Succinct, Slightly Derisive Doogie Howser Episode Summaries: Season 3
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3x1 The Summer of '91
Doogie and Wanda do it.Annoying Gimmick: This is another episode framed with interviews with the psychologist doing a longitudinal study on child prodigies (the final sessions, since Doogie has just turned 18 and is no longer a child). I didn't particularly observe this in the first round of psych interviews, but the thing where we never see the psychologist's face is cheesy and unnecessary.
Credit Where It's Due: The script does a good job of making it seem like once again, Doogie and Wanda's plans to have sex are going to fail in some way, and they'll still both be virgins when Wanda leaves for Chicago and for the rest of the run of this family show, and then pulling a 180 which is welcome for its unexpectedness--but not for its interminable vaseline-lens shots of Doogie and Wanda kissing and groping each other's clothed backs while the room spins around them.
Huh? Some things I don't understand:
- The doctory plot is that a woman about to have brain surgery believes Doogie is her dead husband, and he comes to talk to her, as him, out of compassion, thus blowing off Wanda yet again. But I don't understand why he couldn't have left with Wanda when she came to pick him up. The brain surgery woman had already given her "Whatever happens, I need you to know that I forgave you 30 years ago" speech!
- What exactly was the purpose of opening the episode with a length tribute, including precise recreations of body position and facial expression, to the "Unchained Melody" scene from Ghost? The only thing that matches this scene in ridiculousness is just after it when Doogie's mom says, "Still dreaming your little-boy dreams, huh?" and Doogie looks at the camera and says "Riiiiiight." And raises his eyebrow. I LOVE 1991 Gayest Moment: Vinnie, on the loss of virginity: "This is what friendship is all about. Now, we've done all our major firsts together, and tonight, the mother of all firsts." (He means that they plan to lose their virginity to their girlfriends in separate but simultaneous sexual incidents, but: still.) Most Cringeworthy Moments: OH GOD DOOGIE AND WANDA ARE STILL KISSING. OH GOD THE SLOW LOVING PANS OVER BABY-NPH'S MOIST LIPS. WAAAUGH.
3x2 Doogie Has Left the Building, Part 1
Now 18 and financially independent, Doogie arranges to move into an apartment with Vinnie, despite his parents' baseless objections. At work, Doogie has a radical idea to grow bone marrow using placenta stem cells from a cancer kid's newborn sibling, despite the medical ethics board's baseless objections.Baseless Objections: Although Doogie rightly points out that most kids move out at 18 and, now that he's a legal adult and in control of his own money, he's well-off finanically, Doogie's mother is unhappy letting her son go, and imagines him being seduced by Mrs. Robinson. Meanwhile, Doogie's father daydreams about a judge sentencing him to pay for his son's reckless spending. I thought we just established that that couldn't happen. Meanwhile, the medical ethics board is ridiculously and unfairly charicatured as pure evil, making observations such as "What if we just do nothing? The child deserves to die with dignity" and "What about money? These are not wealthy people."
Non-baseless Objections: After a cute scene where they jump on the couch and tilt on chairs at precarious angles, delighting in the lack of parents, Doogie and Vinnie grow annoyed with each other as roommates, for some good reasons. Doogie is officially covering 80% of the rent and appears to be unofficially buying all the food, leading to resentment on both sides. Plus, they both have annoying habits: Vinnie lets film students use their apartment as a location without warning and is always making out with Janine. Doogie is always flossing. It's charming that this is Doogie's fault--it's so wholesome! It's also pretty gross. Vinnie's not wrong. And I say this as someone who flosses all over the house.
Gayest Moments:
- Vinnie: "I need big burly men!"
- Vinnie: "I guess after all these years, there's still some things we don't know about each other, eh, Doog? Hey, it kinda keeps the romance alive."
- Doogie and Vinnie's abrupt reconciliation, although inspired by the proximity of hot new female neighbors, is pretty charming in its suddenness, speed, and relationshippiness.
DOOGIE: I know we can make this work. Do you want to make this work?
