11: Addictions Can Be Habit-Forming
January 30, 1988
A young girl named Joey tries a variety of bizarre methods to get her friend Stefanie to go on a diet.
Review ★☆☆☆☆
By David
Both this episode and Lights Out at Whit’s End stand out in the Officer Harley Collection because they are the only ones never to have been remade into new episodes. My guess is the reason Lights Out wasn’t remade is because, despite being a good episode, the writers didn’t want to live through another rendition of the infamous Communicate rap song, which they admit to be an embarrassing piece of early Odyssey history. But as for Addictions Can be Habit-Forming, it probably wasn’t remade because it’s a bad story from beginning to end. It’s the worst episode on the Officer Harley Collection and sounds like it belongs in The Lost Episodes instead. It makes mistakes in two main areas. Firstly, its theme of over-eating is handled badly. Secondly, Officer Harley plagues this episode with totally inappropriate remarks which demonstrate why his character was eventually kicked off the show. A remake would not only have needed to replace Harley with someone less absurd, but it would have needed to rework its entire concept in order to deepen its characters and find a way to get the audience to care about them.
This episode stays as far away from Stefanie as it possibly can. We learn very little about her. We don’t know her last name, her family situation, or much about her past. As a result she fails to be relatable. She’s a generic, minor character in a story which is supposedly all about her and her addiction. But for some reason she’s pushed to the sidelines. Stefanie pretty much gets equal time with train engine number seven. Speaking of that train engine, this episode uses metaphor to its detriment. Metaphor turns out to be another way to distance us from Stefanie and her situation. Joey Donovan calls number seven an old clunker which is nothing but troublesome. But Whit says it’s “like an old friend. You can’t just give up on it.” Then when they try it out the engine gets stuck in a tunnel and causes a collision. It’s supposed to be a dramatic action scene but it’s less than impressive. And what’s worse is that Whit and Joey don’t even know Stefanie and yet they’re attaching to her all the negative elements of train engine number seven. But Stefanie comes off worse than that because she retains none of the train’s positive elements. The irony is that while Whit calls the engine “an old friend,” Stefanie is hardly an old friend to either Whit or Joey. She’s a virtually unknown character who, using the flipside of Whit’s logic, can therefore be given up on.
In a way this episode is a bit like Whit’s Flop. Except the malfunctioning invention is a person this time instead of a photocopier-turned-pizza oven. The show even references Whit’s Flop, having Stefanie order a couple mini pizzas at Whit’s End. But even Whit’s failed invention in that episode gets more of a backstory than Stefanie does in this episode. This story is really all about Joey. They don’t even bother to give Stefanie a very distinct voice and she ends up sounding much too similar to Joey. Incidentally, Bobby has the same problem and sounds too similar to Connie. And why even choose the name Bobby for this obnoxious character? He’s clearly not Bobby Novak, who’s actually a likeable guy. This new Bobby is a one-dimensional bully who insults Stefanie repeatedly about being fat and stuffing her face with food. Calling him by the name Bobby is a little confusing, especially this early on into the series. In this first scene with Stefanie she walks away with her third mini pizza, thanking Connie with her mouth full. Somehow I don’t think anyone would so clueless and not self-aware as to stuff their face like that after just being publically called out for doing that very thing.
Officer Harley was always an odd character. But this episode thrusts upon him a new level of absurdity that goes beyond the fun, unusual style of humor he’s displayed before. His major problem here is that he makes light of an important issue. I’m alright with his simplistic advice in Doing Unto Others when he summarizes the Golden Rule as to “just be nice to people.” But in this episode his advice makes him out to be unthinking and careless. He lays out three diets as solutions to Stefanie’s problem, which get worse and worse as he goes. With the first he totally misunderstands the situation and thinks she wants to gain weight. With the second he tells Joey to pour green food coloring all over Stefanie’s food so it makes her feel sick, which sounds flippant but hits a little too close to the reality that some people do intentionally make themselves throw up to lose weight. And his third diet suggestion involves keeping Stefanie from eating food at all costs. Again, Officer Harley unintentionally lands on another real problem people can have, this one involving them starving themselves to lose weight. That Harley doesn’t take this seriously is a major oversight.
But even worse than Harley’s advice is his performance as a police officer. He’s nothing but clueless and jovial as he attempts to arrest Stefanie. Thankfully Mr. Whittaker arrives and, with an appropriately serious tone, tells Harley to let Stefanie go and to “put that gun away.” Harley responds by saying, “Gun? What gun? This is a cucumber! I came in for lunch.” He chuckles and then says, “What do you think afternoon patrol is all about anyway? And let this be a lesson to all of you, including me.” What is that supposed to mean? Am I supposed to believe Whit mistakes a cucumber for a gun? It seems more plausible that Officer Harley is the delusional one and for some reason thinks his gun is a cucumber. But we’ll never know for sure because this is audio drama. One thing that is clear, however, is that Harley does not leave a good impression. One good part of this episode is when Whit explains that the phrase “Just say no” isn’t enough for people who are already addicted to something. But that moment of sanity doesn’t last long because soon Whit goes out of characters and starts wildly speculating that one of Stefanie’s parents could have a problem with over-eating, drinking or drugs. Perhaps worst of all, this story ends with an easy fix. Stefanie gets counselling and suddenly she’s really happy and already lost seven pounds. And we’re no closer to knowing anything about her or her family situation. This surface-level story amounts to a huge lost opportunity to talk about addiction. It tries to be funny but comes across as disrespectful and makes light of a serious subject. This episode gets 1 out of 5 stars.
