Thus far I've watched a handful of episodes beginning, obviously, with the very first episode. Though I've thought extensively about what this project and have written a dozen pages worth of notes on a yellow legal pad (hey, I'm an English professor, I can't help myself), I have not settled on any concrete way in which to structure my posts. Should I just write exposition? Should I dissect episodes chronologically? Discuss them as a whole. Provide a synopsis of each episode? One post per episode? One post per five?
I have not settled on any answers for these questions. So I will simply begin writing as I sit here notes in hand. And if these posts take on any kind of common structure, so be it.
So the pilot of Cheers is entitled "Give Me a Ring Sometime." A clever title, for its day I'm sure. The cold open gives us Sam Malone hanging out in an empty bar moving boxes and cleaning glasses when in walks in a young kid asking for a beer. Malone, ever the responsible small business owner, asks for ID. The kid produces a fake that says he was born in the 1940's. We're not even a minute in to the experiment and I'm already being smacked in the face with how old this show is. It started September 20, 1982 -- nearly one full year before I was born.
Anyway, the kid talks about seeing action in 'Nam and is refused service. We have our credits and in walks Diane Chambers. Based on the title of the episode and what I know from having seeing many episodes as a child, I realize that his man with her, her professor/fiance (aptly named Sumner) is not going to be around for long. Around for long he is not as Sumner tracks down his ex-wife to retrieve the wedding ring he gave her so he can give it to his new bride-to-be, Diane.
Um, what? This dude is running off with his graduate student (it's established that Diane is a TA at Boston University working for her lit professor) to Barbados to get married and he hasn't given her a ring? Isn't that a red flag, Diane? Also this man is a professor. In Boston. In the 1982. How the eff does he have money to fly to Barbados and no money to go buy a new engagement ring?
(Additionally there's one scene in which an old lady in a wheel chair is a patron. How the hell did she get down the flight of stairs? But I digress...)
Sumner returns sans ring to the bar where Diane and Sam are already establishing their love/hate relationship that drives the first half of the series. He lives again to fetch the ring with Diane this time trying to stop him because the ring is not necessary. It's just a symbol, she states.
"Symbols matter," Sumner replies. This I write in my notes because I feel it may have some meaning later on.
Later on we are introduced to Norm Peterson, professional bar fly, amateur accountant. It's also explained the Sam "Mayday" Malone was a relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox for a few successful years until alcoholism got the better of him. While still a drunk, he bought the bar and now keeps it for "sentimental reasons." See! Symbols do matter...
Along with waitress Carla and Sam's old manager in the minors, Coach, we have a main cast of five characters. Cliff Clavin is here, too, but only as a guest actor.
All in all, I laughed out loud a few more times than I figured I would have. And I'm surprised to learn that I didn't know (understand) that Diane was an English lit TA when I watched this show as a child. I'm looking forward to catching a liteany of references that were over my head back then. But then again, I fear any literature references/jokes made by Diane will come across as the character painting herself as a nerd who can't get communicate with regular people ala the Sheldon character in The Big Bang Theory.
All in all, I enjoyed the episode and after rewriting this post I've decided there is no way in hell I'm writing one post per episode.
No comments:
Post a Comment