VINNIE: I wanna make this work.
DOOGIE: We just have to be sensitive.
VINNIE: I can be sensitive.
(They slap each other on the face.)
3x3 Doogie Has Left the Building, Part 2
Doogie baselessly decides to move back home.Bad Lesson: I honestly find this episode's lesson objectionable and offensive. Doogie decides to move back home because: (1) Vinnie seems uninterested when he talks about work, whereas his parents listen; (2) "we have too many choices" and "it's too hard to decide when to stop having fun"; (3) he "still needs the security and safety of home." What the hell. SUCK IT UP, DOOGIE. Those are legitimate feelings, maybe, but not legitimate reasons to move back home! People don't do that! People learn, sometimes with difficulty, but they learn, to regulate their own lives and decide when to relax and when to work and how to take care of themselves. It would be one thing if Doogie was still a kid, but at eighteen he is no younger than any other person who moves out of his parents' house. People don't move back home. People suck it up! Even if you like your parents, like spending time with them, "get something from them that you don't get anywhere else", you don't have to live with them. Doogie still lives in the same town. He can go over and talk to them whenever he wants. People don't move back in. People suck it up!
Of course his parents automatically let him come back, and in the final diary scene we see him back in his old room, decorated just as it was before, even though earlier in the episode his parents had completely redecorated and were beginning to enjoy their empty nest. People's parents don't do that. People's parents tell them to suck it up.
It's not even like this is brought on by the nerves or stress or grief of his job, making him grow up too fast so he should treasure her personal adolescence blah blah, because things are going great at work--the cancer kid is getting better, his idea is working, and he knows this when he decides to move back in! As the ending diary points out, Doogie only saved the kid by taking a risk and pushing limits. He can't take SMALL risks and push SMALL limits in his personal life? Suck it the fuck up!
Possibly the most offensive part is that Doogie's idea of "too much fun" was a series of ridiculously wholesome activities including hosting a potluck barbeque the apartment pool, watching football while drinking beer helments filled with Dr. Pepper and Diet Coke, and hosting a "Watching the R.E.M. Concert on MTV" party. The idea that there's anything wrong with relaxing this way on your off-time (of which Doogie seems to have an unrealistic abundance, but still: he has a high-stress job, he can relax however he wants, and these are NOT WRONG THINGS TO DO!) is offensive, and so is the lesson that when things get slightly hectic, you should move back in with your parents. People shouldn't do that, and they don't.
Anyway, now that that's out of the way:
Gayest Apartment Decor:
- The lamp which is strung through a fullsize mannequin wearing sunglasses (campy)
- The curtains, end table, couch and houseplant which totally belie Doogie's parents' obvious discomfort at their son living in a hellhole (Doogie's mother can only take credit for giving them the latter two)
- The giant black and white poster of a sultry, pouty, tight-T-shirted young Marlon Brando
Gayest Moment (Possibly Of The Entire Series, Or Of Any Series): Doogie and Vinnie gently clasp hands on a pool float.
3x4 It's A Damn Shaman
When Doogie has to talk Janine's father into releasing his ban on Vinnie and a religious Laotian family into allowing their child to have surgery, he learns the value of pretending to tolerate others' beliefs.
3x5 The Cheese Stands Alone
Vinnie and Janine don't do it. (Janine confides to Doogie that she was date-raped.)Milestone: Doogie tells Vinnie he slept with Wanda. You know, just to kick him when he's down.
Gayest Moment: Doogie looks at Vinnie's penis. (I am not making this up. Doogie is flossing his teeth in his bathroom while Vinnie takes a shower. Why? Nobody knows.
VINNIE: Whoo! That's cold!
DOOGIE: Vinnie, there is no medical evidence that cold showers lessen sexual desire.
Vinnie gets out of the shower.
DOOGIE (looking down): Although in your case, it certainly seems to have worked.
Is this how boys relate to each other? Seriously.)
