We finally see how racist and narrow minded the bulk of the white residents actually are in this landmark episode of Picket Fences. Even our noble protagonists and their kids are shown to be far less than perfect, which is actually kind of a nice change of pace. Normally the white middle class suburban families in 90's TV are shown to be perfect or almost perfect and never bigoted or angry. Here we see their fears and prejudices on full display and its nice to know they could possibly be real people instead of caricatures.
Same goes for the rest of the townsfolk, who were frequently portrayed as imperfect but never monstrous. The episode deals with the controversial topic of forced bussing for public school students. It shows the fears and hatred of one side and the agenda of the other side and both of them are allowed to make cold, logical arguments as well as impassioned pleas to emotion. It works well but sometimes the debates seem a little childish. Then I remember the real life debates over this issue also seemed quite childish at times and it works. The discussion between the two judges is probably the best acted and the most intelligent, which makes sense and is also fun to watch.
The B-story in this episode is about a women who posed nude years earlier and never thought it would come back to haunt her. Thats kind of a serious issue but its handled clumsily and also takes away from the A-story which should have had a lot more depth. In any case, this is a must watch episode. Particularly as 30 years later we still have the same heated debates in America, showing that most of us haven't actually learned diddly-squat.
Same goes for the rest of the townsfolk, who were frequently portrayed as imperfect but never monstrous. The episode deals with the controversial topic of forced bussing for public school students. It shows the fears and hatred of one side and the agenda of the other side and both of them are allowed to make cold, logical arguments as well as impassioned pleas to emotion. It works well but sometimes the debates seem a little childish. Then I remember the real life debates over this issue also seemed quite childish at times and it works. The discussion between the two judges is probably the best acted and the most intelligent, which makes sense and is also fun to watch.
The B-story in this episode is about a women who posed nude years earlier and never thought it would come back to haunt her. Thats kind of a serious issue but its handled clumsily and also takes away from the A-story which should have had a lot more depth. In any case, this is a must watch episode. Particularly as 30 years later we still have the same heated debates in America, showing that most of us haven't actually learned diddly-squat.