By David
Both this episode and Lights Out at Whit’s End stand out in the Officer Harley Collection because they are the only ones never to have been remade into new episodes. My guess is the reason Lights Out wasn’t remade is because, despite being a good episode, the writers didn’t want to live through another rendition of the infamous Communicate rap song, which they admit to be an embarrassing piece of early Odyssey history. But as for Addictions Can be Habit-Forming, it probably wasn’t remade because it’s a bad story from beginning to end. It’s the worst episode on the Officer Harley Collection and sounds like it belongs in The Lost Episodes instead. It makes mistakes in two main areas. Firstly, its theme of over-eating is handled badly. Secondly, Officer Harley plagues this episode with totally inappropriate remarks which demonstrate why his character was eventually kicked off the show. A remake would not only have needed to replace Harley with someone less absurd, but it would have needed to rework its entire concept in order to deepen its characters and find a way to get the audience to care about them.
This episode stays as far away from Stefanie as it possibly can. We learn very little about her. We don’t know her last name, her family situation, or much about her past. As a result she fails to be relatable. She’s a generic, minor character in a story which is supposedly all about her and her addiction. But for some reason she’s pushed to the sidelines. Stefanie pretty much gets equal time with train engine number seven. Speaking of that train engine, this episode uses metaphor to its detriment. Metaphor turns out to be another way to distance us from Stefanie and her situation. Joey Donovan calls number seven an old clunker which is nothing but troublesome. But Whit says it’s “like an old friend. You can’t just give up on it.” Then when they try it out the engine gets stuck in a tunnel and causes a collision. It’s supposed to be a dramatic action scene but it’s less than impressive. And what’s worse is that Whit and Joey don’t even know Stefanie and yet they’re attaching to her all the negative elements of train engine number seven. But Stefanie comes off worse than that because she retains none of the train’s positive elements. The irony is that while Whit calls the engine “an old friend,” Stefanie is hardly an old friend to either Whit or Joey. She’s a virtually unknown character who, using the flipside of Whit’s logic, can therefore be given up on.
In a way this episode is a bit like Whit’s Flop. Except the malfunctioning invention is a person this time instead of a photocopier-turned-pizza oven. The show even references Whit’s Flop, having Stefanie order a couple mini pizzas at Whit’s End. But even Whit’s failed invention in that episode gets more of a backstory than Stefanie does in this episode. This story is really all about Joey. They don’t even bother to give Stefanie a very distinct voice and she ends up sounding much too similar to Joey. Incidentally, Bobby has the same problem and sounds too similar to Connie. And why even choose the name Bobby for this obnoxious character? He’s clearly not Bobby Novak, who’s actually a likeable guy. This new Bobby is a one-dimensional bully who insults Stefanie repeatedly about being fat and stuffing her face with food. Calling him by the name Bobby is a little confusing, especially this early on into the series. In this first scene with Stefanie she walks away with her third mini pizza, thanking Connie with her mouth full. Somehow I don’t think anyone would so clueless and not self-aware as to stuff their face like that after just being publically called out for doing that very thing.
Officer Harley was always an odd character. But this episode thrusts upon him a new level of absurdity that goes beyond the fun, unusual style of humor he’s displayed before. His major problem here is that he makes light of an important issue. I’m alright with his simplistic advice in Doing Unto Others when he summarizes the Golden Rule as to “just be nice to people.” But in this episode his advice makes him out to be unthinking and careless. He lays out three diets as solutions to Stefanie’s problem, which get worse and worse as he goes. With the first he totally misunderstands the situation and thinks she wants to gain weight. With the second he tells Joey to pour green food coloring all over Stefanie’s food so it makes her feel sick, which sounds flippant but hits a little too close to the reality that some people do intentionally make themselves throw up to lose weight. And his third diet suggestion involves keeping Stefanie from eating food at all costs. Again, Officer Harley unintentionally lands on another real problem people can have, this one involving them starving themselves to lose weight. That Harley doesn’t take this seriously is a major oversight.
But even worse than Harley’s advice is his performance as a police officer. He’s nothing but clueless and jovial as he attempts to arrest Stefanie. Thankfully Mr. Whittaker arrives and, with an appropriately serious tone, tells Harley to let Stefanie go and to “put that gun away.” Harley responds by saying, “Gun? What gun? This is a cucumber! I came in for lunch.” He chuckles and then says, “What do you think afternoon patrol is all about anyway? And let this be a lesson to all of you, including me.” What is that supposed to mean? Am I supposed to believe Whit mistakes a cucumber for a gun? It seems more plausible that Officer Harley is the delusional one and for some reason thinks his gun is a cucumber. But we’ll never know for sure because this is audio drama. One thing that is clear, however, is that Harley does not leave a good impression. One good part of this episode is when Whit explains that the phrase “Just say no” isn’t enough for people who are already addicted to something. But that moment of sanity doesn’t last long because soon Whit goes out of characters and starts wildly speculating that one of Stefanie’s parents could have a problem with over-eating, drinking or drugs. Perhaps worst of all, this story ends with an easy fix. Stefanie gets counselling and suddenly she’s really happy and already lost seven pounds. And we’re no closer to knowing anything about her or her family situation. This surface-level story amounts to a huge lost opportunity to talk about addiction. It tries to be funny but comes across as disrespectful and makes light of a serious subject. This episode gets 1 out of 5 stars.
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