3x6 Lonesome Doog
Doogie's excited when Wanda comes to town, but things aren't the same.Annoying Gimmick: The episode is framed with Old West fantasy sequences presenting Wanda, and then her possible boyfriend Ian, as cowboy rivals of Doogie's Clint Eastwood. I actually kind of like how Doogie/Clint just stared and occasionally grunted, but it was still lame.
Credit Where It's Due: This final-seeming farewell to Wanda (or at least to Doogie and Wanda's relationship) played out in a way that felt real. Things were kind of up in the air when she left, like she and Doogie were maybe still together or still planned to be together in the long run, but by the time she comes back after having seen school and made some new friends, she's ready to let him go. Doogie ends up getting hurt because, of course, nothing's different for him. The final scene where she's calm and compassionate and he's sort of raw and angry was painful--in the way they intended it to be painful, not in the usual cringe-worthy way.
I'm also happy to see Wanda go because I've never really liked her. I know, I know, big shocker, Fangirl Dislikes Canonical Girlfriend of Main Male Character, but it's not that I think she gets in the way of Doogie and Vinnie (on the contrary, she seems to support their love). And I like Janine, even though she can't act. Wanda just always seemed vaguely untrustworthy and unpredictable, but I suppose that is because I don't understand her. She is so deeply in touch with her own feelings and the artistic muse and the beauty of the universe and possibly a whole lot of pot.
Gayest Moments:
- Vinnie: "I thought we had an understanding. You have sex, and I get to fantasize about it."
- Vinnie convinces Doogie to follow Wanda's "friend from school", Ian, into the bathroom to "check out the competition."
- Vinnie to Doogie, about Ian: "Personally I find you much more attractive. I mean, he's okay if you like the rugged, masculine, sensitive type."
3x7 When Doogie Comes Marching Home
Doogie and Vinnie one-episode-only screenplay collaboration provides the flimsy excuse for lengthy irritating Civil War sequences.Bad Lesson: Doogie's speedy and efficient yet corner-cutting methods of seeing many patients in a short period of time is presented as universally inferior to his father's practice of sitting down with one patient at a time and Listening, Really Listening--even though (1) Doogie works in the E.R. and his father works in a private practice, and (2) the backdrop for teaching this lesson is a fantasy sequence about an overcrowded Civil War mobile hospital. I like how we see Doogie getting berated for misdiagnosing, but nobody berates the father character for all the soldiers who died while he was talking to that one guy.
3x8 Doogstruck
Doogie's car breaks down in the desert mid-road-trip and, instead of surprising Wanda in Chicago as hastily planned, Doogie finds himself sharing a romantic evening with a serendipitously-present grown-up-prodigy astronomer girl. In extremely heavily paralleled encounter, Vinnie convinces the mechanic, who dabbles in neon sculpture, that he's a true artist.Gayest Moments: A montage of Doogie failing to enjoy bad dates (although I don't understand what was wrong with the girl who wanted to "sing a madrigal or two"), we end with Doogie smiling, "It is just so great to be with somebody I can be myself with. Somebody I don't have to explain everything to. If we don't have anything to say, we can just sit here and not say anything to each other, and that's okay! (sighs) You really understand me." And of course it's Vinnie.
Magical Girl Alert: Astronomer Shannon is just the kind of Perfect Girl that annoys me in fiction, what with all her adorable childlike (yet oh so wise!) flights of fancy and expansive wonder at the beauty of the universe. The girl is actually very pretty in a dark-blond big-eyed freckly granola natural kind of way, but she seems to have gone to the Janine School of Schoolhouse Acting.
Confusing Innuendo: It's obvious when Doogie and Sharon start talking about how magical and wonderful it is that the sun and moon are aligned just for this one night only that they're talking about their own one-night romance. Still, when Doogie finished the we're-not-talking-about-the-moon-anymore-are-we type conversation with, "And the really amazing thing? Is that it will happen again and again," I'm a little appalled. You've done it once, dude, don't be getting her hopes up. (Also, spoiler alert, although the implication that they slept together is strong, Doogie says in 3x9 "Doogiesomething" that they didn't... although he's talking to Wanda so who knows.)
