"Wayne on Wheels" [26] and "Mom Wars" [27]

I started watching The Wonder Years again a couple weeks ago and just decided to blog it tonight. In a future post I may go a little more into the why. For now let's jump right into tonight's episodes.

These are not the best installments ever. Far from the worst, but not the best. In fact, I began writing this as "Mom Wars" was concluding. Nevertheless, they do illustrate perfectly what this show is all about -- archetypes and universal experiences. On the one hand, it's sort of almost painful bit of Baby Boomer navel-gazing. Set exactly 20 years before it was produced [1988-923], the backdrop is a Baby Boomer's Great Hits: The Summer of Love! Man Walks on the Moon! Viet Nam! In theory, I hate this kind of mythologizing that the Boomer's so excel at.

But at the same time, it's about coming of age and is genuinely wise a lot of the time. Wayne on Wheels features a non-Winnie girl, but she's just the excuse for the conflict -- Kevin wants to go to the mall, but freshly-minted driver Wayne is now his designated wheelman. What are the brothers to do? Of course they fight and fight until some things happen at the end to make them appreciate each other.

My older brother and I were never as bad as Kevin and Wayne, and despite my mom's deep concerns about our fighting as 7 or 8 year olds, we came to our separate peace and mutual respect about this same time (14 and 17 for us, 13 and 16 for Wayne and Kevin). But for all our respect and even celebration of our differing strengths, that didn't stop us from getting into a physical fight over shotgun when we were both in college. That was just silly.

"Mom Wars" is a bit of a mixed bag. A little disappointing because there's no girl at all, and a girl is virtually always key to the best episodes. On the other hand, there is a woman, Mom, and it gives Alley Mills a better amount than usual to do.

Her Norma Arnold is easily one of the best TV moms ever; and I don't mean Carol Brady-style idealized versions of motherhood or wise-cracking foils a la Home Improvement or Everybody Loves Raymond (which I've never watched all the way through). I always love Dan Lauria and remember fondly his stint on Party of Five as a wrestling coach, but there's no getting around the fact that his Jack Arnold sometimes veers from archetype to stereotype. In contrast, behind Norma's broad archetypal facade there always beats the heart of a flesh and blood woman, as tough and as fragile as any human heart. I never had a crush on her, but I always feel with, and for, her deeply.

As far as the universality goes, wipe away the details of these episodes (cars, American tackle football) and you're left with sibling rivalry and oedipal issues.

The Wonder Years (properly just that time at the beginning of adolescence) are brief and as a rule universal experiences having any degree of profundity can only be explored in just so many ways when dealing with the same characters in the same setting. And that's why the show got weaker after the Jr. High years ended. As Kevin got older, thing became less universal and/or more repetitious.

At least that's how I remember it. Watching the show again over the next month or two we'll see if it was I who grew up too fast for the show back then, or if was the show that outlived its raison d'etre, as so many American television programs do.