Airdate: 03/18/1987

Directed By: Michael Landon

It’s almost the conclusion of the season, and that can be figured by two features: one, they skipped one week’s episode to start the rerun instead (they began with A Special Love). Also, they decided to place a comedic episode here. Actually, it’s not really a comedy: it deals with a family issue and a love assignment, but it’s also very comical—maybe unintentionally.

Complete show available here.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are assigned to get a man to fall in love with his tenant.

Here, the assignment is the simplest kind of love case: a young, aimless man, Gary, is to be matched with with his tenant—a girl from out of town with a mysterious secret.

It doesn’t sound drastically new for Jonathan and Mark; by now there have been plenty of love assignments, from Love and Marriage to Love at Second Sight (just to mention a couple from season three).

But this time there’s a difference: it turns out the girl is heavily pregnant and has come to Los Angeles to secretly give the baby up for adoption.

You can’t watch this with a straight face.

So the assignment turns into an adoption case, much like A Special Love and others before it.

However, it’s not overtly about adoption this time, because the girl is apparently unsure whether it would be the best choice. Rather, the “adoption” side of the story is helping Gary realize that if he loves her, then he should accept the kid.

So, the assignment isn’t really about helping her make the right decision about keeping the baby; it’s more about getting her to fall in love with a guy, and get the guy to believe in the adoption of the partner’s children.

• Background

The episode supposedly spans a couple of months, considered that the girl is due in two months and the story concludes with her giving birth.

If that were the case, though, there are some things to point out: Jonathan and Mark basically has no role in the assignment—they just get them together the first time and then completely disappear. So, it’s unlikely they’d spend almost two months doing nothing except for a couple of scenes. Instead, it’s more likely this episode takes place concurrently to something else (like A Match Made In Heaven was in season one).

If that were the case, there are multiple plausible shows that could be taking place at the same time: for example, neither in Parents’ Day or A Night To Remember they ever show where they were staying at—the background was unclear on both, except that they take place in 1987 (or still, at some point later on in the season).

Then, in the next two episodes yet to air (including the season’s finale) they never show where they reside. So, considering that the episodes do not air in their chronological order, not even the season’s finale (as explained here), it’s possible that they both take place alongside this.

Anyway, if these episodes were actually the last ones of the season, it means they concluded it on a triple assignment. Or maybe it’s all these assignments together, which means they had five assignments at the same time.

There’s one detail, though: the episode A Father’s Faith is set in February, and Jonathan and Mark said they were on vacation on that one (they were supposed to, at least). So, either this episode begins on early January and spans two month—concluding shortly before A Father’s Faith, which would then be chronologically set later—or this episode is set after that one, and it lasts until April at least.

Anyway, the purpose of this setting is to jab at the costs of living in this city. Landon probably realized that he dismissed this too quickly in that episode, and he expanded on this now.

• Characters

Like many love assignments, Jonathan and Mark seemingly disappear at the beginning and never really come back. Just as they did in season one with A Match Made in Heaven (with Scotty and Diane), they only bring the girl to meet the boy for the first time and then let them do the rest, without ever getting in their way again. But there’s something to point out about Jonathan: when he introduced himself to the pregnant girl struggling to find a place to rent, he tells her that he got a nice place thanks to his friend.

Now, he’s either talking about his superior, or Mark. If he were talking about Mark, it would be weird for two reasons: one, Mark doesn’t live in L.A. (or permanently, at least). Actually, in each episode they rent a different place in Hollywood, but that doesn’t count as living in the same place like Leslie does, for instance. Also, Jonathan supposedly lives with Mark, so he should count himself as L.A. resident too.

Most importantly, it’s unlikely that Mark really found that place (which is Gary’s), because that’s where the assignment is set. It’s more likely that Jonathan told him to rent exactly that building, as he knew he was going to bring the girl there. In that case, Jonathan is lying to her, just as a pretext to get the girl to follow him (although it’s been established by now that Jonathan is allowed to lie sometimes).

Another curious thing about this premise: after this awkward introduction Jonathan and Mark find out that the landlady raised the rent.

Curiously, this subplot of characters arguing over rental prices in L.A. played the same way in A Child Of God in season one, when Jonathan and Mark wanted to rent a room for a month but the landlady charged them for a year.

And they had to make up that they knew her childhood sweetheart in order to get a special treatment.

Instead, now, Jonathan just decides to offer the girl his place, which he had already rented (probably with Mark’s money).