3x9 Room and Broad
After Doogie's parents start charging him rent, Doogie takes advantage of an (actually innocent) apparent booty call to make the point that if his parents want to treat him like an boarder, they'll have to give him his privacy.Parents Are Always Right: Although Doogie makes a good point, the ultimate lesson turns out to be, "Make allowances for family." (Doogie sees the error of his ways in the subplot, which involves Curly begging her father to get a Pacemaker for her sake, when for some unexplained reason he'd rather just die.) I get that sometimes love overrides logic or whatever, but it still doesn't seem quite fair for Doogie's parents pressure him to stay at home instead of moving out (sure, he chose to come back after moving out, but his mom didn't want him to leave in the first place), charge him rent, and impose upon him the same house rules he had as a dependent minor. How long exactly do they want this arrangement to go on? Up until this season, Doogie was either equally or more mature/grown-up/independent than his peers, but now we're seeing this weird arrested development side.
Credit Where It's Due: I love that Doogie never tells his parents the truth--even when his mother gives him the out, "I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent explanation", and even when he agrees to his parents' terms. It shows integrity and faith in logic of his own arguments, and also allows parents watching to maintain a thicker veneer of plausible deniability with their own children. "Okay, so he said what happened is 'none of my business...' Maybe it's part of an elaborate 'Nothing happened but it would be none of your business even if it did!' type argument!"
3x10 Doogiesomething
Doogie, lying in bed with the flu, creates and deals with a whirlwind of exes-becoming-friends passive-aggression on the phone with Wanda (with occasional calls for advice to Vinnie and Janine).Credit Where It's Due: I'm a sucker for this kind of episode structure--nothing happens, just emotional hashing-out, with limited time (it's basically in real time), space (each character is in one location through the whole episode) and characters (except for the implied presence of a girl Doogie is dating [we hear his end of a conversation at the beginning] and brief appearance by the dad, it's just the old basic foursome--and it's nice to have the original team back together.) It's nice that they actually, for once, explain why Doogie has a free night (his fever also gives him some leeway for being a jerk). And I love a good episode about Friendship. So, yeah, I'm inclined to genuinely like this one. Add some legitimately decent comedy and a surprisingly well-written Wanda, and it all adds up to very possibly my favorite episode. (Except the one where the cool guy gave Doogie a makeover. That was awesome.)
Bad Lesson: It's very sweet, but also rather inappropriate, that the happy ending is Doogie and Wanda talking while changing for bed, lying in bed talking quietly, calling each other "best friend", doing the "you hang up first!" routine... I mean, I'm not saying that level of nonsexual affection can't happen with someone you used to date, but to go so quickly from "I hate you!" to that--it seems less like they've genuinely moved on to friendship and more like they're celebrating lapsing back into datinglike interaction and thus allowing each other to take the emotional place of real relationships and ensuring that they will never feel that it "means enough" to go on weekends away or have desert sex with anyone else. But, I mean, it is sweet.
Highlights:
- Doogie makes a classic face when listening to Wanda list random facts she finds sweet about her new boyfriend Stephen ("he's allergic to pine cones, he sings off key", etc.): a sort of "oh, how dreamy!" smile melting into pure disgust.
- Doogie is hilariously obnoxious (and obnoxiously gay) when telling Wanda, "This is the 90s, babe," and telling her how she should take a complete sexual history because she's not just sleeping with him, she's sleeping with everyone he's ever slept with, and everyone etc. etc.
- Wanda gets a surprising awesome and spot-on snipe when Doogie tells her about the events of "Doogstruck": "Shannon drives a pickup truck? How independent and quirky!"
- When Wanda asks Doogie a tough question (a snarky "Did you take a complete sexual history?") Doogie pretends to have a medical call to think, and then comes back on with a deadpan and totally non-credible "That was a tough one. [Medical jargon.] But he's going to make it. Thank God."
