I got to see a handful of 4th Season episodes on AOL, and well...... the show really did seem to die down during that year. It seemed strange seeing Mrs. Kotter working at the school as Mr. Woodman's secretary. Another strange thing was that Mr. Kotter himself was seldomly seen during the 4th Season. Barbarino only was in about half of the episodes that year. And the new additions to the cast were kind of lame. Beau didn't really seem like the sweathog type. Sure he had his bad boy moments, but for the most part. He seemed like a good kid who was mixed in with the wrong crowd, and not so much "one of them" Mary was an allright charachter. She started out early in the season as a depressed, suicidle girl, then somewhere along the line becomes Arnold Horshack's lover. Now from seeing the last handful of episodes of the 4th season and final season, it was obvious that the writers were running out of ideas, and they were trying these new wacky storylines that simply didn't work. Having Arnold and Mary get married was a mistake in my opinion, and I think it's what totally killed the show. They were 2 Seniors in High School, they should have just dated, went steady and enjoyed their relationship as it was. The very last episode was probably the stupidest one in the entire series, where Epstein applies for a job, and Freddie ends up getting the job instead, not knowing it was the same job Epstein applied for. And Epstein and Freddie want to "fight" each other and act very violent towards each other, so they go to the gym and end up bumping into stuff, and hurting themselves before they even get a chance to fight. Then they both lay on the mat laughing their asses off. Kind of a dumb ending to the series. But I guess the show never got a chance to have a real finale. I think it would have been much better if they had just cancelled the show at the end of Season 3, having the final episode be a graduation episode for the sweathogs. JMO The 4th Season totally ruined the show.

I felt that many of the fourth season episodes without Gabe Kaplan and John Travolta weren't very good. Those two made the show a success for the first three seasons. A new writing team also didn't help.

The fact that Arnold had a "lover" was, well, surprising in itself.

itself.[/QUOTE]
if you remember arnold was faced with having to move to atlantic city with his mother, i have to admire him for doing what he had to to keep the woman he loved, 6 stepfather was to many so enough was enough.

I think by the time the fourth season rolled around, the show had pretty much played out. John Travolta was on his way to being a movie star, and since he didn't appear in a lot of the final season shows, I guess a lot of people just didn't tune in. I remember watching the episodes when they were originally broadcast and thinking "this isn't very good anymore."

Taking Kotter and Barbarino out of the show is liking removing Jack and Mr. Furley from Three's Company

Even though it's been about 11 years since I've seen any season 4 episodes, I remember liking it. Of course it didn't compare to the first 3 seasons but I didn't think it was terrible. I hated the Beau character but I thought the rest of the Sweathogs saved the show from being awful and I liked that they gave Mrs. Kotter more to do on the show instead of listening to Mr. Kotter tell lame uncle jokes. :lol: The only episodes I didn't care for were the ones where Horshack developed a drinking problem.