White Shadow season one, episode 15 Le Grand Finale

I must admit by the end of season one I became disillusioned with the quality of the show. The final epidose was mostly just a throwaway where the season comes to an end and the team forms a doo wop group.
The only serious topic was about Morris dating a white girl with a bad reputation.
At this point I don't intend to watch or blog about season 2. If I am laid up with some illness or injury it could be possible.

White Shadow season one, episode 14 - Little Orphan Abner

Plot - The show opens with Carver making an improbable comeback at the end of the game. Goldstein is a little overzealous after the win and keeps the other Carver players from looking "cool". Reese in particular is cold to Goldstein. As the episode develops we learn more about Goldstein and see a pattern in how he is a loner on the otherwise close-knit team. Goldstein's parents died in a car wreck years before and now he lives with his doting but over-protective grandparents. They are very proud of their Jewish roots and impart their values onto young Abner.
Grandpa falls ill and suddenly Goldstein has the house to himself. Reeves implores his team to help keep him company, but first Hayward and then the rest of the team take advantage of the situation to party with girls. Finally Reeves gives him some tough love and at the end of the episode Goldstein rants at the team and they accept him. Grandma comes home and the team surprises them with dishes to pass.
Observations- The two main themes are social isolation and self-confidence. We watch Abner slowly mature through the episode and come to the realization he must be more assertive in life. His goofy, happy go lucky persona does not play well with the mean streets of urban LA. Reeves gives another stellar performance, this time knowing when to hold back and push the kid forward to face the world alone.

White Shadow season one, episode 13 - Mainstream

Plot - Coach Reeves attends a faculty meeting and implores the teachers to show more school spirit by attending the basketball games. This however was not the key moment of the meeting. Just before Reeves' impassioned plea, Prinicipal Willis told the teachers about the Mainstream program, where disabled/handicapped/special needs students would be assimilated into the Carver student body. Only later does Reeves take an interest after one of the teachers committed an autistic boy named Tom Hendricks to the team despite his repeated refusals. The experiment did not go well as the team was less than supportive and Reeves thin on patience.
Finally Reeves, made a "breakthrough", getting Tom to dribble after badgering him with passes and talk. By the time he realized what he'd done, Tom was tranferred back to the school and then Reeves worked to get him back, culminating in Tom getting into a game at the end of the episode.

Observations - I don't think the episode realized its potential. There could have been more exploring of the Mainstream program at the school and less about Tom and the team. However, this was a basketball-themed show so we did get to see how it might have played out in that arena.
The best part was the end, which was classy. Carver had a dominant performance, and at the end of the final timeout, Coolidge carried Tom onto the court. Then Coolidge passed the ball to Tom and screened off what seemed like the entire other team. Tom finally took a shot but the camera froze just as the ball left his hands, with some type of crowd cheering noise in the background.

White Shadow season one, episode 12 - The Great White Dope

***the author watched this episode a couple of weeks ago, but was not moved to blog about it. After moving on to the next episode, he found inspiration again and is now belatedly writing this.

Plot - This episode centers around Mario "Salami" Petrino. He is one of two "white" players on the team, and plays to the stereotypical archetype of an Italian-American kid. He is extremely stressed out in this episode, and it is because he ardently wants to become a boxer. He takes his lumps in the backrooms of bars for $15 a fight. About midway through the episode we learn that his father was once a little-known boxer from New York, and that they have communication problems.
Coach Reeves of course does his usual job of putting the pieces together, working through the issues with the other characters, and eventually bringing us to a satisfying conclusion. In this case Mario and father are reunited in the corner of the ring, and father is reminding son of all the boxing techniques they reviewed years ago.
Observations - At this point in season one it is painfully clear that Timothy Van Patten, son of Dick, is the least talented actor in the series. His lack of range, facial expressions, and vocal intonations make him the direct forebearer of Keanu Reeves. Coach Reeves is the only one that made this episode bearable, and he was even uncharacteristically morose about inserting himself into Salami's woes. We were due for a Salami-centered episode at one point, and this was it.
One mildly interesting aspect to this was the club-fighting scene that was around these times in Los Angeles. The club he fought at was on Western Avenue, a long, well-known street in the city.
Some special cameos - Former welterweight boxing champ Carlos Palomino had a small role with some dialogue. Coach Reeves listened to a faux radio interview between Chick Hearn and Artis Gilmore where Gilmoer 'disses' Kennie Reeves.

