rock and roll to the War on Drugs? What shift of cultural complacency occurred to change the world once, and then let it change right back without interference?

It’s a great novel, and while I don’t expect an episode of ALF to measure up to high literature, Pynchon’s novel itself stoops to low comedy, slapstick, winks toward the popular culture of the time. In short, even though Pynchon is writing a work of art, he’s able to craft better sitcom material along the way than a sitcom aspiring to nothing else is able to craft.

Do yourself a favor. Buy Vineland. It’s brilliant.

alfep310k

Later on, Willie comes into the kitchen to find ALF eating fuckin’ everything. He starts to wax nostalgic about his college roommate, Snout. Snout also ate a lot, so at least now we know the writers consider that a valid sole personality trait for characters to have.

Anyway, Snout was awesome. (At least, that’s what I assume the show wants me to assume.) Everyone loved him, including Willie, who thought he was just the kitten’s tits.

He talks about a time that Snout took off all of his clothes and burned them, in order to stop the war. ALF asks if that worked, and Willie says yeah, he’d like to think it did, which shows not only what a fucking nincompoop Willie is, but exactly how simplified this important and unique cultural movement is treated by “My Back Pages.”

ALF, channeling the charmless political idiocy of “Pennsylvania 6-5000” and “Hail to the Chief,” asks why people don’t pull these stunts for peace anymore, what with Central America and the Middle East being war-ravaged hellholes.

Willie explains that he can’t do that stuff nowadays, because he has a family to support and he needs to pick his battles.

This proves he’s learned nothing in his half-century on Earth, because what he should be explaining to ALF is the fact that we can shape our country by voting, by contributing to causes, by volunteering, and so on. Instead he buys right into the same idea that he just sold ALF on: that, yes, you can change the world by doing ridiculous, tangential things with no demonstrable relationship to the thing you’re trying to affect.

It’s weird. Like, so weird that if this were a radio show, I’d have no idea which of these idiots was the alien.

ALF says Willie sold out, and Willie storms off to bed. Man, if you are what you eat, then ALF must have eaten Grumpy Cat.

But, you know what? Fuck Willie.

Seriously. Fuck him.

If he really believes that he can change the world by setting his clothes on fire or painting FREE HUGS across his paunch, and he still chooses not to, then he’s just a selfish asshole.

Either he doesn’t believe those things, in which case this conversation needed to take a very different turn, or he does, and he needs to start pulling his weight as a member of the human race.

Then ALF eats a big sandwich and the scene is over. HOORAY!

ALF, "My Back Pages"

In the next scene, Willie is pacing around, complaining that he can’t sleep. Kate suggests that it might be because he’s pacing, which is a very human response, and which I like…probably because it reminds me of a similar joke on Father Ted. (Albeit one that was pulled off far more artfully.)

“I used to organize peace marches, now I organize coupons,” Willie bitches, while his wife goes unlaid. Really, though, Willie should be distressed by the fact that he used to organize peace marches, and now he verbally abuses, kidnaps, and assaults those in need of his help as a social worker. But, hey, potato potato.

ALF comes in and does some ALF shit, and then Willie lays down and…

ALF, "My Back Pages"

NO

fucking NO NO

fucking fucking fucking NNNOOOOO

God shitting dammit.

A dream sequence. What is it with this show and dream sequences?

Typically dream sequences exist in sitcoms so that you can put the characters in fantastic situations, and have them do and say things that are beyond the reach of its normally grounded reality. It’s a cheat, really, but one that can be fun for both the writing staff and the viewer. And the cast, come to think of it. It’s a chance for everyone to enjoy an expanded playing field, and it temporarily opens up the context of the show, letting it feel a little less constrained and stuffy.

In ALF, though, the title character is a centuries-old intergalactic pederast. That is its normal, grounded reality. Zany situations are built in. We don’t need to do this…especially since the dreams are never any less dull or more creative than anything we get in the show proper.

