Man oh man, the writers appear to have steered this season back on course in high-flying style.
Opera, bed, fart jokes, street luge, and bodily injury. Malcolm always does well when it comes to the characters being competitive, although it’s usually Hal that gets into situations he can’t handle. And the decision to send Dewey into the retarded kids’ class is providing comedic gold. Dewey is becoming a leader of men, even if they are behaviourally challenged 
I like that Dewey is giving the kids real homework, and showing that just because they’re somewhat disturbed doesn’t mean they’re stupid. I also think it’s great that Stevie is a street luge god.
I love this show.
My favorite gag was the red haired kids signs, especially “SHOCKED BY APPLAUSE”.
I always love it when a show catches me off guard.
For example, Stevie is out of control, he flies off a conveniently located ramp ala Dukes of Hazzard.
The camera cuts to a guy raking his leaves into a huge pile…
And Stevie slams into a tree about 15 feet up.
They got me hook, line, and sinker.
Plus, the fact that they did that to a cripple is something you’d never see in Generic Family Comedy.
-Joe
I didn’t like the episode. The singing really grated on my nerves. I thought the Billboard episode last week was much better.
I loved the announcement of “The Marriage Bed” at the end, with Hal and Lois having no clue about the embarrassing details to be revealed in front of the entire assembly.
I liked this episode. I like how they’re parallelling Dewey and Malcolm. When the show started, Malcolm was the smartest kid in the smart kids’ class. Now Dewey is the smartest kid in the disturbed kids’ class.
I loved seeing Stevie get revenge on Malcolm. I only with he had gotten Reese as well. stevie rocks.
And I too was completely fooled by Stevie crashing into the tree. At first, I thought he was gonna land in manure, then leaves, then BAM!
I really liked this episode. The opera cracked me up, I have to admit.
You know what’s odd? Compare the way Fox has treated this show to how it’s treated Arrested Development. I’d say they’re roughly comparable in quality (though I have to give the edge to AD). But Fox has let Malcolm kind of slide along under the radar, even though as far as I know it’s not getting great ratings. They really don’t promote it much - you don’t hear about it all that often. Yet they’ve given it a good time slot, left it alone, and it’s lasted for quite a while now.
Yet AD comes along, gets a small but loyal following, and then they start simultaneously promoting it and moving it towards cancellation. It’s on a three week hiatus right now - they filled its time slot last night with a crappy Simpsons rerun. Why can’t they just treat it like they did Malcolm and give it some time?
Bah. There’s a point in there somewhere.