Here's a classy way to start today's episode: Tim caused a crossbow to misfire, hitting a guy in the back with an arrow, and it's visibly bleeding. How tasteful. But anyway, Tim and Al are doing a Fool Time salute to all things man. They've even got the authors of The Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness to come on as guest stars. The brothers flirt with Heidi, then they decide to make chili. What's a more manlier dish than that? They get to making their specialty: 3-alarm colon cleaner. However, sneaky Heidi decided to up the ante to 8-alarm, both to weed out the men from the boys AND probably to get back at Tim for making her dress like Wilma Flintstone. So, Tim, Al and the guests nearly burn their mouths off. It's quite satisfying. At home, Brad's practicing physical therapy for soccer, and Tim helps...by way of acting like a foot weight. Then Jill comes home, worried about having to defend her thesis paper to her professor, Dr. Hanover. So while she stews about this, here comes Mark with a camcorder pointed at her. He's filming a makeshift documentary about his family for film class, and as an extra incentive, the family gets to come watch it with him and the rest of the class on Friday night. That classroom proved to be a small world, for Jill happened to see Dr. Hanover there. He's a middle-aged, no-nonsense scholarly man with a bad comb-over, who resembles what would happen if Richard Dreyfuss and Malcolm McDowell had a baby. Turns out he's the stepfather of Mark's new friend Gregory, however, Jill didn't realize that and proceeded to start out on the wrong foot with her professor by unintentionally dissing his stepson. Awkward. I'm still wondering why any professor in his right mind would think this idiot would make a good psychologist.
On to the videos. First up is Gregory, detailing his monotonous family life that includes a very controlling stepfather. Finally, it's on to Mark's little expose' on his family, in the form of candid camera shots of them doing random things. Such as Brad scratching his back with a fork, and then putting it back. He seems to do something disgusting with a spoon too, but we're spared that scene. And the piece de resistance: Jill badmouthing Dr. Hanover! She just lets loose every minute detail about the man she despises, including his comb-over. Jill hangs her head in shame until the video ends, and then she finds Hanover gone. Perhaps he didn't see the whole video? So the next day, a nervous Jill goes down to the college to defend her paper in front of other professors...including Dr. Hanover, having 86'd his comb-over. As expected, Jill stumbles with her words, trying very hard not to say anything about Hanover's new look, but unfortunately, "Dr. Combover" slipped out anyway. So the meeting goes pear-shaped, as expected, and Jill goes home to pout about it, sure that her professor hated the paper. She takes to rewriting her paper, but that proved counterproductive. Even Wilson thought it sucked. He encourages her not to sell-out her integrity and stick to the original. Thankfully her next meeting with Dr. Hanover goes much better. They clear the air, namely that Hanover saw Mark's video, but that had nothing to do with his criticisms of Jill's work. He was merely challenging her, so she would defend it. It also turns out the doctor has a sense of humor. Well, he'd have to in order to tolerate a student like Jill.
One thing I don't understand: knowing that his friend's stepfather is his mother's psychology professor, WHY did Mark decide to stick that scene into his video? Does that kid even have a brain?! Or was that just an element of lazy storytelling? I think it's the latter. Seriously, this was a poorly written episode, thanks to Kim Flagg, and notably the only episode of the series directed by Tim Allen. I think he did a good job, considering the meager material he had to work with. Now, aside from the bad writing, this episode does have a few funny jokes, AND we meet two interesting new characters: Dr. Hanover and Gregory, and I only wish we could've seen more of them. Gregory is a much better friend for Mark than Ronnie and I would've liked to see the kinds of misadventures they'd get into. So if you like Jill and you like instances where her big mouth gets her in trouble, then I'd recommend this episode. Again, it's not funny and it lags in some areas, but it isn't terrible.
On to the videos. First up is Gregory, detailing his monotonous family life that includes a very controlling stepfather. Finally, it's on to Mark's little expose' on his family, in the form of candid camera shots of them doing random things. Such as Brad scratching his back with a fork, and then putting it back. He seems to do something disgusting with a spoon too, but we're spared that scene. And the piece de resistance: Jill badmouthing Dr. Hanover! She just lets loose every minute detail about the man she despises, including his comb-over. Jill hangs her head in shame until the video ends, and then she finds Hanover gone. Perhaps he didn't see the whole video? So the next day, a nervous Jill goes down to the college to defend her paper in front of other professors...including Dr. Hanover, having 86'd his comb-over. As expected, Jill stumbles with her words, trying very hard not to say anything about Hanover's new look, but unfortunately, "Dr. Combover" slipped out anyway. So the meeting goes pear-shaped, as expected, and Jill goes home to pout about it, sure that her professor hated the paper. She takes to rewriting her paper, but that proved counterproductive. Even Wilson thought it sucked. He encourages her not to sell-out her integrity and stick to the original. Thankfully her next meeting with Dr. Hanover goes much better. They clear the air, namely that Hanover saw Mark's video, but that had nothing to do with his criticisms of Jill's work. He was merely challenging her, so she would defend it. It also turns out the doctor has a sense of humor. Well, he'd have to in order to tolerate a student like Jill.
One thing I don't understand: knowing that his friend's stepfather is his mother's psychology professor, WHY did Mark decide to stick that scene into his video? Does that kid even have a brain?! Or was that just an element of lazy storytelling? I think it's the latter. Seriously, this was a poorly written episode, thanks to Kim Flagg, and notably the only episode of the series directed by Tim Allen. I think he did a good job, considering the meager material he had to work with. Now, aside from the bad writing, this episode does have a few funny jokes, AND we meet two interesting new characters: Dr. Hanover and Gregory, and I only wish we could've seen more of them. Gregory is a much better friend for Mark than Ronnie and I would've liked to see the kinds of misadventures they'd get into. So if you like Jill and you like instances where her big mouth gets her in trouble, then I'd recommend this episode. Again, it's not funny and it lags in some areas, but it isn't terrible.