Oh well. At least this dream sequence contains the Ochmoneks. More specifically Mr. Ochmonek, who welcomes Willie to the bar by saying, “All you need is love! There’s a two drink minimum.”

It’s rock solid delivery. Seriously. No snark from me at all on this one; LaMotta’s a fucking ace.

Sadly, though, the dream isn’t about him. It’s about Willie being Willie while everyone else around him gets to be a hippie and smoke a lot of drugpuffs and rub each other’s nipples and exchange patchouli recipes, or whatever the hell the ALF writers think hippies did.

Nightmare Hippie Kate starts telling Willie about this awesome guy named Snout, and if you can’t tell where this is going you should probably have that head injury looked at.

ALF, "My Back Pages"

Yes, it’s ALF dressed as flower child icon Bruce Springsteen.

Wait, why Springsteen? His first album wasn’t released until 1973.

Well, you see, there actually is a really clever connection here: they already paid for a puppet-sized jean jacket for “Don’t It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue?” and they wanted to make damn well sure they got their money’s worth. Also, Springsteen played music, and Woodstock, the writers are pretty sure, had some music, so, really, it’s a seamless fit.

ALF says a bunch of vaguely hippie things like “sit-in” and “hey man” and “you can’t rebuild without tearing down first.” To which Willie says a bunch of Willie things like “Hnnnggghymmn pffyyvr fsstmnrm.”

It turns out everyone in the Hippie Tavern agrees with whatever the fuck ALF says and disagrees with whatever the fuck Willie says because one of them is wearing a suit and holy shit I could not possibly care less about any of this.

Then it turns out that Willie and ALF are going to be roommates, which causes Willie to shit the bed and wake up.

Actually, no, he doesn’t. We just watch him toss and turn for a bit and then…

ALF, "My Back Pages"

Oh fucking suck my god damned taint.

A time skip? In a dream.

I…

WHY

Why are we leaping forward four years in a dream? What kind of dream has establishing subtitles? Is Willie actually asleep for four years? What the pissing shit are they going for here?

Mr. Ochmonek — who goes by the name Big Daddy in this sequence, suggesting a subconscious attraction that I truly do not want you discussing in the comments — is updating the specials board.

Wow, he sure couldn’t have done that four years ago. Thank Christ for the time skip.

Willie comes in and…wait. Why wasn’t he already there? This is his fucking dream. Was he dreaming of a restaurant owner writing on a chalkboard for a few minutes before he himself entered the room? What kind of dream is this?

Ugh, who cares. He’s turned into Shaggy from Scooby Doo I guess.

ALF, "My Back Pages"

Willie reveals that he’s graduated with honors, even though he’s a hippie, then ALF comes in, and ALF also graduated, even though he’s a hippie. No, I have no idea what we’re meant to glean from this, and it only gets more confusing.

ALF says he has a job lined up for him, which makes Willie flip out and accuse him of abandoning his ideals, which makes ALF lecture him for wasting his life…

…but I don’t see why any of this is happening. They’re acting like there’s this big gulf between them, but if they both graduated and have jobs and accolades to carry them into the workforce, why are they accusing each other of anything? Didn’t they both end up in the same place?

I honestly have no clue. They’re each upset at each other, which makes it seem like they’ve each revealed something that the other finds unpalatable. And yet…they both kind of revealed the same thing. And it’s nothing bad. And…they were still both hippies. And they’re both graduating and going to work. Why is this a conflict?

Fuck that…why is this a dream?

Who the fuck knows. It’s such a manufactured complication and it adds nothing to anything. Good thing we jumped four years ahead to get to it.

Six years later Willie wakes up and heads to the kitchen to speak with ALF.

ALF, "My Back Pages"

He either stretches or does the Chicken Dance, I can’t tell which. Then he says that ALF can have the attic, because he used to be a hippie, but then he wasn’t anymore, and he had a dream about not being a hippie, and then later in the dream he was a hippie again.

With that trail of sound logic followed to its obvious conclusion, Willie eats a cookie and the episode ends.

