The Rerun Show - I had very high hopes for The Rerun Show, having seen the stage version of The Real Live Brady Bunch that inspired the television series. The stage show was terrific, playing up the quirks of each of the characters. However, the Rerun episode that aired last night definitely did not live up to expectations. One of the main reasons that Brady parody succeed was that it lampooned episodes that we knew by heart. For most of the 80s, The Brady Bunch was repeated every weekday afternoon, and viewers know almost line-by-line what will happen next. I suspect that for children of the 90s, the same would be true of endlessly repeated episodes of Saved By the Bell. The audience's connection with the material serves to make the parody even more ripe. Instead, last night's Rerun featured fairly generic episodes of Diff'rent Strokes and The Partridge Family.

The other cause for complaint was the NBC's promotions department was at it once again. The commercials clearly hyped what will be one of the funniest moments of the show: a large man playing Mrs. Garrett from The Facts of Life. (Paul Vogt seems to nail the voice!). Of course, that segment didn't air. Instead, the unfunny take on The Partridge Family with a guest cameo by Danny Bonaduce did. Even though last night's episode failed to impress me, I still plan to tune in for the Facts of Life episode next week.