3x11 Truth and Consequences
Doogie doesn't tell his New Year's eve date, a medical librarian with a big nose, that he only asked her out after finding out she plans to get rhinoplasty... until a very special ex-con teaches him that a lie is its own kind of prison. (Yeah, I thought it was a stretch, too.)Ethics Watch: Wow, the plastic surgeon is friggin' free with his patients' information.
Credit Where It's Due: I like that we don't find out (in this episode) whether Cecelia is going to have the surgery or not. She arranges it, then cancels it, then says she can't decide. Doogie just says, "Surprise me."
3x12 It's A Wonderful Laugh
Doogie argues with Vinnie about the value of film comedy, until he uses the power of a Sullivan's Travels-style Three Stooges-watching-and-laughing montage to get through to an angry pediatric patient.Milestone: Vinnie reads Doogie's journal. "Hey, I didn't know you kept a journal for so long. Tell me, was the day your parakeet died really 'the blackest day in living memory'?" Nice to see Doogie has always been pretentious, but when did he start being so trite?
Genuinely Amusing Moment: DR. CANFIELD: When I was your age, I had a Three Stooges cereal bowl.
JIMMY (deadpan): Gosh. You must have come from money.
Gayest Moment:
DOOGIE: For the first time, you've got something that matters to you that I don't know about. Friends, a whole new life. I guess I was a little jealous.
VINNIE (melodramatic): Oh, Dr. Howser, I'll always love you!
DOOGIE (laughing): Shut up!
VINNIE: You're my best friend in the world. Have a little faith. I stuck by you the entire time you were at Princeton. You think it was easy being stuck back here while you were in New Jersey, catching toads with other men?
3x13 Dangerous Reunions
Doogie's mom's old band is in town for a reunion show, reigniting old feelings she once had for her ex, Wally aka "Howlin Wolf". Meanwhile, Ray is embarrassed by his new life when his old Bad Kid gang friends come to the hospital to visit a friend who's been shot.Gayest Moments: Everyone loves Howlin Wolf.
- KATHERINE: You should have heard Wally's "Inna Gadda Da Vida."
VINNIE: Ooh! Goosebumps! - DOOGIE (of Howlin Wolf, protesting his father's disinclination to break up the warm reminiscing session downstairs): He's smart, he's cool, he's young, he's rich, he's a vegetarian...
THE DAD: Maybe you should be the one downstairs with him.
Most Cringeworthy Moment: The scene where Ray realizes he doesn't want to be one of the bad kids anymore is overdone and stupid. Why is Ray so appalled at their cavalier attitudes toward shootouts, wounds, and death? Did I miss the very special amnesia episode?
3x14 Mummy Dearest
Vinnie becomes superstitious when the hospital examines a mummy. It's really not worth watching.
3x15 Double Doogie with Cheese
Vinnie calls Doogie a "hothouse flower" and wagers that he (Doogie) wouldn't last one day in his (Vinnie's) "mindless" fast-food job.Credit Where It's Due: I approve of the basic lesson in this--that unskilled jobs are exhausting, even though they may not require Doogie's genius; that being good at something difficult doesn't mean you'll automatically be good at everything that's societally considered easier; and that nobody deserves poor working conditions and on-the-job belittlement. And I like that Doogie's "terminally obnoxious" personality drives every part of the plot: his making the bet in the first place; his overconfidence and the early scenes of him acting like a cheerful, slightly deranged obedient worker; and his eventual snap when he can't stand being treated with anything less than the respect he deserves.
3x16 The Show Mustn't Go On
Doogie is annoyed when an actor researching a doctor role shadows him and hogs his spotlight.Disbelief Overload: Television production is one area TV producers must know something about, so why is it portrayed so ridiculously? Just for consistency's sake? I mean I just don't know how a TV show could possibly run if they're running around doing major plot rewrites on-set at the demand of the lead actor. (Imaginary Steve Bochco: DUDE, I KNOW. *glares at NPH*)
Gayest Moment (Out-of-Context Department):
VINNIE: You liked it last night!