ALF, "My Back Pages"

In the short scene before the credits ALF puts on some library disco music and bops around.

COOL

Personally, I’d have far preferred an episode about Willie accidentally eating the brown acid.

MELMAC FACTS: Willie is from Decatur, Illinois. Melmackians had a word for guys who pierced their ears: pirates. The fact that ALF swears it’s not a gay joke doesn’t make it any less of a gay joke.

Adult Swim Comes to Hulu

Rick and Morty
…and we all have a lot of catching up to do.

I got a press release regarding Turner Broadcasting and Hulu reaching an agreement. But as many stations as Turner owns, and as many programs as it has the rights to, the press release spotlighted Adult Swim coming to the streaming site.

This is both interesting and refreshing to me. While other shows on TBS and TNT draw larger viewing figures regularly (understandably so, being as Adult Swim is only discovered by those who have trouble sleeping one night), Adult Swim’s programming pushes the envelope. And while it’s by no means always good (hello, Assy McGee!), it’s at least always interesting. To see these shows being heralded above the more traditional comedy fare on its sister stations represents a much-deserved step forward in terms of visibility.

The press release doesn’t specify a date, and it’s crawling with future-tense, so I have no idea when these shows will actually arrive. But it promises full back catalogues, so get ready (seriously, get ready) to work your way through some of the best alternative television ever made.

HERE I MADE YOU A LIST

  • The Venture Bros.
  • The Boondocks
  • Moral Orel
  • Tom Goes to the Mayor
  • Metalocalypse

And anything else you feel even slightly compelled to watch. The above, as far as I’m concerned, are varying degrees of required viewing, with The Venture Bros. easily — easily — ranking high on the list of my favorite shows of all time. (Don’t tempt me to prove it by making the list.)

The press release also mentions some great Cartoon Network (non-Adult Swim division) fare coming along as part of the deal. Adventure Time, Regular Show, Dexter’s Laboratory, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, and lots of other great stuff. I’m…really excited about those. Even more than I am the Adult Swim stuff, because I have much less experience with them, and I’m thrilled to get to know them properly.

And, yes, the choice of header image is deliberate, because a few people here have asked me to check out Rick and Morty, and I haven’t, because I’m a stubborn ass hole who hates you. But with it coming to Hulu, I’ll be giving it a spin. I can’t promise I’ll review it or anything, but we’ll see. As of right now that screen grab represents all I’ve ever seen of the show, so we’ll see where it takes me.

Regardless, I’m excited, and I hope you are too. Viewing these shows was always a hassle to do it legally, requiring cable (which I rarely have), the ability to stay up late (which I also rarely have), and the luck of catching whatever it is you want to see in their constantly fluctuating schedule (which I almost never have). The Adult Swim site has episodes available to stream, but they rotate as well, meaning any time I wanted to sample a new series I’d have to buy the DVD, or buy an episode through iTunes…both of which are definite gambles.

This will be a great way to help people fall in love with these shows, and I’m excited to discover more of them myself. I hope you are, too.

(Watch The Venture Bros. at least. You owe that to yourself.)

ALF Reviews: “Changes” (season 3, episode 9)

Well, we’re back…and just in time for a pretty important episode in the history of ALF. Not because people remember it fondly (or at all…I certainly didn’t) but because it has an actual job to do. “Changes” must shoulder more responsibility than any episode before it, barring the pilot: it needs to introduce Anne Schedeen’s real life pregnancy.

In any other episode, ALF could spin its wheels. There’s no real serialization here, and like most sitcoms this one comes with a press of the big reset button at the end of every episode. That means that very few of them have long-term impacts on the narrative of the show.

This, in itself, is not a weakness, but I point it out now to contrast the role of “Changes.” In any other episode, ALF just needs to make us laugh. (Ostensibly.) Here, it needs to go further, because, like it or not, Kate’s going to look pregnant for the next few episodes, and we’ve got to address it somehow. (Of course many readers here have already mentioned that Kate was showing. I didn’t notice this, because I only pretend to be observant.)