Which makes him sound like a creep.

Sure.

Anyway, the purpose of this setting is to jab at the costs of living in this city. Landon probably realized that he dismissed this too quickly in that episode, and he expanded on this now.

Then, after this awkward introduction, Jonathan and Mark totally disappear from the rest of the episode, leaving the two subjects falling in love.

In particular, Jonathan only reappears briefly when Gary discovers the girl is pregnant and refuses to see her anymore—but that’s just one scene. After that, he is gone for the rest of the episode.

And Mark is absent almost the entire time. He only appears at the beginning, when he carries Gary to the girl’s door and helps them strike up a conversation. Then, he literally disappears for the entire episode except for a 30 seconds scene in which he tells Jonathan that he likes Gary’s mother, and then comes back at the conclusion for that strange comedic bit with her.

It even turns out that he has become good friends with her, although they have never been shown together before.

This scene was likely added simply because Landon realized he had completely abandoned Mark’s character in the episode and inserted something for him—probably filmed the same day as the opening scene.

This was some recurring trope: whenever the writers realize Mark has been underused, they put him on a random comic skit totally unrelated to the rest of the assignment, and probably made just for him. For example, it happened in The Right Thing, when he randomly hits on a jogging girl—after telling Jonathan he hates jogging. In Sail Away, with that boat-repair argument about a storm Jonathan predicts but never seems to come—until it does hit. And in A Night to Remember, when he awkwardly teaches a boy how to dance—and they are seen by everyone else.

Otherwise, he just disappears.

Anyway, this is probably one of the episodes in which Mark contributes the least to the entire assignment in the entire series, and also one of the shows where his character appears the least (it probably ties to The Right Thing and Children’s Children, to date). Also, these episodes in which Mark disappears most often happen by the end of the season. Maybe French did have conflicts with his other commitments like boxing promotion (more about it here). Spring is an intense season for sports.

But then again, Jonathan’s contribution is minimal too, so maybe the episode was meant to go that way from the start. At least it may have given him time for a holiday.

• Production and Setting

The episode was directed by Landon, who also wrote it.

Curiously, the episode towards the end of the season are usually directed by French instead (in season one, The Right Thing; in season two, Children’s Children). But he didn’t now: he retired from directing on December 1986, some months after That’s Our Dad (more about it at the “Production and Setting” entry here).

Anyway, filming began one week after the script was ready.

As for the setting, the fictional “Devonshire” apartment where the assignment takes place is actually the Gramercy Building in Los Angeles, a real location (the building has been destroyed now).

However, unlike what the name implies, that’s in Hollywood, not in the Gramercy Neighborhood, which is East of Inglewood. Even though they do mention that city as Gary’s new workplace.

Glossary:

Car: like in multiple episodes before this, Jonathan is shown driving Mark’s car without asking for Mark’s approval.

What would he do without his reformed alcoholic ex cop best friend?

Friendly Jonathan: there are a couple of big instances of that. Actually, it’s one in every scene Jonathan and Mark appear together. Because it’s just two scenes the entire show.

Anyway, one is at the beginning, in which Jonathan and Mark are waiting for Gary to turn up.

So, Jonathan (who doesn’t have to sleep) had to take his friend out this late just to wait for someone Jonathan doesn’t even know.

And Mark is so enslaved that he followed his friend with no hesitation.

But then, when Gary turns up, Jonathan lets Mark carry him inside. While Jonathan does nothing but give orders.

You could help him, Jonathan.

This already feels wrong, as there’s no real reason for Mark to be there if all they need to do is carry the man inside—Jonathan could easily have done that alone with his otherworldly strength. Perhaps he simply wanted Mark to have at least some contribution to the assignment.

Then, Jonathan orders Mark to leave the boy at the girl’s doorstep.

Of course, Mark is understandably wary about abandoning a drunk boy at the door of a random girl late at night. But as if that weren’t unsettling enough, Jonathan dismisses him without offering any explanation—only defying him.

You mean, the probationary angel.

Now, two things to point out: one, Jonathan just unassumingly dropped an angel revelation, even though it’s not really an official one because the guy is drunk and probably won’t remember it. But second, and most importantly, why is Jonathan so gaunt, as though he himself had never made mistakes on assignments, or as though Mark hadn’t helped him through them?

He’s the probationary angel alright, but he can make mistakes too—being one doesn’t make him any better (and he does make some mistakes along the way).

