In a fit of 80’s nostalgia, I decided to watch the Facts of Life Reunion. It was * horrible! *
I have never seen such poor writing and acting in my life and very little thought was given to plot development.
It was so bad that I had to change the channel half way through.
Did anyone else feel the same?
for myself, i was rather digusted
I watched bits and pieces of the Facts of Life marathon that was running on TV Land all weekend. I came to a conclusion: : “The Facts of Life” was a really, really, bad TV show. Every episode I saw was badly written. Most of the jokes could be seen coming a mile away, and none of them were funny. It was all pure hackwork.
So I came away with a more positive reaction to the reunion special than you guys did. The reunion special was much better than the original series. It wasn’t actually good, mind you, but how could we expect anything good to come from that crappy show?
Seeing an episode of Facts of Life on TVLand before the Facts of Life Reunion gave me enough of a warning to stay away from anything Facts of Life related. It also confirmed my belief that I had horrible taste in TV programming when I was growing up.
I actually did catch the last 10 minutes or so and noticed that there was no Jo. Mrs. Garrett was doing some kind of toast (“Here’s to Mindy. The most oogly -googly. And to Tootie the most margly-fargly”) to each of the girls. As she toasted each one the camera showed them smiling modestly. Then she gets to Jo and it shows a man and girl (father and daughter?). What was that? Did Jo get a sex change?
I thought it was exceedingly predictable. I knew from the minute they introduced them which guy Nat would end up with and that Tootie would get the other (in one way or another)–especially when they showed his interest in the theater and the play. Overall, it was pretty lame, but I didn’t expect much and was only half watching.
There was a line about Jo being in LA, I think. Since I had it on while doing other things, I wasn’t too clear on all plot points (there were plot points?).
BTW, seemed to me from what I did pay attention to that they played fast and loose with some histories (IIRC the old show), like Tootie’s having been in love with her deceased husband since she was 16. Don’t recall that. And weren’t her first acting experiences at summer camp? Stuff like that. I also seem to vaguely recall the episode when Mrs. G’s son visits Eastland, and he was like a carpentar or something???
I was wondering when this thread would be started. I watched the first 30 minutes of it. If I didn’t actually have to be somewhere at 7, I’d have turned it off anyway. It was fetidly horrid to the N[sup]th[/sup] degree. Eventually, I found the TNG marathon on TNN and watched half an episode of that because I just couldn’t stand it any longer.
Just because it’s made by Disney for the family hour doesn’t mean it needs to be dumbed down to the 3rd grade level. Someone needs to be bitch slapped for the writing.
I turned it off after about 20 minutes.
I did like the reference to Jo, however; her husband said she and another officer from her division had to take a suspect to trial, and then Natalie, “I haven’t seen her in a lifetime.”
Nancy McKeon is now on a cop show called “The Division” on Lifetime.
you take some bad,
and take some bad,
and add more bad,
and there you have -
the facts of life
reunion show
I used to love “The Facts of Life” but this show was beyond horrible! I turned it off after they said Jo wouldn’t be on. Besides being my favorite character, she was the only one that could act.
I wanted to check it out, but I didn’t. I wish I had. It would have been like watching a car accident.
Having been a dedicated “Facts Of Life” viewer when I was growing up, I checked out the first few minutes just to see what everyone looked like. But there was no way I was going to sit through the whole thing.
Yeah, the TVLand marathon weekends have been interesting. I have learned the following:
–Diffrent Strokes was better than I remembered. Not a bad show, really.
–The Facts of Life was amazingly, horrendously, horribly, fantastically, heart-wrenchingly bad.
That’s exactly what it WAS like. I was channel flipping and ran across it about 20 minutes into the show, and I couldn’t turn it off!!! There was something oddly compelling about it being just as awful as I expected. I figured Nancy McKeon had the good sense to stay far away from this thing, but when she showed up at the end as a guy, I was floored. I mean, Jo was always kind of butch and all, but that was going too far, IMHO.
After Molly Ringwald quit it never was good again.
But Lisa Whelchel… Lord did I want her in confusing carnal ways (I didn’t understand sexuality much beyond kissing). The fact that she was bitchy just made me want her more. I guess I still carry a torch after all these years. Glad I missed the train wreck. At least Family Ties is still funny.
Am I the only one here that thinks The Facts of Life was (and still is) a good show?
Well, I remember how all the girls said they would never do a reunion movie when the original show ended in 1988. I guess 13 years can do a lot to change your mind.
I was sorta glad they decided to just have fun, and be silly, since taking the show into an overtly dramatic direction would be the kiss of death. I mean, the original premise was that the girls would be reuniting for Jo’s funeral. Too many sitcoms have tried to come back as serious two-hour reunion movies. Bad idea, and at least the Facts of Life tried to just tell a funny story.
Sadly, it could have used a few more rewrites as it wasn’t as great as it could have been. The references to George Clooney were cute, but would it have hurt to have given cute Mackenzie Astin at least a cameo?
I guess i just have a soft spot in my heart for this show. It was never Shakespeare, but it was at least entertaining most of the time. The two-hour movie was too long, but maybe they’ll do another one in a few years that will be better.
PS - I did laugh out loud at Blair being just as Blair as ever, and even Natalie and Dorothy were fun.
Anybody get a gander at the license plate on Blair’s car? BLR WTCH
Bah-ha-hah!!
Dorothy :rolleyes:: “Mrs. Garrett can do anything. Didn’t you ever watch our show?”
I just watched it to check out the hotties!
Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons!
~And I know I wasn’t right, but it felt so good… -Better Than Ezra
It’s pretty strange, trying to watch the same shows as an adult that we enjoyed as children. Like when I caught a few minutes of Silver Spoons once, “I actually liked to watch this crap?”