White Shadow season one, episode eleven - Spare the Rod

Plot - Coach Reeves is volunteered by the principal to be the substitute gym teacher. Lucious Robinson, a menacing ne'er do well is a student in the class who refuses to participate. Reeves cajoles him into standing up at which point he lashes out at Reeves. Reeves catches him and sends him off, and then receives a cheap shot punch in the face from Lucious. Reeves quickly retaliates with a sharp right to the mouth and we are on our way to a compelling episode about corporal punishment.
There are different camps around the school. The team is unhappy about it and question Reeves' intentions. Reeves is mad at himself and really broken up about the incident as he opposes getting physical. The adminstration supports Reeves and moves to expel Robinson. The faculty treat Reeves as a hero. Reeves was willing to "spare the rod" until Robinson makes a very unwanted advance on Ms. Buchanan and loses all hope.
Observations - A welcome return to a quality episode after the last two turkeys. The director did excellent with some different camera angles. The lack of music augmented the tension rather than detracting from it. Solid acting all around from the cast.
At one point Reeves visited the Robinson house expecting to see a rat-infested house with an abusive drunk father. The parents were humble and admittedly had struggled with raising Lucious. In the small but well-kept house there pictures of JFK and MLK on the wall. I've seen this before on TV and movies from that era. It used to be ordinary for people to put a picture of the president or other figure on the wall. Today it would appear odd to see a picture of a national figure such Dubya, Obama, or the Grizzly Mama and would seem to cause serious tension with half of the people that see it. Such is the divisive country we live in.

Turn the page

Is a half-hearted attempt better than none at all???
For some odd reason I prefer the concept of finishing a book more than the act itself. Tonight at the library I resisted the temptation to check out a book since I have some I'm currently reading but haven't finished yet. I estimate I finish about a fifth of the books I start.
This has even reached to my two sons to whom I was reading Treasure Island and an abridged version of The Jungle Book. Needless to say we're not reading them anymore.
Here are some books I'm working on that hopefully will make it to a review on this blog:
The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam - Covers history of decisions leading to and keeping US in the Vietnam War.
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle- New Age book was recommended to me to ease occasional insomnia.
The Rhythm of Life by Matthew Kelly - recommended to me by a co-worker. Pretty good but like most self-help books they are hard to finish as their is no storyline.
The Everything Chess book - The only thing harder than playing chess is reading about it. I just need someone to sit down and teach me how to play better.
These are just the bedside books. There are more scattered around the house.
Two that come to mind quickly are Sense and Sensibility and The Great Train Robbery.

I have mixed feelings about this. First of all no one cares, much less me. But there is some small voice telling me I should plow ahead and by doing that I will come across something valuable. Finally, to paraphrase a airline magazine article, "if there were so many good books, then why are you sitting here reading this blog?"

White Shadow season one, episode nine - We're in the Money

Plot - The Carver team is invited to play in an invitational tournament in Las Vegas.
Coach Reeves acts as the coach and chaperone. The players hatch an idea to win money gambling and are able to raise $420 from the student body. Eventually they sneak out of the hotel,find a minor-league casino, and eventually lose most of the money. Reeves does not explode as expected but seems resigned to this type of behavior. They lose both of the tournament games. Near the end, Goldstein finds a wallet with $6000. Reeves forces them to return it and the collect a finders fee.
Observations - This episode was poor but relatively better than Airball. For the second straight episode there was no basketball action. The casino scenes were fairly well-done and shows that Vegas hasn't really changed, just evolved. I can't explain why the producers felt these two episodes were necessary. Perhaps they felt that we'd had too many serious topics and needed a break.

White Shadow, season one, episode nine - Airball

Plot - The team is invited to play in a tournament in San Jose and the episode consists of the preparation for the flight and the flight itself. This creates a great deal of excitement with the players because none of them had flown before. There are problems with the landing gear and the flight is forced to return back to LA because "there aren't enough rooms in the hospital" in San Jose.
Observations - It's taken me a week to write this because I was so disappointed with this episode. It seemed like the producers were given a bigger budget and the writers were told just to make something up. This showed in the vacuous plot and dialogue. Without going into too much detail, there are four items to share. First, Coach Reeves told the team to be ready to leave from Carver to LAX by 8am for a 9:20 am flight. Simply impossible. Second, air travel seemed to be slightly tamer at the time and more of a novelty for everyone involved. Nowadays it seems most fliers and flight crews are weary and stressed out. Third, the plot itself was something of a ripoff of the disaster movie genre of the 70s. By the time the public had seen Airport, Airport 1975, Airport '77, and would soon endure The Concorde...Airport '79. Luckily this episode was only 45 minutes long rather than a full-length movie. Finally, if I had to pick a best actor for this episode, it would be Erik Kilpatrick, who portrays Curtis Jackson.