Also, if he really were “the angel”—and he believes he’s better than Mark just because he’s one—then he could just carry Gary alone, using the Stuff and his otherworldly strength. But he’d rather let his human enslaved friend do the job. Again, the only reasonable explanation is that Jonathan wanted to give Mark something do in the assignment—he is going to disappear after this scene until the conclusion of the episode.

And when Mark is back in the last two minutes, Jonathan shows for a second time what a friend he is: at the conclusion, when Gary asks Jonathan to break the news of his marriage to his mother, Jonathan shirks the responsibility.

You mean, you know the angel for the job.

And then it turns out that man is his enslaved friend.

However, when Mark is actually about to break the news, Jonathan tries to warn him and asks whether he wants his help. As if Jonathan already knew that the woman would go crazy and pretend to commit suicide, as she is accustomed to doing.

But if Jonathan knew—or at least suspected—how she would react, then why telling Gary that he knows “the man for the job”, who later turns out to be Mark. Unless Jonathan was fully aware of what the landlady would have done and deliberately kept it from Mark to to play one of his friendly tricks on him. Or maybe Jonathan meant that he was the man for the job, and Mark just interrupted him to show off how it’s done.

Even in that case, Jonathan would still be a bad friend: shortly before getting into the apartment, Mark tells Jonathan to wait outside.

And when the landlady pulls her head into the oven and Mark panics and cries for Jonathan’s help, he’s not out there anymore.

Cute, Jonathan.

Highway Actor: the episode introduces a new highway actor.

The heavily pregnant girl is played by Lorie Griffin, who will return in season five, near the very end of the series. One curious thing: in the shooting schedule, her name is written next to the title of a 1985 movie she was in. As though people on set knew her from that. While Patrick O’Bryan was just reported as it is.

Recycle: there are two recycles in the episode. One appears at the beginning, in Rose’s time-compression scene at the park.

This time-compressing scene is weird for countless reasons: one is that the baby is due in less than two months, and the girl decides to go around like that as though pregnancy didn’t mean a thing. Another reason is that the guy pulls the curtain while kissing the girl, and not before it. But the most important feature is that the score is a recycle: it is the same one used in the first episode of the season, when Jonathan and Mark were at the training field with the kids.

And it was later recycled in Man To Man (during the amusement park scene at the end).

Then, There’s another recycle as well: when the girl goes to meet the attorney to discuss the adoption, the exterior shot shows a building with an outside elevator sliding to the top.

That’s the Huntley Hotel, and it’s the very same shot used at the beginning of Man to Man, (as Jonathan and Mark were on). However, that time it served as the workplace of Mark’s old friend who later turned out to be ill.

Perhaps Luke actually died (he didn’t by the end of that episode), and the building was later repurposed as the attorney’s office. Curiously, that’s not the fist time in the series they use a building in one show and recycle it as something else in another: the same thing happened in As Difficult As ABC, where they showed the illiterate man looking for a job in a building which in Jonathan Smith Goes To Washington became a hospital.

The “Stuff” powers: Jonathan doesn’t make much use of the Stuff in this episode, except at the conclusion in the hospital, when he gets stuck in an elevator with Gary in order to convince him to see and adopt the baby.

That’s a power unlocked in As Difficult As ABC, in which he similarly used the Stuff to block an elevator with the illiterate man inside and mock him.

The Job: none, at least officially. They are just renting an apartment and making a point on the cost of living in town.

Ratings: 32 million audience. 13th Weekly TV programs, 3rd TV genre show.

In any case, the episode aired in late March 1987 two weeks after the preceding one: the week before this, as it usually happens this time of the year, they started the rerun of the season, beginning with A Special Love and airing both part the same night. When they skip two weeks to begin reruns it’s always a sign the season is drawing to a conclusion. Anyway, it achieved quite high ratings, drawing around 32 million viewers, higher than all the immediate five episodes before it (the last one scoring better was A Night To Remember almost two months ago). This was quite an improvement, but it would also be the last episode of the entire series to reach such result: the popularity of the series (at least measured by the ratings, not the impact) is sadly about to wear down.

Actually, with the exception of the immediately next show, the rest of the series would never again achieve ratings that high—not even close to these last episodes of the season. That may not sound like an optimist perspective for the future of the series, but there will still be a bunch of successful shows. And the series has more than one season left now.