DOOGIE: I was desperate last night.
Gayest Moment (Camp Department): Vinnie sings that song from Beaches.
Gayest Moment (Jim and Blair Department): Doogie and Vinnie get into a slapfight by the elevator, and we see Doogie getting into boxing stance just as the doors close on them.
3x17 If This Is Adulthood, I'd Rather Be in Philadelphia
When Doogie finds out his girlfriend has a son, he characteristically assumes he can totally handle being an instant dad.Random Bit of Continuity: Doogie has apparently been dating Cecelia, the medical librarian from 3x11 Truth and Consequences, for over two months. (Yes, she did get the nose job.)
Global Nitpick: For a show where the premise is that the main character breezed through all education through med school and became a doctor by age 15 (encouraged, presumably, by his parents), this show features an awful lot of "sometimes the most adult decision is deciding to stay a kid" episodes.
Most Cringeworthy Moment: Doogie, tapped to throw a bachelor party for a doctor friend's shotgun wedding, hires a naughty nurse stripper (not the cringeworthy part), who gives him a lap dance (not the cringeworthy part) but then gets a back spasm (not the cringeworthy part--except for her). The doctors administer first aid and send her home, leaving them no choice but to their second choice entertainment: Awkward Halting Emotional Bonding Circle (urrrrrgh).
Gayest Moment: The most scantily clad entertainer Doogie and Vinnie see in their exotic dancer audition montage (music: "Can't Touch This") is a male barbarian.
3x18 What You See Ain't Necessarily What You Get
Doogie and Curly have "a moment" after he helps her overcome her fear of karaoke.Guest Star I've Heard Of: Elena, a student doctor Doogie dislikes for being "arrogant" (he's the one who insists everyone pronounce karaoke "karoki" [NOT CORRECT]), is played by Maggie Wheeler, aka Chandler Bing's bad penny girlfriend Janice.
Gayest Moment (Song Department): DOOGIE (in monotone, frozen with fear): I don't know whether to sing a whole medley or just a single show-stopping number.
Gayest Moment (Dance Department): VINNIE: Her hints are going to be subtle, like a tap on your shoulder... [touches Doogie's shoulder] A glance in your direction... [glances in Doogie's direction] See? It's a discreet dance. [dances] An erotic do-si-do of libidinal nuance. [continues dancing] Mm?
3x19 My Father, My Self
Facing the end of his residency, Doogie convinces his father it would be totally awesome if he joined the Howser practice, just like he always talked about as a kid. Doogie quickly grows frustrated with the pace and scale of the good he can do at a small family practice, but he feels too emotionally indebted to his father to break the dream.Gimmick/Backstory: In a series of flashbacks, we see that Doogie's father was the one who caught his childhood leukemia early, saving his life.
Credit Where It's Due/My Personal Shame: This is the episode that famously made me weep openly, especially the part where Doogie's father gently tells him that children shouldn't have to feel they owe their parents. (I happened to watch when I was feeling guilty for moving away from my family, so I was in an eerily similar place, but: still. It's a touching episode, okay?)
3x20 Educating Janine
Janine has been secretly working in a clothing store instead of going to college; Mrs. Howser earns Janine's mother's wrath when she agrees with Janine that dropping out seems like the right thing for her.Credit Where It's Due: A Janine-centered episode is always a risk, but the episode cleverly places the onus of the acting onto the mothers (granted, Mrs. Stewart is a bit of a charicature). The parent plot is a decently well-constructed web of interpersonal cause and effect. I like episodes that explore unusual combinations and relationships among the ensemble, as parents-and-kid's-friends plots frequently do; and Vinnie carries a cute scene of comforting Janine and teasing Dr. Howser (JANINE: I think we should let Dr. Howser have some privacy. He looks like he's at the end of his rope. VINNIE: Trust me, it's a very long rope.)
