S5 Rating So Far: Mediocre

[stevea]

When do we get to a good episode in this season? Here's some descriptions so far:

1. June is worried Wally is thinking of marriage.

2. Beaver thinks he's too old for a babysitter.

3. Wally brings home a junk car. (OK this one's is pretty good--let's see what's next....)

4. Beaver gets in trouble when he spends his birthday money. (Uh...going downhill again)

5. A cat follows Beaver home. (And this one was written by Connelly and Mosher!)

6. Eddie and Lumpy pull a joke on Wally when he gets a job at a drugstore, but Wally has the last laugh. (We made it to a good one!)

[1960'sTVfan]

I think season 5 was the start of the "awkward" stage of the series, Beaver wasn't a little kid anymore so the writers needed to create different ideas other than little kid messes for Beaver to get into. This is a reason why in the later seasons there are more episodes that focus on Wally. I like the entire series, all 6 seasons are good, not every episode is great but the writing remained fairly consistent during the series run.

[stevea]

There are 13 Wally-centered episodes in this season, and around 4 involving both boys. That's almost half the season not centered on Beaver.

One involving both boys is Yardbirds, but it really was in Wally's realm, with his friends hauling junk to the dump, and none of Beaver's friends in the episode.

Some are questionable, like Brother vs. Brother. I counted it as a Beaver episode, but it heavily involves Wally. In this episode a girl supposedly likes Beaver, but she eventually develops a crush on Wally.

[Bonniegirl]

Originally Posted by stevea

When do we get to a good episode in this season? Here's some descriptions so far:

1. June is worried Wally is thinking of marriage.

2. Beaver thinks he's too old for a babysitter.

3. Wally brings home a junk car. (OK this one's is pretty good--let's see what's next....)

4. Beaver gets in trouble when he spends his birthday money. (Uh...going downhill again)

5. A cat follows Beaver home. (And this one was written by Connelly and Mosher!)

6. Eddie and Lumpy pull a joke on Wally when he gets a job at a drugstore, but Wally has the last laugh. (We made it to a good one!)

I just watched Bootsy the cat and Wally working at the soda fountain that METV showed today! Both were really good eps. IMO !!

[Scrabjan1]

I so agree about season 5. June has virtually nothing to do but worry about Wally. When she thought a dish of ice cream would taste good about now she just wants to spy on Wally. Reminds me when she wanted to go to Friends Lake and watch him be a lifeguard. I think Ward suggests they go to the Madison Theatre so June can see this box office bimbo he likes. I love how Wally pours ice cream on the guys. Greatest moment ever.

I thought Substitute Father was really lame and when Beaver composes a letter so he won’t have to bring a parent Wally tosses it in the wastebasket. June never found it. I was waiting for her to say at dinner “Beaver I found a letter you wrote and threw away. So what was the word you said in school that was naughty?” Well I called Arthur a bastard because he tripped me for no reason. Landers heard me say it but never tried to find out why I said it. Can’t you stay out of my wastebasket? Maybe you need to get a life.”

Oh by the way Beaver’s Birthday, No Time For Babysitters and Cat Problem are dreadful. I think Season 5 is worst than 4 and Eddie saves Season 6.

[stevea]

Beaver even tells Miss Landers that Arthur tripped him. She should have picked up on that. But she had her mind fixated on the bad word. When she found out about that she should have involved Mrs. Rayburn, since Arthur looked like a 7th or 8th grader and wouldn't have been Landers' student.

Also Beaver should have spoken up. "Hey, Miss Landers, what about Arthur? None of this would've happened if he hadn't tripped me!"

They really started showcasing Wally/Eddie/Lumpy in season 5. They probably brought in the Scott/Bill Scott character due to Osmond's absence. But we have Eddie Quits School, probably the first episode to really showcase the Eddie character. And several episodes featured goings-on with Lumpy.

Looking at the production numbers on Wikipedia, the lowest one I could Find is "Wally's Weekend Job", followed by "Wally's Car." Those would have been stronger episodes to lead off the season, but ABC begged to differ.

[CosmicCharlie]

Also in Season 5
June's Hair looks stiff & plastic like (high off the forehead)- more Granny than cute

and June is less happy and more critical (if you ask me)

S 1-3 June - I like her
S 5 June - not so much

But the sarcastic lines are more frequent - seems everyone gets in on it -
Plots are lacking but writing is rich in sarcasm

[stevea]

I think that June hairdo was copying Jackie Kennedy, first lady at the time. I think she used it in most or all of season 5, and the first part of season 6.

