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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 340783" data-attributes="member: 23">As Series Four enters its second half, this task has become easier.With very few exceptions, sport is never a favourite theme of mine in series television or on film. The volleyball episode was decent enough, focussing as it did on Caroline's growing discontent that Charlie was treating her differently which left her feeling excluded and unsupported. Since it came down to the series' key relationship it's easy to justify this one's existence.The boxing episode, however, was tedious. One suspects the Who's The Boss? original was simply an opportunity to get Tony Danza's shirt off, which gives it a selling point of kinds. With McGann lacking Danza's winsome qualities, the episode's already thin appeal goes out of the window and what's left is a dull episode which has to employ any number of devices in a futile bid to hold the viewer's attention. It's told in flashback via Charlie's voiceover, which is completely unnecessary. There are also training sequences which seem to homage Rocky. It's all good and well in a two hour film, supported by a stirring Bill Conti score, but in a twenty four minute sitcom, a  two minute dialogue-free montage in which nothing happens feels absolutely endless. The match itself is boring to anyone not interested in boxing (i.e. most of the viewing audience), and probably unconvincing and twee to anyone who is.Who's The Boss? aired these two sporting episodes with a three year gap between them. The Upper Hand's retreads were barely a month apart.Then there are episodes that just plain frustrate and do characters a great disservice to accommodate that week's plot. The house-letting episode is one of these. Caroline and Charlie go into partnership when she buys a nearby cottage to let, which he will help manage. They find a suitable tenant who is keen to pay the asking price and offers the deposit six months' rent in advance. They offer it to him. However a busty slattern wanders in and bats her eyes at Charlie and he instead leases it to her in Caroline's absence, despite her negotiating a much lower rent and then not being able to pay either rent or the deposit.It's a lowbrow kind of plot that might have just about worked in the series' early days, but at this stage it feels cheap. Apart from making it very clear that Charlie lacks any kind of business sense and is thinking with his meat and two veg, it's not a good look for the character that he's also willing to screw over Caroline for thousands of pounds a year on the off-chance he'll be able to get his end away at a point in the series when the romance between Charlie and Caroline is very much on the horizon (I'm struggling to find the equivalent Who's The Boss? episode, so I'm not sure where in Tony and Angela's romantic arc it fell).Adding insult to injury, Charlie's defence is that Caroline is jealous. She is belittled and made to seem petty for being unhappy at Charlie overstepping the mark, breaking an agreement and costing her a great deal of money with his bad business decision. Laura - and, it seems, the writers - are in full agreement with Charlie. Even in the denouement, he utters a half-hearted very general apology while Caroline falls over herself to admit she is jealous and that from now on they are "equal partners". Considering she owns the cottage and she's been screwed over, Charlie comes across as a chancer, playing on her feelings for his own gain. A far cry from the independent man we met in the series early days. This kind of thing might be fine for a U.S. sitcom like Who's The Boss?, but it just didn't translate well for this series where Charlie in particular has generally felt more substantial and reliable than his American counterpart.Incidentally, I struggled to place the very familiar-looking actress playing the busty blonde who took advantage of Charlie's attraction to her. Even the name Tracie Bennett was familiar but not one I could associate with anything. Turns out she was Rita and Len's old foster kid Sharon Gaskell from Corrie.</blockquote>

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