From: waynebro@juliet.caltech.edu (Broughton, Wayne Jeremy)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.northern-exp
Subject: My reaction to premiere
Date: 1 Oct 1992 00:20 PST
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: juliet.caltech.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <1ad1hlINNdmj@gap.caltech.edu>,
gaylin@bacall.ipac.caltech.edu (Gaylin Laughlin) writes... 
>I loved the opener too, and didn't think it was out of character for 
>Ruth-Anne to smash the tape recorder.  Soon as I saw the hammer in her
>hand, I thought about it myself.  And, she is a sensible gal.

I thought it was another interesting NX character twist: level-headed
Ruth-Ann(e?) shows the limits of her patience in an unusually destructive
manner.  My main complaint about the scene was that the twist was
not sudden enough; I saw it coming as soon as she asked for the tape
recorder, if not sooner, kind of spoiling the effect.

It's remarkable the varying opinions on what exactly Joel said when
pulling down Maggie's pants.  Just goes to show how reliable eye-
witnesses can be!  I mean, we were actually watching the show with
keen interest and still get it mixed up.  I won't pretend to 
remember the wording, but I am sure Joel was telling Maggie that
_she_ should try not to get all aroused.

I haven't seen about half of all the episodes :-( so I don't know if 
the high-school one-nighter date Steve had been mentioned before.  A
number of people have pointed out that his death might have been all
in Maggie's fever-induced imagination, but I wonder if his entire
existence might not be too?  She seemed to be completely ignorant
of the details and even occurrence of the date.  Was Steve a memory
her subconscious dredged up, or just imagination?  And if the 
latter, why was she creating more ghosts for herself?

Overall I liked the Maggie birthday plot line and especially the
ghost sequence.  The Marilyn/driving theme was much less interesting.
In the end Marilyn seemed to just be a prop for Chris' pontificating,
which I am afraid is finally getting to be annoying.....(egads, more
Chris-bashing!)  I was wondering if he was ever going to come back
to Earth and tell poor Marilyn (who had been slighted by Joel and
even lost normally reliable Ruth-Ann's confidence) something useful.
Apparently not.  His description of the engine was disjoint and
incomplete, considering Marilyn was apparently quite ignorant about
it.  

[WARNING: Chris bashing ahead] So while I'm on the subject....
Actually I do like Chris, and his cool, take-it-in-stride, attitude.
As somebody once said, he is like a spectator of the rest of Cicely,
and provides a framework theme for most of the episodes.  But his 
"philosophizing"!!  It seemed to be almost non-stop in the premiere.
My main complaint is that most of it is really not deep, and he seems
to get pretty excited by relatively shallow ideas...
[End of anti-Chris-isms].

I did notice that while he was busy complaining about being stuck in
the backwaters of Alaska, Joel really looked like he had gotten kind of
used to the lifestyle there (I had assumed the canoe was his).  That 
is, until he and Ed started paddling;  that was funny!  In fact I sort 
of got the impression that Ed was trying to correct for Joel's haphazard 
efforts (but I am no canoeist).

And finally I hadn't noticed the music being too loud, though I was
not really impressed with the final Happy Birthday song.  But I _did_
think the traffic outside my window was pretty loud... :-)

**********************************************************************

Wayne J. Broughton                 Take the road less travelled by.  
waynebro@juliet.caltech.edu    
Department of Mathematics,
Caltech, Pasadena, CA  91125

Caltech has no idea what my opinions are;  
they think I'm working right now...