So tonight, I decided to watch the finale, out of order. Funny, John Saxon was in "Surrogate Father" and I thought this was it, but it's "Surrogate Mother". It's bittersweet for me, and mitigated by the fact that it's not the end: I still have several episodes left to watch of the last 2 seasons (plus rewatch those I caught on TV, since they edit a lot of stuff out that leaves the show making little sense!), and it was fun seeing well loved actors acting together; namely:
John Saxon seemed like he was "phoning it in" and would rather have been somewhere else. He was just going through the motions, at this point, without much conviction. Juliet Mills, well with Saxon's censored past and she seemed to be recreating the unspoken parts of her own forbidden marriage. But enough about that.
Charo was a suprise. No more 'cuchi cuchi' here. Not only that, she wasn't wearing her customary sexy getups. She was a lot more tame and went for a dramatic role. She did alright, and it was nice to see her playing her beloved guitar, in a couple scenes. Her hair was dark ginger, and not her most flattering color, plus they dressed her in a medium blue that clashed a bit with that coloring.
I didn't like this story, though I enjoy these actors: even Mr. Roarke seemed bothered by the degeneracy of the topic. (I didn't know they had "surrogates" back in 1984!) Oh what a tangled web we have weaved. What was completely degenerate was being normalized already in this show. FFWD 40 years later, and we have millions of these NPCs, adults without a soul roaming the Earth. (And they still have no idea the monsters they've created, never mind we see these Village of the Damned adult kids day in and day out on the news, and no one can put 2 & 2 together, here!)
The other story didn't fare much better: Mr. Roarke condoning the cheating of her fiance', to the woman who is upset about seeing him kiss another woman. Yeah, this was out there, and out of character for Mr. Roarke. I want to rate this a 6/10 because the actors played their parts well, for the most part, but the topics here really sank bargain basement low! Yeah, ending on a "WTF" note but might as well end it right then and there, if that was where the show was headed!
Tattoo was sorely missed. None of his antics, none of his fun mispronunciations. No "highlights" from me, for this botched non finale (they wrapped up nothing, and didn't say their proper goodbyes to the viewers, so they most likely didn't know they were cancelled or the prods just didn't care any longer, at that point!) A lot of talk about "love" but it was more of a tainted love here, trying to conceal, again, the debasement of the loony topics.
It's not a bad finale production wise, but it's a bad, bad finale storywise. And idiot fighting between the women, a lot of gratuitous T&A. The only good thing was the denouement of that contest, and why the men reacted the way they did at the end, considering how hard they had pushed for a different outcome. The stories are barely a 2/10 but I'll up this to a 5 6/10.