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Saturday, August 27, 2011

Episode 1.5: Coach’s Daughter




Airdate: 10/28/82

Coach’s daughter, Lisa, comes to Cheers with a surprise: she’s engaged! When she brings in her fiancé, Roy, everyone agrees – he’s an insufferable jerk. Coach musters up the wherewithal to confront his daughter about the situation, but the homely-looking Lisa confesses that Roy, despite being abrasive and obnoxious, was the only one who ever proposed to her. After Coach tells her how beautiful she is in his eyes, she breaks off the engagement, and he treats her to some Rocky Road ice cream.

Worthy episode highlighted by a supremely dramatic, climactic scene between Coach and Lisa – its writing is delicate and delivery perfectly timed – I don’t think there’s been a dramatic scene yet as heartfelt as this one. Allyce Beasley (later on ABC’s Moonlighting) is perfectly cast as Lisa, and Philip Charles MacKenzie (bearing more than a passing resemblance to Kevin Kline) is sleazy and hateful to make Carla look like Dinah Shore.

Don’t miss the scene after the midpoint commercial break: a janitor who works with mutant viruses at a biology lab stops by Cheers for a beer, and after he leaves, everyone partakes in a ballet of cleaning fluids and wipes, all clocking in at 13 seconds!

Subplot: Diane (not exactly Picasso) Chambers attempts to draw caricatures of the bar patrons.

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