This could actually shock the writing staff out of their weekly stupor. Instead of writing a script in which ALF becomes an underpants model because why the fuck not who cares, they have definitive direction here. There’s a big announcement that they need to build toward, and while that might bind the creativity of funnier people, with these bozos such specific instructions are likely to help.

And it actually opens pretty well. For the first time in what feels like forever (and maybe is actually forever) the short intro scene is actually…well, short. It’s punchy. And while it’s not funny, strictly speaking, it creates an effective illusion of being so.

It’s under a minute long, and the entire joke is that ALF keeps asking if he can eat Willie’s meatloaf since Willie’s not home yet.

That’s all.

Again, not funny on its own, but this scene demonstrates quite well how an effective rhythm can make comedy pop. Comedy isn’t not all about the writing…it’s about the performances and the direction. And those things actually work here. A very simple joke which would probably have been overwroght and belabored in some lesser episodes is given exactly as much time as it needs, and that’s it. The repeated specificity of “meatloaf” rather than “dinner” or “food” helps a great deal as well.

It’s not rocket science. In fact, it’s probably not the product of anything deeper than one of the writers realizing that “meatloaf” is a funny word. But it clicks in the right way, and it’s not as though a show’s opening joke needs to be its strongest. All it really needs to do is convince you to keep watching, and based on this alone you’d be forgiven for thinking that the staff of ALF had some idea of comic timing.

Then Willie comes home, announces that “the union” is going on strike — ah yes, the legendarily powerful social workers’ union — and that’s it.

But…it’s okay that that’s it.

A good joke, a hint of the plot, and the intro credits. This is dangerously efficient.

And, yes, it convinces me to keep watching. Good on you, “Changes.”

ALF, "Changes"

After the credits, we see Willie and Kate in bed, and I have to conclude that he’s grateful to the strike for giving him a reason to bitch all night instead of fucking his wife.

Kate turns to him and offers her support. Man, she must get tired of being the only person in the universe who acts like a caring human being.

Willie says he can’t sleep, and expresses concern about all the people who rely on social workers that won’t be getting the help they need. You know, help like Willie making fun of them for having too many kids, and abducting undocumented Mexicans.

Kate, as a wife, is great here. She really is. She’s a person. She has emotions, and empathy, and a capacity for rational thought. I don’t know how she so often escapes the writers’ best attempts to reduce her to a generic cutout like the rest of her family, but she does, and that’s why I feel the need to compliment her so often.

In fact, this episode is a great showcase for Schedeen, as it should be. She doesn’t get quite as much of the spotlight as I would like (that is to say, she gets LESS THAN ALL OF IT), but when a show like ALF spends time with the one character who is a character, it’s like a breath of fresh air.

Kate expresses her support for her husband, and lets him know that they will find a way to make ends meet during the strike. She assuages his concerns about social services shutting down by explaining that innocent people suffer in all strikes, and that’s not his fault. If he’s ultimately making things better for the people he serves, then he’s doing the right thing.

Willie responds by saying, “I think I can sleep now!!!”

The audience loves that punchline, but I don’t even get it. Was he bored by his wife’s understanding and supportiveness?

Fuck the fuck off, Willie. I’m starting to understand why you’re named after a dick.

Seriously, guys. He woke her up because he was troubled. He was losing sleep, so she gave up her own sleep to comfort him. She tries to keep him from worrying, and promises that if she needs to make sacrifices so that he can have his candy-ass strike, she’ll do it. And he just rolls his eyes until he decides it’s time for her to shut up, because that’s how you treat a wife.

Ugh. Actual, serious ugh.

Also, after however many fucking raises and promotions Willie’s had, he talks about the strike being necessary because he deserves “fair compensation.”

So, yeah. According to the show, this asshole who has never once been good at his job and has often been shown to be actively horrible at it (remember, we last saw evidence of his approach to social work when he threatened to stab a hobo to death in his garage) still isn’t making enough money.

