My Top 5 least Favourite Season 1 Episodes

My Top 5 Least Favourite Season 1 Episodes in reverse order:

5) Expose

One of my Pet Hates “Doomed love” for Julie, while her Mother has difficulty looking for a job.

4) A Musical Bridge

The New Wave music isn’t my favourite and Leroy fighting Sherwood about his English assignments again!

3) Reunions

Leroy and Shorofsky’s respective reunions leave me a little cold.

2) A Big Finish

Guest stars being the centre of the story and some very convenient writing puts this way way down for me.





1) Come One, Come All

Total Guest star overload, little development for Montgomery and no songs put this episode as my least favourite of the whole season.

My Top 5 Favourite Season 1 Episodes

Counting down my top 5 Favourite season 1 episode in reverse order:

5) Street Kid:
A wonderful insight into Doris’ character with some hiliarious
antics between Sherwood and Shorofsky.

4) Passing Grade:
Coco and Lydia shine as the battle against each other for a broadway part. A test of their friendship and a beautiful duet between them.
3) The Strike:
Lots of good humour and a simple idea which causes problems for all the cast and has everyone pulling together in the end.

2) A Special Place :
The emotion of Crandall leaving, especially as this was Michael
Thoma’s last episode makes this very satisfying. Two great ballads and a feel good uptempo dance to end on a high note.

1) The Crazies:
My number one favourite is another simple idea which causes conflict. There's great fun to be had with Doris and between Sherwood & Lydia while Shorofsky being attacked and Mrs Berg's letter adds some wonderful emotion. Also a great song in “I Was Only Trying To Help”.

It'll be interesting to see how the results of our readers poll compares to my own favourites.

Fan Fiction Poll Nicole Vs Will

I'm currently working on season 2 of my Fan Fiction story "Doris Schwartz Time and Again". One of the stories will find Doris at the scene of the death of one her friends, either Nicole or Cowboy Will (Doris' boyfriend in season 2).

Doris will fight to stop her friend from dying. Whether she is successful we'll have to wait and see. I have a story idea for both Nicole and Will but this is where you come in. You can decide which story you prefer to read. Either Doris trying to save Nicole from her fatal car crash or Will being killed by the mugger trying to steal his guitar. So vote now for who you want to live!

Doris Gets the chance to save a friend from dying! Who should she save Nicole or Will? You decide!
	Nicole
	Will
pollcode.com free polls

Fame Top Ten Things I Love No 1!

Finally we've reached the Number One spot on my Count down of the things I love about the show. At number one is Equality!

To me, one of the most important messages that the show put out was “We’re all the same”. We had many episodes dealing with prejudice of various kinds whether it be on the grounds of race, colour, disability etc and the show gave a clear message that it was wrong.

This was a message that was constantly reinforced though out the 6 seasons the show ran for but not just in the stories but in real life too. It was important to me that the show had a strong mix of main characters of different cultures, ages and races. At the time American shows would often have a token black cast member, who in terms of air time and storylines were often neglected and were only there to support the white characters. Fame was different; right from the start virtually a 3rd of the cast was not white. These main characters were backed by the numerous black dancers too.
The important thing with “Fame” was that the black characters were all so strongly written and were equally leading the show along with the white characters. For me it was the first time that people of all races and backgrounds were given an equal chance to shine.

Although some of the episodes on disability aren’t my favourites, the stories on racial discrimination are amongst the best Fame episode made. I always remember the scenes in season 2’s “Beginnings” as the characters stood up in protest against the racist ballet teacher and I wanted to be stood up with them too.

With people like Debbie Allen such a strong guiding force behind the cameras too it felt that the messages that the show was giving were how the cast and crew really felt.

It was important to me that one of my very favourite things, not only had a thinking and belief system that was similar but also helped me develop further my own thinking on certain topics too.

Although at the time the show was originally broadcast I hadn’t come to terms with my own sexuality I felt that I would be accepted by the people on the show. Even though I knew I was different, I felt sure those differences wouldn’t matter with these people and characters who felt like family to me.

The lyrics to the season 3 song “We’re all the same, in so many different ways..” just say it all for me.

All of my top ten items added together made Fame a totally unique show to watch and be a part of and I feel my life has been some much richer because of that.

Fame Top Ten Things I Love No 2!

