April 11, 2018
Writers: Howard Hesseman and Steven Kampmann
Director: Frank Bonner
Original Air Date: April 5, 1981
I think this episode and the previous episode "Nothing to Fear But..." should be watched together as a double feature. Not because the topics are similar at all, but because the tones of the episodes are so different. Together these episodes show the range of moods and feelings "WKRP in Cincinnati" were prepared to cover. This was a show that trusted its audience to move not just between characters and stories, but between mood and approach.
Last week's episode was co-written by Tim Reid and exists to illustrate a particular social topic. This week's episode was co-written by Howard Hesseman and it really shows. The episode is almost entirely a acting clinic from Hesseman, with very little left for the rest of the cast to do. This is in fact Hesseman's sole writing credit on IMDB.com
The set-up is very simple: Johnny's first ex-wife, the mother of the daughter we met in season 2, is getting remarried, which means Johnny will no longer have to pay her alimony, so he is ecstatic! He's even planning a vacation with the money he's going to save. He says he doesn't care who she marries "Mr. and Mrs. Hitler? Fine by me!" but when he actually comes face-to-face with both her and her future husband, old feeling are stirred up.
Hesseman is taing Johnny out on an emotional limb with this story, so he put a lot of safety nets around himself. Frank Bonner, who directed the "Doctor's Daughter" episode is back directing here. And do you recognize guy playing Buddy Graves? That's Del Murdock, the very fast talking owner of Del's Stereo Shop from the first season episode "The Hold Up," performed by Hamilton Camp. Camp was a long-time friend of Hesseman's from their days in the improv group The Committee. Loni Anderson is used as Johnny's pretend girlfriend for the double-date, which in her uncomfortableness is very funny. But how much more interesting would it have been to bring Bailey, the woman he wants to take to Jamaica?
This episode is also very quiet. The joke with the couples ordering champagne at Johnny's favourite restaurant (which is really only open in the middle of the night) and actually being served gauspachu soup by a nice lady who doesn't speak English, just comes off as depressing, not funny.
The whole experience makes me think that Howard Hesseman's personal sense of humour may have been more in vogue in today's television climate, rather than in 1981. Finding the comedy in this awkward personal distress is more in like with shows like "Louie" or ""You're the Worst" than WKRP or other MTM shows.
As a final decision from me, I don't think this episode has the same emotional pay-off for the original "Doctor's Daughter" episode. In that one, we had the sense that Johnny had been kept form his daughter through circumstances and that this was a chance for them to finally come together. He always loved her. In "Till Debt..." Johnny resents paying wife alimony. He's talked about it for year as being the thing that has kept him trapped in the lifestyle he finds himself. The first half of the episode echoes this. Heck, even the title of the episode echoes this.
So for him to finally thank her for raising their daughter, and admitting he still has some attraction to her, no matter how well Hesseman performs it, it doesn't ring true.
What does ring true, and what finally ends the episode on a joyous note, is Les' excitement at the dream of traveling to Nebraska! This may answer the question of how the travel agency industry has almost died, but radio continues to live on.
Roy
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