The fucking christ almighty.

ALF, "Changes"

Then ALF comes in because of course he does.

There’s a funny joke when he says he’s worried about the strike, too, and he has a five-word suggestion: “Willie gets another job.”

Yes, we get the joke, and no, we don’t need Willie to say, “That’s four words…” but he does anyway, and it leads to a second gag in ALF’s reply: “Good. I ran out of fingers.”

It’s not often that a good line gets compounded into a better one, so I’ll take this, even if it comes at the tail end of Willie trying to convince us that Kate is a meddling shrew because she loves him and wants what’s best for the family.

Actually, this little exchange is a good microcosm of “Changes” as a whole: a lot of crap, but a few really, truly nice moments and lines. There’s about five minutes’ worth of good material in this episode, which is about seven minutes more than most episodes have.

Kate volunteers to get a job, which I think is the first time that idea has ever been floated on this show, even though ALF’s decimated their finances a thousand times over and prevented their daughter from going away to college. As soon as she floats the idea of employment, Paul Fusco laughs himself silly. Since the laughter could also kind of make sense coming from ALF, the editors left it in.

I really don’t like it when this show rags on Kate. At all.

It’s not because I’m protective of her character — god knows it’s flimsier than I’d like to believe it is — but because of why they rag on her. Instead of making jokes at the expense of, say, her anal retentiveness, her strict rules, or her seething hatred of everything her life has become, we seem to instead get jokes about the fact that she’s a woman. Which is why she’d better wake up when Willie needs her, and then shut up when Willie’s sick of her. And why “I’ll get a job!” is inherently a joke.

She’ll get a job? No she won’t. She has a vagina. She’ll stay put, just like she’s supposed to.

I’m not a fan of the way women are treated in this show. And I say this as a truly awful man.

Kate explains to ALF that she used to sell real estate. She left when she got pregnant with Lynn, then went back and left again when she got pregnant with Brian. She was going to return again to work, but then they got ALF.

This causes ALF to bring up the idea of adopting him officially. Obviously they can’t do that and the whole conversation is a bit of a waste of time, but I do like that ALF asks at one point, “Doesn’t it bother you that I don’t carry the Tanner name?” And Willie replies without lifting his head from the pillow, “No.”

The adoption idea actually runs throughout the episode, with characters mentioning it at various points, making it feel like a nice touch. Of course, the episode doesn’t do anything with it, but the fact that it serves as the episode’s refrain means that somebody, at least, put some thought into this, and made a creative decision.

There’s an even better moment at the end of the scene, when ALF says he’s worried that if Kate returns to work, nobody will be around to take care of him. Willie says, “ALF, you’re 231 years old. You should be able to take care of yourself by now.”

ALF replies, “You’d think so, wouldn’t you.”

“Changes” is so damn close to being a good episode that it hurts.

ALF, "Changes"

At some later point ALF is watching TV. Brian comes in, and ALF doesn’t even look away from the screen to greet him, which pretty much sums up the kid’s role in the show at this point.

Brian at least justifies his appearance in this scene, though, because he sets up a legitimate laugh. When he sees that ALF is just flipping through the channels rapidly, he asks, “Doesn’t that make you dizzy?”

ALF responds with “Yeah!”

Moments like this, marooned in the mire of what’ll turn out to be a largely forgettable (and at times disgusting) episode, remind me of what the writing staff is capable of. There are so many good things peppered throughout “Changes” that it becomes frustrating that there aren’t more of them…and that other episodes have none of them.

These minor flashes not of greatness but of competence, of understanding, of coherence, are maddening, because they suggest a much higher baseline for the show than we’re actually getting. The writing staff is more concerned with beating rush hour traffic than they are with writing the best script possible. And that’s sad, because when they try, they show they can do it. And if they tried more often, they might get pretty good at it.

ALF, "Changes"

Willie comes home with a picket sign that says ON STRIKE. That’ll teach ’em, Willie!!