Arrogance Watch: I like that Doogie is both unlikeable and irrelevant in this episode (his only contribution comes in the form of piping up every once in awhile about how Janine Needs to Realize the Value of a Good Eduction, for which he has to apologize when Janine manifests a stress disorder). Considering his superfluousness, his journalling at the end is weirdly disconcerting.
3x21 Sons of the Desert
At a spring break resort, Vinnie and Janine break up, and a wheelchair-bound hookup helps Doogie decide to accept a trauma surgery fellowship.Magical Girl Alert: While I like that Karen is a person with a personality who makes zero deal of her disability, she seems a bit too Bright and Spirited, and if I were her I'd be a lot sicker of people like Doogie asking me to Tell My Story.
Credit Where It's Due: It's nice that we never see the amputee Doogie is treating in the hospital reach any kind of gooey self-actualized inner peace.
Gayest Moment (Out of Context Department): Wolfishly dreamy hotshot trauma surgeon Dr. Angeles, to Doogie: "When you've got a little more experience you can hook up with me."
3x22 That's What Friends Are For
Wanda is upset that her father and sister have moved on and love a new mom now; Vinnie wishes he was taller.Questionable Ethics Watch: Wanda's dad's girlfriend, a pediatrician at Eastman, mentions that they met when she began treating Wanda's little sister. I sincerely hope she passed along Maggie's file to another doctor before she started dating the parent of a minor patient.
Superfluous Doogie Watch: Once again, a nice scene between characters who don't interact much--Vinnie and Wanda, who help each other wish farewell to their unrealizable dreams by sending them off on balloons--is somewhat ruined when we find out Doogie was there all along, watching silently. Judging.
Gayest Moment: DOOGIE (holding up an Art Institute T-shirt from Wanda featuring a large white marble ass): It's Michelangelo's David. The butt, anyway.
VINNIE: What's on the front?
(Doogie looks demure)
VINNIE: No!
(Doogie shows him, carefully keeping the shirt faced away from the camera)
VINNIE: YES!
Later, when Doogie shows Wanda he's wearing it under his sweater, she gushes, "I KNEW you'd like it." She surrrre did.
Most Polyamorous Moment: Vinnie says he got the balloon trick from a movie about people whose unrealizable dream was to get married--"for one thing, there were three of them"--and the episode closes with Vinnie and Wanda cozied close on either side of Doogie on a small beach blanket, watching the balloons float away. "When you let go of a dream, it helps to have something else to hold on to..." Doogie writes in his journal: "A friend." CANONICAL THREE-WAY CONSOLATION GROPING.
3x23 Thanks for the Memories
Doogie relearns the value of his journal when it helps Vinnie with his "Who am I?" video assignment and inspires Doogie to interview an older patient who's distressed at losing his memory about his life.Backstory: We see Doogie's first journal entry: "March 21, 1979... This is my new computer. Dad would only buy it if I promised to keep a stupid journal every night. I hate this! What a fruitless exercise!"
Continuity, Schmontinuity: Quickly scrolling through the diary, Vinnie passes by a number of entries from prior episodes. Weirdly, although the text is mostly the same as the prior episodes', the dates are different. (More of this research is from the DH wiki, but the extent of independent verification I've done it seems accurate.)
- From 2x7 Academia Nuts, originally dated November 6, 1990, now dated July 5, 1989
- From 2x9 Nautilus for Naught, originally dated November 17, 1990, now dated June 9, 1989
- From 1x21 Whose Mid-Life Crisis Is It Anyway?, originally dated March 10, 1990, now dated October 27, 1988
- From 2x10 Don't Let the Turkeys Get You Down, originally dated November 22, 1990, now dated November 22, 1987
- From 1x23 And The Winner Is..., originally dated April 14, 1990, now dated March 17, 1986. Text originally "It's a hollow victory that comes at someone else's expense. I wish I'd understood that a week ago." Second sentence is now, "If I'd won, I still would've lost."
- From 2x5 Car Wars, originally dated October 21, 1990, now dated August 28, 1985
- From 2x18 My Two Dads, originally dated February 11, 1991, now dated January 31, 1991