The Ten Best KATE & ALLIE Episodes of Season Six

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https://jacksonupperco.com/2022/03/0...of-season-six/

Although the fifth season of Kate & Allie found the aging sitcom shedding all the unique facets associated with its identity, this misbegotten sixth (and final) year makes the series’ ongoing loss of self irrevocably lethal, totally destroying the initial structure of the premise so that it’s now virtually impossible for the show to be what it was — not only does Emma disappear entirely while Jennie moves out (and appears far less), thereby disrupting both the family premise and its “modified wrinkle,” Allie takes a husband, moves in to a high-rise apartment, and drags along Kate as a boarder, essentially making the latter a third wheel in her new marriage. Or rather, the husband, Bob (who doesn’t have much personality), is the third wheel in what’s supposed to be the series’ central friendship, for despite crafting for him an out-of-town job (this is similar to what would have happened in the final season of Laverne & Shirley if Cindy Williams had stuck around and the show had visualized a hubby for Shirley), scripts actually keep him a moderately active presence, meaning Allie’s focus gets split between two relationships, and this inevitably dilutes the importance of the titular bond that had heretofore served as the series’ proxy-premise. Accordingly, both the family and core relationship are intentionally undermined if not destroyed in Six, and since these characters have never had their definitions maximized within a storytelling apparatus that has allowed them to push plot in this low-concept world, what’s left is very bad situation comedy, with weekly narratives popping up randomly, and little support from the previously vital elements of the series’ design. Oh, there are some funny ideas, but this new dynamic, where Allie is in a happy place and Kate is left adrift, doesn’t play to the actresses’ strengths, for though the development is sensical — Kate has always been a free spirit and Allie has always been more domestic — the marriage makes it so Jane Curtin plays more settled and grounded, while Susan Saint James is tasked with the bigger, bolder comedy. This might be fascinating, if the series was aware of the reversal and was using it to indicate growth, but it’s not, so this feels like an unplanned change that isn’t aligned with the two stars.



Given all of these criticisms — particularly the unpardonable offense of mitigating both the premise and core relationship — I can understand why this year is written about derisively as a postscript to the rest of the series. This isn’t what we signed up for… and, indeed, beyond the conceptual changes onscreen, there were major changes behind the scenes that get felt too, for Six also bid farewell to its two dominant creative forces: producer and director Bill Persky and his righthand man, Bob Randall. Both had shaped Kate & Allie from the start, and then left after Five, believing (rightly) that they had given the series a natural end. When the show got a surprise renewal, they were replaced by a duo who, coincidentally, had also stepped in during the later years of Persky’s That Girl: Saul Turteltaub & Bernie Orenstein, funny scribes who are less concerned with realism and more focused on amusing stories that meet the genre’s basic requirement. And yet, to their credit, while this show is obviously doomed, their sense of humor and general narrative ethos is not really a threat to Kate & Allie. Part of this is because Anne Flett & Chuck Ranberg (who’d been on staff since Season Three) are still around to grant some stylistic continuity, but also, most importantly, the situation has changed so much that it’s no longer possible to hold this season’s efforts to the baseline standards established earlier. That is, it’s not as directly comparable, which means, whenever this year is more conventional, clichéd, and false, the results aren’t as jarring as they were in, say, Four and Five. This speaks to the larger issue above: in terms of design, Six is almost a different show entirely — not the one we were promised. And without the regulars ever stepping up to the plate and justifying this transition in motivated comic story, it’s, more to the point, bad situation comedy, finally lacking the two elements that made this series interesting to me in the first place: its “modified” family premise and its Dick Van Dyke-like character work, discarded by this year’s developments and the departure of Persky. So, that’s an insurmountable problem for Six, and as I start to say “Kate & Allie is ending with a whimper, not a bang,” I remember that this series’ gradual rejection of its initial shape has informed its whole trajectory. Why mourn now?