Donald tells Ann he is unable to get tickets to a show she wants to see. But he really DOES get the tickets but wants to surprise her. Meanwhile Ann is babysitting. When Donald shows up with the tickets they can't go. If it was me I would get him a piece of my mind, but Ann is nice. Too nice in my opinion. As always Marlo Thomas looks great.
2 Reviews
Babysitting is boring in this one
FlushingCaps4 February 2015
Warning: Spoilers
This aired as the last episode of the season and it's a shame they didn't just have one less episode this year.
Ann's friend, Janie, has a one-year old baby and wishes she and her husband could be alone sometime. Janie says there are two people she could trust with the baby, her aunt "and, maybe Dr. Spock." That might be the only line in this episode that made me laugh even a little.
It's Ann's birthday and Donald has promised tickets for the big Broadway play for that night. At Don's office his pal Murray enters with the tickets, he bought from a scalper for $15 each. Don calls Ann and tells her he couldn't get tickets and says he'll pick her up for supper at 7:30 that night.
Don lied just to surprise Ann. Right here it doesn't make sense. If he really wanted to surprise her with tickets, why tell her all about getting them BEFORE he phoned to say he couldn't? A good surprise would be these prize tickets out of the blue when she never heard him mention that show.
Ann decides she'd like Janie and her husband to join Donald and her for her birthday supper. Janie agrees to leave the kid with her aunt so the four can dine together. But her aunt has the flu. So Ann magnanimously agrees to babysit so she and her husband can have a night out.
On her birthday, Ann should have figured Donald at least has made a reservation at a special restaurant, or has something special in mind. Logically, she might well have been expecting a proposal, since they had been dating for years. To just cancel the dinner date and let him come over to learn then that he would be spending his evening babysitting was rather inconsiderate of Ann.
Furthermore, I don't see how Donald had this planned. He was supposed to take her to supper and then go to the show. Leaving her place at 7:30 to go to a nice restaurant would have meant there was no chance of getting to the theater before 9 p.m. Plays have only one evening performance and to my knowledge, they do not start at 9 p.m. or later. If Don planned on going directly to the theater, O.K., but any normal person would be rather unhappy to plan on eating about 8 o'clock, then suddenly learn that supper would not be served until approximately 10:30—after the show.
Don manages to sell the tickets to Murray, over the phone, but the tightwad who knows how much Don paid for them dickers Don down to accepting just $10 for each one. None of the rest of the show dealt with the play or the tickets. This made it seem like this whole business just got in the way of where they wanted to take this script. It was all about taking care of the baby, particularly when Ann panics and thinks the baby is sick. She pulls out a slender book and claims it has information on every disease known to man. It would have been big enough to have not more than a paragraph on each disease if it really did include everything.
She decides the baby has the mumps, which worries her because she never had them. Now she has to try to remember the name of the baby's doctor. Here again, I throw my flag for "Unbelievable Dialog." This mother of a one-year old who never before trusted her baby with a sitter would NEVER have left the kid without leaving the name and phone number of the doctor, and, the restaurant where she planned to go (which Ann also did not know).
They found the doctor and waited for him to come over. While waiting, Ann read the chapter in that book on psychology and got into a discussion about whether it is ever appropriate to spank a child. She is shocked to learn that Donald thinks there are times when it is acceptable, because she thinks otherwise.
When the doctor came over and (Spoiler alert, if you need it) pronounced the baby perfectly healthy, Ann decided to ask him for his opinion on the misbehaving child question. The doctor quickly responded "I don't care how old he is, that child needs to be spanked." So we see that Ann is in the extreme minority on this point, which may not be the case today. But we don't dwell on this subject, it was just a filler part of the story.
The show is full of these fillers, including a couple too many sweet scenes between the stars. It was well established by this time that they were a loving couple and it was boring to see more scenes showing this. Nothing was advanced—there was no proposal, nothing of the sort even mentioned.