At Number 2 on my Top Ten things I love about Fame is Family and Friendship:

The characters on Fame always seemed to be the best of Friends. Sure they’d have disagreements and would fall out but would always make things up again. Even when people were from completely different backgrounds and had nothing in common, some how there always seemed like a genuine connection.

For the most part the cast really did become friends too. We’ve seen them in the reunions since and everyone really does seem happy to see each other. They became like a family on the show and off.

I think, certainly that feeling of family was one of the things that made a connection with me. At an unhappy time in my life I was looking for something to connect to and be a part of and fame filled that need. The cast and the characters became my family.

That spilled over into real life to when I started to meet other fame fans and we became really good friends because of the show. Some of which I’ve been friends with for best part of 20 years. That is one of the things that I love about doing this website is that I get a chance to talk to fans from all over the World and the opportunity to make new friends.

Fame Top Ten Things I Love No 3!

At Number 3 on my Top Ten things I love about Fame is Inspiration / Belief In Yourself.

Fame showed us a group of young people struggling to make their dreams come true and finding their place in the World. These people weren’t always the most perfect, or most intelligent, or best looking or thinnest people and some times they weren’t even the most talented at certain things.

However they did always have a strong belief in themselves. This sometimes wavered depending what they may have been going through at any particular time but on the whole they were positive and believed that some day they would make it in their chosen careers.

I think that the fact that the characters weren’t all perfect was important because it gave hope to the viewers, who maybe didn’t feel they were perfect either. These characters became role models to us all and helped us believed that we too could achieve whatever it was we wanted in life.

I felt like an awkward, shy teenager and I certainly never wanted to be a performer of any kind but watching and loving the show certainly gave me confidence and a belief in myself. A confidence that one day my life would improve and that I didn’t have to be perfect to be happy. Having that belief, sometimes is half the battle won.

Fame Top Ten Things I Love No 4!

At number 4 on my count down of the top 10 things I love about Fame is "Emotional Connection":

As a teenager back in the 80s watching "Fame" was the first time I'd ever felt some kind of emotional connection a TV show. Naturally, I'd enjoyed TV programmes before that, but never felt the same kind of connection that I did with "Fame".

I think there was an obvious connection between the cast and this spilled over into their characters and in turn the audience felt that connection too.

These characters felt like friends and so I cared what happened in their lives and the things that affected their dreams of becoming stars.

The energy of the show particularly in the first season had me hooked and left me feeling happy and excited. It was almost like a natural high that the show left us with, which was hard to resist.

The stories themselves had a real emotional impact. I will always remember the look on Doris' face when she hears the tape of the teachers meeting in "To Soar and Never Falter", discussing Kathy's medical condition. There were no words in the scene but the emotion is very clear and we worry about Doris' being upset about her friend.

In "A Special Place" the performance of "Starmaker" is very powerful and it was me seeing Leroy wiping tears away from his eyes that made me feel it was okay to be upset too. If Leroy this tough street wise guy could show emotion then it was okay for me too.

The emotional connectionis there through out the 6 seasons, although I always found it difficult to connect to the latter characters that joined in the final year. However seeing the original characters return for the final episode and everyone together singing fame is a very emotional moment.

Today, nearly 30 years later, that emotional connection is still so very strong to the show and all of the cast.

Fame Top Ten Things I Love No 5!

At number 5 on my Top Ten Things I love about Fame is Debbie Allen:

The entire cast worked really hard on Fame but for me, no one worked harder than Debbie. Just the normal singing, dancing and acting that she did on the show as Lydia was hard enough work but Debbie did so very much more.

I’ve heard her say in interviews that she made a lot of sacrifices in her personal life to do Fame and I think that really shines through. Not only did she do the choreography, but right from the start she had a very clear vision of the creative direction she wanted the show to go in. Most of the production staff had little clue about the dancing and music side of things so pretty much it was left to Debbie to decide on the creative issues and how the shows production numbers would look.

She was virtually directing these parts of the episodes so it was a natural progression for Debbie to become an actual producer and director on the show. I believe she was the first African American Woman to direct prime time American TV, which is a major feat in itself.

The fact that Debbie remained with the show for all 6 seasons despite the fact that in her personal life she was dealing with divorce, the death of her Father, marriage and having children, is a great achievement. Did anyone even notice she was pregnant in season 3 and then rushed back from her maternity leave to start season 4? Did anyone notice she was pregnant at the end of season 6? Whatever was happening around her Debbie just got on with the job.

For me she is the undisputed Queen of Fame!