Episode 112--"competition"

Writer

Joseph Dougherty

Director

Rob Cohen

Air Dates

1/19/88, /9/88, 3/13/90

Guest Stars

Faith Ford as Janine; Richard Masur as Werner Breslow; Danitza Kingsley as Faustine (the haircutter)

Synopsis

A powerful executive takes a liking to Elliot and tries to woo him away, which makes Michael extremely jealous

Michael & Elliot's ideas for Mr. Squeeze

Summary

Werner Breslow hires Michael and Elliot to promote Mr. Squeeze, the drink. Werner and Elliot click right off the bat and Michael is quite clearly out in the cold as they negotiate, interview radio actors, and go about script writing. Michael has a nightmare sequence of Werner offering Elliot a job and another of Elliot ditching him to move on to stardom. Michael finally has a fight with Elliot about Werner asking him to leave, not knowing that the mike is turned on in the recording studio and Werner overhears the whole thing. Later they play a "friendly" game of office basketball and Michael breaks Elliot's finger. In the hospital they make up after Elliot admits that Werner offered him a job, but he turned Werner down. Much analysis is made of why men need to compete so much and their basic drive to dominate.
As a subplot, Nancy and Hope work on setting up Nancy's computer which she got for the kids and Ellyn eventually shows up to trouble shoot, but ends up intimidating them. The closing shot is of Ethan playing the fighter jet simulation, emphasizing the point that humans will subvert tools of education for the purpose of conquest and domination.

Notes

Continuity Goofs

Chris Ryerson notes a few interesting bits about the sibling situation on the show:

"Nancy is talking to Hope about computers and Hope says something like, "Oh, you'll pick it up," and Nancy responds something like, "No, my brothers would, but not me..." This is the only reference I recall to her brothers - I thought Nancy only had sisters, Deb and Sue. Come to think of it, the show is very top heavy with sisters - Nancy's, Melissa's, Hope's, Gary's, Elliot's, Susannah's. Michael is the only one with a brother."

Dream Sequence

Quotes

--"I'm returning your copy of Dr. Zhivago." --Ellyn

--"What did you think?" --Hope

--"Women that cold shouldn't look that good." --Ellyn

--"Janine? Coffee." --Elliot

--"No thanks." --Janine

Analysis

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The dashed line marks the point where Lisa Stevenson Blackwell's original version of this page ended, and where Bob Fahey began adding material.

Scenes edited in Lifetime version. - Luiza Hirsch (Luiza@gmx.org) has both the Lifetime versions and the unedited versions aired in Germany. She describes these cuts:

A short scene after about 7 minutes, after Elliot has convinced Michael to try for the Mr. Squeeze account. Nancy and Hope give up on the computer for the day, Nancy leaves, Hope plays with Janey in front of the computer, "explaining" to her that "this is a computer. It was invented by incredibly pale and pimply boys that mom never wanted to go out with in high school. This is their revenge."

Another short one after about 18 minutes, after Elliot beat Michael at office basketball. Elliot is at home in front of the computer and shows Ethan how to do things with it. Elliot seems very competent. Nancy watches them silently and smiles. In the next scene, Michael is alone in the office. It’s night. He practices a few basketball shots and misses each one.


Return to the Season One index

Return to the Bedford Falls index