Comparison

[Smartboy]

On August 8th, I posted a message about the episodes of the last season that featured Little Earl. I titled this message "Wimp" because I felt that the network wimped out of dealing with a "very" important issue! Very shortly before Little Earl's character was introduced, there was an episode that did a "wonderful" job of dealing with an issue that I felt was equally controversial! I will now compare the two episodes or sets of episodes.

At the end of season two, the school year was coming to a close and Raj and Rerun were about to graduate. Dwain and Rerun were coming to terms with the reality of that fact that the next year with Raj in collage, Rerun working full-time and Dwain attending his senior year in high school, their schedules would not be the same. This was a "very" scary reality for both of them! Fear caused Rerun to fail his history finale on purpose so he could stay on at least one more year. He was scared of a change of scenery. It took the councling of Raj and and Sheirly to help Rerun understand that life is full of changes. They pointed out to him that Dwain would only be at that school for one more year and then he would get on with his life as well. There was "nothing" that Rerun could do to make time stand still! After coming to terms with this reality, Rerun asked for special permission to take the exam again. He got an A! Even though Rerun did have to deal with going to work and interacting with new people there, there was a way that he lucked out in the end. Even though Raj was clearly the most accedemically talented one of the gang, he was not arrogont or a snob. Because he still considered Rerun his best friend, he had the idea of taking an apartment with him. While Rerun worked full-time, Raj worked part-time while attending collage. This way, he had the money to pay his half of the rent. On evenings and weekends there were cases in which they were able to corolate their schedules so that Dwain could come over for supper or to visit. The point is, all three of them had to be brave in terms of dealing with the separation anxioty in order for any of this to happen. By the way, it was already after they had their own apartment that they were befriended to Big and Little Earl. The point that I am trying to make is that, if they were going to hit head-on Rerun's fear of growing up, I cannot see why they did not do the same for a nine-year-old boy's crush on a fourteen-year-old girl!