From: jhildebr@nyx.cs.du.edu (Jeff Hildebrand)
Subject: Re: * Starman's non-spoiler review: Class of '96
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Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 07:51:28 GMT

	Well I didn't post the original article, but since I posted favorable
comments about it, I'll reply anyway.

In article <3300066@hpcc01.corp.hp.com> shkelnik@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Leslie Shkolnik) writes:
>
>Where did you go to college? 

	Swarthmore College, a small liberal arts college in the Northeast. It
struck me as a pretty accurate portrayal (although not perfect) of that type 
of school.

>This was NOTHING like my college days!

	So where did you go to college? If it was a different sort of college
than the one portrayed in the series then I'm not surprised in the least that
your experiences were different.

>I thought the show was extremely poorly done, and I have no desire to 
>ever watch it again.  

	Your choice, but if you want to make the comment that it's not
accurate you've got some arguing to do.

>The first day of a new school, and no onw is nervous
>or feels uncomfortable.  

	Well how about the way everyone was acting when they moved in? I saw
a lot of openly uncomfortable people there. After that I saw a lot of people
who are trying very hard not to act nervous. A lot of what was going on
struck me as people covering themselves. It struck me as familiar because I
remember trying to cover in some of the same ways.

	Some of the dialogue jumped a little bit, we didn't see a lot of the
initial stages of people getting to know each other. (There was probably a
few days between when everyone moved in and when classes started.) Just as
well, the talk those days tended to be pretty inane until people started
feeling others out.

>Everyone is instant friends and life is great?

	Well this could be one of my complaints down the line. If the same
group of people they have assembled stay good friends without much change
then that's a real problem and extremely unrealistic. However what I saw
had all the classic signs of the "freshman survival group." Namely a group
of people who generally get along fairly well, but may not become that close
in general (although some people within the group will). Then as time goes
on and people find their niche a little better it splits up some and while
there will still be some interaction between these people, it isn't as much
as it was before. I'm kind of wondering how they'll deal with it in terms of
cast. I'm worried that they won't.

	As for the "life is great" part, we've only really heard that from
a couple people. The other characters stayed in the background for the last
part of the show, and I think we may find that some of them aren't that
happy. But given how much we've seen so far I'm not surprised that we haven't
seen that yet. It should start showing up in the next couple of weeks.

>I don't think so!

	If you don't care about any of the characters, that's fine, but if
you're trying to argue that it's completely unrealistic I've got plenty of
counter-examples from the past four years of my life to argue with.

--
Jeff Hildebrand, The Shaggy TA		       	   hildebra@math.wisc.edu
"The following statement  is an editorial viewpoint  and does not reflect 
the views of WSRN-FM, its employees, or mutant drosophila" - Off the Cuff
"And a tenor I wouldn't give two fives for."       -       City of Angels