Was Sam's character better when she was a tomboy from Brooklyn

[TMC]

I don't know exactly when she changed into a typical boy crazy sitcom teenage girl. It may have been around the time that her girl clique (Marci, Bonnie, Julia, and Robin) were introduced and Sam became fixated with Chad McCann. I've read the comparisons between her and Jo from The Facts of Life. Basically, the writers simply couldn't keep Sam a spunky tomboy too long because unlike on The Facts of Life and Jo's clashes with the rich princess types like Blair at school, Sam didn't have that type of luxury on Who's the Boss?

The show was first and foremost, about her dad being placed in such a submissive position to a powerful woman. In other words, there wasn't a specific school setting to regularly contrast Sam against. Consequently, there was nowhere for them to go in terms of keeping her as a standard tomboy.

And in order to keep her school story lines from becoming the focus of the whole show (always showing how her ways conflicted with the upper-middle-class students ala The Facts of Life) which it wasn't supposed to be, she had to bring home giggly typical-teen types (the aforementioned girl clique) to blend with.

Plus, perhaps the producers didn't expect Alyssa Milano to become such a huge teen draw, so it wasn't like they deliberately kept Sam's character shallow and less complex than maybe she shouldn't have been.

['80sSitcoms]

I think it was a pretty natural progression for the character and her situation.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by '80sSitcoms

I think it was a pretty natural progression for the character and her situation.

I for one thing, noticed that at the start of the second season, it appeared that Alyssa Milano was trying to I suppose, look more affluent. Like, she's sporting a short flip hairstyle like the one the one that she sports in the film Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger. And Sam starts dressing more like a materialistic, '80s teenager. Take for instance Sam's wardrobe in the episode were she lies to her new friends about the fact that her dad works as a housekeeper.