jumped the shark in S5

[edplattfan]

I think this show REALLY jumped the shark in S5. First of all, Don and Ann seemed to fight more after the engagement. As if to imply that's what happens to couples about to get married. Their relationship seemed to be built on fights and forgiveness, forgiveness and fights. I know Marlo was against marriage but if she wanted it portrayed in the show I think that was a wrong move. I also think Ann got too into the women's lib movement, especially by not wanting to get married AND the show ending on an ep when she and DOn are going to a lib. meeting. Was it REALLY necessary for Marlo to start invoking personal opinions into her character??? What is wrong with marriage? It doesnt make a woman less independent. My folks married in 1968 and are still together. My dad treated my mom as an equal. She worked and was not a stay at home wife and my mother was a VERY free thinker(but couldn't care less about women's lib). Plus there were inconsistencies. Ann meets DOn's parents for the first time in S5? She met them in S1! The same actress was used in both episodes, but 2 actors portrayed Don's dad. Plus the editing was very bad. A lot of jump shots where characters have their arms raised one minute or are in mid sentence and the next, their arms are by their sides or the sentence is cut off. Don and Ann changed, that's a good thing, but they changed for the worse.

[Marvo301]

Don and Ann shouldn't have gotten engaged until late in the final season like Tony and Angela on Who's The Boss.

[edplattfan]

I agree. Maybe the engagement SHOULD have been the last episode/ In my opinion Who's The Boss and even The Nanny changed when they finally became couples. It's like....I want it to happen but when it does the excitement is over. I feel that way at the end of Christmas Day.

[LittleRickyII]

Originally Posted by edplattfan

I think this show REALLY jumped the shark in S5. First of all, Don and Ann seemed to fight more after the engagement. As if to imply that's what happens to couples about to get married. Their relationship seemed to be built on fights and forgiveness, forgiveness and fights. I know Marlo was against marriage but if she wanted it portrayed in the show I think that was a wrong move. I also think Ann got too into the women's lib movement, especially by not wanting to get married AND the show ending on an ep when she and DOn are going to a lib. meeting. Was it REALLY necessary for Marlo to start invoking personal opinions into her character??? What is wrong with marriage? It doesnt make a woman less independent. My folks married in 1968 and are still together. My dad treated my mom as an equal.

You have to have been around in that time to understand where she (Marlo) was coming from. Your parents were getting married at a time when attitudes were just starting (but barely starting) to change among some males. But for the most part, being an independent and liberated woman was incompatible with marriage because most men at that time had their egos completely defined by traditional roles where the husband ruled the roost. That kind of equality just did not fit within the context of the only kind of marriage those men were familiar with. Many (if not most) marriages where a woman tried to be on equal footing in the relationship dissolved. The changes that were happening for women in society were happening very fast, too fast for most men to keep up. There was no template for the man's place in that sort of a relationship. They felt like they were being completely emasculated and made irrelevant. Equality in marriage may seen like an obvious thing in our eyes today, but back then, with no history behind it, it didn't make sense to a lot of people. Perhaps on Youtube there may be some old talk shows like Donahue where women's equal rights is the topic and it will give you some insight into the conflicts that were very real among married couples at the time. It was a huge adjustment to make for men and many were just not capable of making that adjustment.

I grew up seeing marriages fall apart because the woman demanded her equal rights but her husband just didn't know how to take it. In many instances, at least from what I observed, the man ended up succumbing to alcoholism as he didn't know how to handle his diminished role in the family. What was being conveyed on That Girl was a true sentiment in our society at that time. As a testament to how things have changed since then for both men and women, with respect to women's rights, I think it's very interesting that Marlo Thomas back then was so against marriage, and for the same reasons, so was the biggest feminist activist ever: Gloria Steinem. Yet decades later, both of these women wound up getting married.