Wings Season 5 DVD Review
Posted by Ryan Byers on 11.15.2007
Does one of the mainstays of NBC's "Must See TV" lineup still live up to that moniker in 2007?
During the 1990's, NBC seemed to be an unstoppable juggernaut when it came to producing top-rate situation comedies, with shows like Seinfeld, Friends, and Fraiser captivating audiences across the country. Somewhere in that mix was Wings, a show that was viewed enough and praised enough to last eight seasons, although it's not nearly as well-remembered as some of its contemporaries. The fifth season of the program recently became available on DVD, and now it's my task to determine whether Wings deserves to have fallen in to relative obscurity or whether it's a lost treasure which should be held in higher regard.
For those not familiar with the series, it is the story of bothers Joe and Brian Hackett (Tim Daly and Steven Hackett, respectively) who operate a small, one-plane airline in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Episodes are typically set in the terminal out of which their business operates, meaning that we've got plenty of opportunities to be exposed to the other individuals who inhabit the Hacketts' work day. These include Helen Chappel (Crystal Bernard) a lunch counter manager and Joe's ex-girlfriend, cab driver Antonio Scarpacci (Tony Shalhoub of Monk fame), mechanic Lowell (Thomas Haden Church), ticket counter employee Fay (Rebecca Schull), and rival airline owner Roy Biggins (David Schramm). After having four seasons through which to introduce these characters, season five focuses in large part on their romantic relationships with partners outside of the regular cast, some of whom are entirely new characters and some of whom are recurring characters from seasons past.
Episodes
Stop in the Name of Love: Season 5 picks up where Season 4 left off, focusing on the budding relationship between Brian and new-ish character Alex (Farrah Forke). The episode is all about the potential for sex between the two, with the majority of the characters attempting to convince Brian to hold off on it for the good of the relationship. This culminates in a bedroom scene between the couple in which Brian repeatedly envisions his friends and coworkers appearing to break up the festivities. This episode was exactly what I remembered the series being, namely decent acting and competent writing that isn't actively bad but rarely manages to do anything memorable.
Terminal Jealousy: Episode two is more of the same, though I've got to rate it a notch or two below the prior episode, because this time around the plot is far more of a sitcom cliche. Brian injures himself and is incapable of flying, which leads to Alex volunteering to fill in on the flights that he was supposed to make. Joe takes her up in the air to get her familiar with Sandpiper Air's plane, and this leads to Brian going insane with jealousy over the time that the two are spending together.
Bye-Bye, Bunny: Things pick up a little bit, as we move away from the brothers' relationship and the Alex/Brian affair. This time around, the episode focuses on Lowell and his estranged wife Bunny. When the crew convinces Lowell that he might want to consider a divorce, he proceeds down that road almost immediately. Oddly enough, the legal action has a positive effect on the formerly married couple's relationship, as they become more romantically involved than they have been in years. Unfortunately, that comes to an end when Lowell learns that he's not the only person who his now-ex-wife has been seeing. Elsewhere, there's a fairly decent subplot involving Antonio, who finds a cellular phone (comically massive by today's standards) in his cab and begins using it to counsel the owner's wife after she discovers that her husband has been having an affair.
Business or Pleasure: This episode introduces a character who is frequently discussed but rarely seen over the next several episodes, Davis Lynch. He's a wealthy gentleman who Joe attempts to turn in to a Sandpiper Air investor in a ploy to turn around the business' poor financial situation. This leads to Lynch going on a date with Helen and charming her out of her socks. Though he ultimately chooses not to invest in Sandpiper, he does want to continue his relationship with Helen. This episode wasn't particularly important, and it felt like it was there primarily for the purpose of setting up a few plots later on down the line.
An Affair to Forget: Speaking of setting up plots later on down the line, here we go. Helen is growing frustrated because Lynch has not been making good on his promises to come see her, so, when she gets an opportunity to go meet him in New York, she enlists Joe to fly her there. Unfortunately, conflict arises when Alex and Brian also want a ride from Joe, this time to a cabin in Connecticut in which they finally hope to consummate their relationship. They manage to land in Connecticut despite inclimate weather, though Helen and Joe quickly realize that they're incapable of taking off again. When that occurs, they crash Alex and Brian's cabin party, leaving them unable to accomplish the task that they set out to perform. The four then sit around in the cabin miserable all night long. Drunken Helen had a few funny moments, though this was otherwise unremarkable.
A Black Eye Affair: It's another Davis Lynch storyline, this time with his impending visit to Nantucket driving Helen insane. She attempts to prepare a magical evening, though it quickly turns in to a game of "What else could go wrong?" with Helen developing a case of poison oak, having her hair turn green, getting an unexpected house guest, letting Lowell cook an exploding entree in her oven, and much more. Helen's problems did build at a nice pace throughout the show, and, in terms of blocking and the general concept, the last five minutes of anarchy was something that felt like it came straight from a classic television sitcom like The Dick Van Dyke Show. Unfortunately, it didn't have near the charm that it would have had thirty years earlier, in part because television comedy evolved a good deal in that time and in part because there have been so many knock-offs of the original genre over the years.
Joe Blows (Parts 1 & 2): We've got a two part episode here, with Joe having the bad day to end all bad days. He has to hunt down the briefcase of a demanding passenger, and it seems as though everybody in Nantucket is trying to prevent him from accomplishing that goal. Everybody at the airport has a problem, and everybody seems to think that he is the one capable of solving it. Ultimately, he blows up at the needy masses and, dissatisfied with his life, hops on a motorcycle and drives of to who knows where. He goes missing for several days, and it is later revealed that he's taken up residence in a party town and given up on all of his responsibilities. Back up north, Brian has to work hard for the first time in years as he struggles to keep Sandpiper's metaphorical head above water. Since we're dealing with a sitcom, Joe does return home and does regain his role as the head of the business. These two episodes were without a doubt the best of the season so far, as they had a couple of funny moments but also developed the characters far better than any other plot. Unfortunately, it seems as though the majority of that character development was forgotten by the next episode.