He sits down on the couch and immediately settles in to go to sleep. So, just to put this into perspective for you, one day of standing around with a sign has tuckered this guy out more than any given day doing actual social work. That should put into perspective just how good at his job he really is.

ALF asks about the strike, and when Willie starts to explain the concept to him, ALF says, “Let me get comfortable,” and then asks for a bunch of shit, wiggles around, pops his knuckles and his neck…and it just keeps going. It’s fucking awful.

After Willie says whatever the hell he says — I’m not sure I’ve ever made it through two consecutive Max Wright sentences without falling asleep — ALF waxes nostalgic about when Kate used to be around…feeding him, following him around with a johnny mop.

And yes, he actually said that Kate would follow him around with a johnny mop. So my exaggerated jokes about ALF shitting all over the house? Not jokes, apparently. Actually just pretty astute.

Then, when ALF concludes his revelry, he says, “Now she’s dead.”

And, okay, that was actually really funny.

It keeps going, too. Willie says that Kate might want a little more out of life than swabbing alien shit out of her family’s living space, and ALF says, “Why? If it ain’t broke, don’t step on it.”

Willie says, “Fix it,” and ALF says, “Fix what?”

A lousier episode would have stopped there, with the laughter of dead people assuring us that this was much funnier than we’d otherwise think. But then Willie explains, “The expression is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

To which ALF replies, after thinking for a moment, “Why would you?”

I’m…amazed. Two characters sitting in a room having a conversation, and it is actually, for the most part, funny. That’s a serious rarity for this show.

ALF, "Changes"

In the next scene we get an establishing shot of Kate’s workplace, which I assume is called EE Realty Co. Either that or they made sure to film someone else’s sign from an angle that wouldn’t require them to pay anyone. COULD BE EITHER.

Kate has an unconvincing breakdown over how much there is that she needs to learn, because she’s been away so long. It’s kind of lousy, but I do like the way she and her coworker bond over it briefly. It’s true to life. The coworker is just a nondescript woman with long black hair, and I honestly don’t even remember if she’s given a name, but she and Schedeen have a nice chemistry together that suggests a longer history than the writing does.

One problem I have with it, though, is that as soon as we see Kate at work, she’s floundering. It’s exactly like Willie’s first day at his new job in “Movin’ Out.” Why are the Tanners always totally incompetent right off the bat? Why do they keep getting re-hired and promoted? I love Kate, but nothing about her behavior in this episode supports the idea that she’d be hired three times by this agency.

Why can’t we see them doing good work for at least for a moment before they reveal themselves to be dangerously unqualified to leave the house? It might require a little more effort on the part of the writing, but, hey, call me crazy, I think it might still be a good idea. If anything it would give us something like progression of character, rather than an abrupt shift to a new scene that might as well have HERE’S WHAT’S FUCKING HAPPENING NOW stamped across it in subtitle.

Anyway, ALF calls, because this is ALF, and if we aren’t seeing or hearing ALF we might be confused about what show we’re watching.

Which…is a valid concern, actually, come to think of it. We’re three seasons in and he’s still the only recognizable character, so maybe he does need to pop up every thirty seconds to stave off audience confusion.

There’s a less funny (but still not bad) reprise of the conversation with Willie, with ALF mixing up a different idiom, and then it’s over. Which is good, because now that he’s gone we’ll get to see more of Kate in the workplace and…

ALF, "Changes"

Oh.

Uh, nevermind. We’re just going to listen to ALF crack wise in the kitchen, because God forbid this episode end up focusing on something specific and isn’t just a collection of disconnected ALF routines.

It’s a scene of Willie cooking dinner, with all of his ingredients on a table across the room for some unknowable reason. Brian reveals that he doesn’t know what a garlic press looks like, which is where that much beloved running joke began (by season four it’ll be a weekly tradition for Brian to enter a room and say, “Hey! What’s-a the gahr-lic press??” to rapturous applause).