[TSMIV]

I'm watching season five right now on DVD. The Beaver's Birthday episode bugged me, too. The idea that 12 is too old for presents or a birthday party was stupid! Beaver got $32 for his birthday and only spent around 10. That's pretty good for a 12 year old!

I thought Wally Goes Steady, Wally's Car, and Beaver's Cat Problem were all pretty good, but I don't like June's hair. One thing I noticed while watching tonight is the picture is so bright and sharp on the season 5 DVDs, you can see hand prints on the fridge.

[Scrabjan1]

Imagine June didn’t make sure that kitchen was spic and span. I noticed them too. I really hated June’s hair in Beaver’s Cat Problem when she wears the sparkly dress. It’s way too stiff and formal. I think she’s like a Stepford wife in the babysitter one. Imagine Beaver needing a babysitter for a few hours and allowing 2 young boys to babysit Puddin’ the brat.

They definitely should have started season 5 with Wally’s Weekend Job. Also Ward tells June he’ll talk to Wally after supper about getting rid of the jalopy to let the glow wear off. Then we see Ward in the den and June telling him to get ready as the Algers are having an early dinner. What 2 dinners???

[stevea]

I thought it was funny in that late season 4 episode where Beaver notices June's hair twice, and says it makes her look older. "Beaver the Diplomat."

It's ridiculous to think you can't leave a 12 year old for a few hours. Then again, with the trouble he can cause...

[1960'sTVfan]

Going by production order, the first five episodes of season 5 are:

Wally's Weekend Job
Wally's Car
One Of The Boys
Beaver's First Date
Wally's Big Date

So of the first five episodes, only one focuses on Beaver and the others focus on Wally. The episodes that focus on Wally are more frequent in seasons 4-6, while less frequent in seasons 1-3.

Too bad the episodes aren't placed in production order on the DVD's because I think that's the order in which they should be viewed. As it is, I occasionally have to swap out the discs back and forth if I want to watch by production order.

The episodes look nice on the DVD's, but I think Shout Factory over did it with the "high-definition digital remastering" because there's a reddish/purplish color in the episodes in areas of the video where there is fine detail. I have to turn the color off on my TV set to get rid of the reddish/purplish effect. Also, for season 1, I use the DVD set from Universal because Shout Factory screwed up with the opening teasers on their season 1 set.

[Duster76]

The amazing thing with respect to season 5 is this, episode 1 of season 5 is the 157 episode of the series! to put that into modern perspective, The Big Bang Theory which ran for 12 seasons didn't reach episode 157 until episode 22 of season 7. My point, the quality of Leave It To Beaver relative to the number of episodes the cast and production company were turning out a year was incredible, I think we have to cut them a little slack here.

[1960'sTVfan]

Originally Posted by Duster76

The amazing thing with respect to season 5 is this, episode 1 of season 5 is the 157 episode of the series! to put that into modern perspective, The Big Bang Theory which ran for 12 seasons didn't reach episode 157 until episode 22 of season 7. My point, the quality of Leave It To Beaver relative to the number of episodes the cast and production company were turning out a year was incredible, I think we have to cut them a little slack here.

That's one of the things I like about Leave It To Beaver, each season has 39 episodes. 6 seasons and a total of 234 episodes. And as far as I know, aside from the series finale, none of the episodes are flashback episodes. Compare that to Father Knows Best which also ran for 6 seasons but the total number of episodes is 203. And some of the episodes from seasons 5 and 6 are flashback episodes.

[stevea]

Originally Posted by Duster76

The amazing thing with respect to season 5 is this, episode 1 of season 5 is the 157 episode of the series! to put that into modern perspective, The Big Bang Theory which ran for 12 seasons didn't reach episode 157 until episode 22 of season 7. My point, the quality of Leave It To Beaver relative to the number of episodes the cast and production company were turning out a year was incredible, I think we have to cut them a little slack here.

You have a point. These writers were cranking out a lot of scripts!

Not many shows even back then did 39-40 episodes per season. Such a schedule would take new episodes into the beginning of summer, unheard of today. With today's meager number of episodes (22-24), they don't even have enough to not go into reruns at times during the season.