Airdate: 5/3/84
Sam allows
himself to be interviewed for a “Most Eligible Bachelors of Boston” article,
rationalizing it to Diane by claiming he’s drumming up bar publicity. But Diane
isn’t buying it, and so Sam claims he told the interviewer how devoted he is to
his one true love, Diane Chambers, lying through his teeth with every syllable.
Sam confesses to the barflies that he’s nervous Diane will call his bluff by
calling the magazine; she didn’t, but he lays all his cards out in eruptive
honesty, and her rationale response is to strangle him with a telephone cord.
Hoping to patch things up, Sam calls enlists the services of an artist to paint Diane’s portrait. He arrives, in the form of an uber-pretentious Native American-sympathizer named Phillip Semenko, played by Christopher Lloyd, but Sam is so put off by his demeanor he fires him on the spot. Before Phillip leaves, he catches a glimpse of the ethereal beauty of Diane, and crashes to his knees on the spit in basking adulation. Offering to paint her for free, he predicts that this will drive a wedge between her and Sam. He’s right: Sam gives her an ultimatum that if she leaves with Phillip they’re through forever. She does.
Series
co-creators Glen and Les Charles always tend to pen the pivotal Sam/Diane
episodes, and they do a masterful job with this one: a potboiler building up to
the unspeakable but probably inevitable breakup of Cheers’ most volatile
couple. To sooth the edge they’ve written a plum role for Taxi regular Christopher Lloyd; his Phillip Semenko is just as
quirky and offbeat as Jim Ignikowski but with none of the heart and all of the
hilarity. A nice moment with Sam, in which he mulls over the current status of
his relationship with Diane (“…there was a time”) telegraphs the ensuing
heartbreak with knowing melancholy.
Cold open: Coach
asks for volunteers for the 3rd Annual Cheers Picnic, and volunteers
himself for everything when no one steps up. He warns that everyone better be
on time for the meeting of committee chairmen!
Norm’s opener:
Coach: “How you feeling, Norm?” Norm: “Naked, without my beer, Coach.”
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