Then there is an admittedly good line when Willie talks about the pasta primavera he’s making, and after he describes the sauce, ALF says, “But I like the sauce Kate opens.”

So, yes, I’m definitely down on most of the Kate-shitting in this show, and on the surface this is no different (seriously, why does nobody on this show appreciate the one person in the universe who Gets Shit Done?), but the turn of phrase in ALF’s reply, which is delivered perfectly, makes this worth it. The fact that it’s an actual joke — as opposed to a reminder that Kate is a member of the inferior gender — no doubt contributes to its success.

Of course, we can’t end the scene there, what with it being a funny line that also ties into the general plot. No, instead ALF has to ask what a certain vegetable is, so that Willie can say, “Radicchio,” and ALF can reply, “The whole idea of you cooking is radicchio!”

It’s a joke that works better when spoken than in print, and it doesn’t really work when spoken either. But, hey, we have the recorded laughter of dead strangers to create the illusion that something funny happened.

Then Lynn comes in, and we get a whole new attempt at defining a character for her: she’s a feminist warrior. Why? Who fuckin’ cares. She’s Jessie Spano now…and only now. She’ll walk off stage shortly and transmogrify into somebody else yet again.

I…god. At this point I have so much to say about Lynn, but the season is still young, and lord knows what I have yet to endure. I’ll save it for the Character Spotlight, because holy buttfuck this character jesus.

She announces that she stayed after school to protest cheerleading practice…which is odd. I thought she was in college now, but this suggests she’s not, and later in the episode ALF specifically mentions that she’s still in high school. So not only can the show not agree on who she is as a person, but it can’t agree on how old she is or what stage of life she’s in. They really, really couldn’t make it any more obvious that they don’t care about this character, could they?

It was some kind of protest, she explains, about women always being spectators or who cares. No offense to feminism, and I’m sure I could find the ghost of a good point in there, but since we’re never going to see this character trait again I’m not getting invested.

It seems as though there might have been the germ of something smart here. Since Willie is on strike, maybe Lynn could have been inspired to launch this poorly-considered protest of her own. One with good intentions, surely, but which falls apart when she gets the ear of the school (or her classmates) and has to reveal that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about; she just did it for the sake of doing it.

It would have been a nice way to inject some personal, human stakes into this story. Willie’s little sabbatical isn’t just affecting his family in terms of their finances, but in terms of their attitudes, and in terms of their approaches to solving problems. He’s Lynn’s father, and whatever he’s doing, for whatever better or worse, she’s learning from him.

Perhaps Willie’s cause isn’t worth fighting for. Or perhaps it is, but he’s failed to demonstrate the difference between a good cause and a poor one to his children. This is a chance, for the first time in a long-ass time, for Willie to stop being a guy who recites lines from a cue card and start being a father.

But instead we just throw salad on Lynn and move on.

ALF, "Changes"

GREAT SHOW DUDES

In the next scene, Kate walks in on ALF masturbating in front of the shrine he built to her.

ALF, "Changes"

Bet you thought I was kidding, huh?

It’s a bunch of pictures he took of her when she wasn’t looking, and together they joke about him getting photos of her wearing lingerie, and, oh! how they laugh.

Why she doesn’t beat SPEWEY to death with a rake here and now is beyond me. Instead she tries to cheer him up by explaining that she likes working, and it’s okay if he feels a little lonely now and then because he’s still part of the family, and Anne Schedeen delivers all of this just fine but holy fuck is it unnerving to have this heartwarming speech unfold while the shrine to ALF’s voyeurism is still in frame.

Then Willie comes in and literally wraps up his entire plot by saying, “Good news! The strike’s over.”

Well, that sure was pointless. Why did the episode have him strike at all? If Kate had already been planning to go to work anyway, then this wasn’t necessary at all. And now it ends without fanfare or explanation. Willie’s happy, I guess, but since I don’t know any of his coworkers, or his clients, or what his working conditions were like, and all I ever see is Willie fucking off on the couch, why should I care?