I couldn't even accept that the married couple, on the first night they ever trusted someone to babysit their kid, chose to do nothing more than drive to New Jersey to eat at a restaurant and then come home. Are there not any quality restaurants in Manhattan where they live? Wouldn't they want to go to a movie or dancing or see a sports event or do something other than just eat out? Except for one brief scene in Don's office, the entire episode takes place in Ann's apartment and so little happens beyond the pair talking it is just not possible to rate this episode higher than a 3 on IMDb's scale.
Ann's friend, Janie, has a one-year old baby and wishes she and her husband could be alone sometime. Janie says there are two people she could trust with the baby, her aunt "and, maybe Dr. Spock." That might be the only line in this episode that made me laugh even a little.
It's Ann's birthday and Donald has promised tickets for the big Broadway play for that night. At Don's office his pal Murray enters with the tickets, he bought from a scalper for $15 each. Don calls Ann and tells her he couldn't get tickets and says he'll pick her up for supper at 7:30 that night.
Don lied just to surprise Ann. Right here it doesn't make sense. If he really wanted to surprise her with tickets, why tell her all about getting them BEFORE he phoned to say he couldn't? A good surprise would be these prize tickets out of the blue when she never heard him mention that show.
Ann decides she'd like Janie and her husband to join Donald and her for her birthday supper. Janie agrees to leave the kid with her aunt so the four can dine together. But her aunt has the flu. So Ann magnanimously agrees to babysit so she and her husband can have a night out.
On her birthday, Ann should have figured Donald at least has made a reservation at a special restaurant, or has something special in mind. Logically, she might well have been expecting a proposal, since they had been dating for years. To just cancel the dinner date and let him come over to learn then that he would be spending his evening babysitting was rather inconsiderate of Ann.
Furthermore, I don't see how Donald had this planned. He was supposed to take her to supper and then go to the show. Leaving her place at 7:30 to go to a nice restaurant would have meant there was no chance of getting to the theater before 9 p.m. Plays have only one evening performance and to my knowledge, they do not start at 9 p.m. or later. If Don planned on going directly to the theater, O.K., but any normal person would be rather unhappy to plan on eating about 8 o'clock, then suddenly learn that supper would not be served until approximately 10:30—after the show.
Don manages to sell the tickets to Murray, over the phone, but the tightwad who knows how much Don paid for them dickers Don down to accepting just $10 for each one. None of the rest of the show dealt with the play or the tickets. This made it seem like this whole business just got in the way of where they wanted to take this script. It was all about taking care of the baby, particularly when Ann panics and thinks the baby is sick. She pulls out a slender book and claims it has information on every disease known to man. It would have been big enough to have not more than a paragraph on each disease if it really did include everything.
She decides the baby has the mumps, which worries her because she never had them. Now she has to try to remember the name of the baby's doctor. Here again, I throw my flag for "Unbelievable Dialog." This mother of a one-year old who never before trusted her baby with a sitter would NEVER have left the kid without leaving the name and phone number of the doctor, and, the restaurant where she planned to go (which Ann also did not know).
They found the doctor and waited for him to come over. While waiting, Ann read the chapter in that book on psychology and got into a discussion about whether it is ever appropriate to spank a child. She is shocked to learn that Donald thinks there are times when it is acceptable, because she thinks otherwise.
When the doctor came over and (Spoiler alert, if you need it) pronounced the baby perfectly healthy, Ann decided to ask him for his opinion on the misbehaving child question. The doctor quickly responded "I don't care how old he is, that child needs to be spanked." So we see that Ann is in the extreme minority on this point, which may not be the case today. But we don't dwell on this subject, it was just a filler part of the story.
The show is full of these fillers, including a couple too many sweet scenes between the stars. It was well established by this time that they were a loving couple and it was boring to see more scenes showing this. Nothing was advanced—there was no proposal, nothing of the sort even mentioned.
I couldn't even accept that the married couple, on the first night they ever trusted someone to babysit their kid, chose to do nothing more than drive to New Jersey to eat at a restaurant and then come home. Are there not any quality restaurants in Manhattan where they live? Wouldn't they want to go to a movie or dancing or see a sports event or do something other than just eat out? Except for one brief scene in Don's office, the entire episode takes place in Ann's apartment and so little happens beyond the pair talking it is just not possible to rate this episode higher than a 3 on IMDb's scale.
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