Was he a freedom fighter or an obstinate pig? Based on what I’ve actually seen in the show, I can’t answer that. And that’s a problem.

In fact, if I weren’t writing a novel about this episode, I probably wouldn’t even remember at this point that there was a strike. Oh well. Willie says, “Good news! C-plot’s over.” And we know that this garbage is at least winding down.

ALF, "Changes"

Then we get the moneyshot. Kate announces she’s pregnant.

And…it’s kind of pretty good! She comes home from work and alludes to the previous two times she had to leave her job. Willie’s not looking at her, focusing instead on doing his taxes, just like when they have sex. This leaves ALF free to silently figure out what Kate’s hinting at, and Paul Fusco — as is almost always the case — does some great puppet work with that.

I can’t stress enough how good a puppeteer Fusco is. As critical as I am of the other facets of his (apparent) personality, I’m genuinely impressed by how much mileage he gets out of his puppet’s largely static features. He’s very, very good at what he does, and with better writers he could have been remembered much more fondly today.

Eventually ALF says, “Willie, you fuckbag, your wife is pregnant for shit’s sake.” Willie stands up and hugs Kate, overcome with joy at the fact that he now has evidence of all three times he’s gotten laid.

They call the kids into the room to announce the good news, and there’s some legitimately good acting from Andrea Elson, who seems genuinely happy and surprised. Being as Anne Schedeen was actually pregnant here, and given how close these two seem to have been in real life, I’m content — and happy — to believe that Elson was channeling what she actually felt when she found out her costar was pregnant. Either way, she’s great here.

It’s nice. It really is. Brian makes it clear that he doesn’t know what sex is any more than he understands the garlic press, but aside from that dud, this is a nice scene, buoyed by the easy mother-daughter chemistry that Schedeen and Elson have.

Right now I’m willing to say that it’s a massive, massive shame these two don’t get more to do together. They’re the only pairing of characters that I believe want anything to do with each other.

ALF, "Changes"

Then we’re back at the office, where Kate and her colleague bond over their experiences with morning sickness. Just like their previous conversation, there’s a kind of effortlessness between the two that suggests a real friendship. Schedeen really doesn’t get the credit she deserves, because freed from the idiots she usually shares the screen with, she reveals herself to be quite good. Man oh man did she deserve a better sitcom…

ALF calls up just to tell her he misses her, which is fine. It’s not bad, but I also don’t give a shit. Then the scene ends and…

…huh.

I thought Kate was going to quit again.

I mean, I’m sure she does, but not in this episode? Maybe she’ll actually work this job for a while. That’d be fine, since she said she’s only one month into the pregnancy, but it also seems like a bit of a departure for ALF to allow such a significant change in what a character does from week to week.

Having said that, I hope she does keep working here. It’ll be nice to see her interacting with someone who at least appears to be from Earth, and it could open up new plotlines as well. I’m curious. And clearly setting myself up for disappointment.

ALF, "Changes"

In the short scene before the credits, Willie attempts to talk to Brian about sex.

If the thought of Max Wright talking to his TV son about how the engorged genital shaft of an aroused man penetrates the meat vacuum of an unfortunate woman isn’t off-putting enough, Brian then says that ALF already told him all about it.

So, yeah, for those of you who enjoy ALF at his most sex offensive, here you go. He provided detailed descriptions of the reproductive process to a little boy when there was nobody else in the house. Yet another great inroad for your creepy Uncle Ticklebeard.

Willie then goes to thank ALF for saving him the trouble (which in itself is an admittedly nice twist, as we’d expect him to maybe yell at the guy who he just found out has been engaging in secret sex talk with his grade-school son), and ALF says that he doesn’t think Brian understood the part about “releasing the pods.”

So, there you have it, folks. We end the entire episode on the hilarious reveal that a preteen doesn’t quite grasp the concept of ejaculation, despite a pedophile’s many enthusiastic attempts to teach it to him.

And on that bombshell…I’M BACK MOTHERFUCKERS