2 Good 2 B 4 Gotten: An old high school friend of Helen's visits, and Joe is paranoid because he remembers the girl having an unhealthy obsession with him . . . unhealthy to the point of being psychotic. Though the rest of the crew laughs at the possibility, it is ultimately revealed that Joe is right, as the women lures him down to a basement and attempts to reenact the senior prom that she feels Joe should have asked her to. The woman they found to play the psycho did a particularly good job with the role, though the episode as a whole came off as yet another plot that television sitcoms have recycled umpteen times.
Come Fly With Me: With Helen, Joe, Brian, and Lowell having nothing better to do on a Saturday night, they take a plane out to Boston and wind up at a party full of attractive men and women. Just when everybody has seemingly found somebody of the opposite sex with whom to spend the rest of the night, the party's secret is revealed: All of the women are prostitutes. Well, except for Helen, although the gentleman that she's been speaking to all night long is under a different impression. Speaking of impressions, this episode left absolutely none on me, aside from making me realize that popularity of the word "hooker" as a euphemism for "prostitute" has really dropped off over the last fifteen years.
Happy Holidays: It's Christmastime in Nantucket, and Fay is running a charity Christmas party for underprivileged children about as well as Gray Davis ran California. This leads to several conflicts with Helen, who is forced in to the role of abused underling. Elsewhere, Lowell's ex-wife Bunny has returned to the island to attend a wedding, though Lowell is too busy gearing up for a role as Santa Claus to really care . . . at least until word gets out that Bunny has recently slept with Antonio. By the end of the episode, every main character is gathered in the terminal and yelling at somebody else until they're interrupted by carolers. Then, of course, they immediately resume fighting. That sort of ending would have been wacky and unexpected eight years earlier, but, by 1993, it was almost a bigger cliche than having the characters make up upon hearing the music.
Ready, Teddy, Go: Davis Lynch puts in another appearance, renting himself a fancy hotel room and getting ready for a night of romance with Helen. However, before the love making begins, the rest of the crew is in the room and goes digging through Lynch's luggage. The result is the discovery of a near-microscopic piece of lingerie. Lynch winds up in a Catch 22 without even realizing it, as Helen goes crazy and determines that she's going to be angry with him whether the gift was for her or for somebody else. (If it's for somebody else, he's cheating. If it's for her, it's too soon in the relationship.) After twenty-minutes of wringing her hands over a relatively minor problem, Lynch reveals that he bought the item for Helen but then decided not to give it to her because he realized that it would be too soon. Yippee.
Oh, Give Me a Home where the Mathers Don't Roam: Hey, did you know that Lowell was living with Brian and Joe? I'd completely forgotten, and you'd think that it would have come up at some point prior to the thirteenth episode of the season. Apparently the brothers took him in after destroying his houseboat, but they're quickly growing tired of his eccentricities and motherly (yes, motherly) behavior. They get him to move out, but Lowell has trouble adapting that results in everybody suffering. I don't have anything against Thomas Haden Church, but the Lowell character drives me nuts. He's a poor man's Kramer, and a story arc focusing almost exclusively on him is more than I can handle.
The Faygitive: A strange man has been tracking Fay throughout the island, and people are getting calls asking for her by her various married names. We get an episode full of the paranoia this causes, and it's really far more frightening than it is funny. Ultimately, it's revealed that the man in question is a private eye hired by a former GI who Fay wooed while she was volunteering for the USO. I don't think an adequate explanation was every given as to why he veteran wouldn't just call Fay herself instead of paying a presumably hefty sum to scare her out of her wits.
Say Uncle, Carlton: Recurring character Carlton Blanchard gets his appearance for the season, coming to the island to receive an award and hiring Antonio on as his personal chauffeur for the week. Blanchard is also accompanied by his nephew Lewis (Gilbert Gottfried), who shares several of his uncle's quirks. The whole deal with the Blanchard characters is that they're obnoxious, and we're supposed to laugh at how the rest of the cast reacts to them and to how the cast eventually gives them their comeuppance. However, the Blanchards almost work too well, as they wound up legitimately annoying me as a member of the audience to the point that I wanted to turn off my television. Sadly, as I needed to get through this review, that was not an option.
Hey, Nineteen: Earlier in the season, Fay began taking psychology classes at the local community college, and, in this episode, Joe begins dating one of her classmates. Of course, said classmate is nineteen years old. This is a bit out of character for Joe, though he was talked in to it by Brian, who attempts to convince him that a frivolous relationship with no fear of commitment would be good for him. Unfortunately it winds up being quite the opposite as, after fearing that the girl has fallen too deeply in love with him, Joe inadvertently gets hurt when she ends the relationship. Ever since the two-parter that focused on his breakdown, Joe has probably been the most interesting character involved in the show (which doesn't take much), and this episode continued that trend.
Exclusively Yours: Even though they've already been doing it for quite some time, Brian and Alex decide to "officially" stop seeing other people. Naturally, Brian gets tested within minutes of this happening, as Joe allows a crew of models to do a photo shoot at the terminal, complete with an after party at the brothers' house. Who didn't see that one coming a mile away? Though the plot was fairly predictable, I do have to agree that the episode's message about how sometimes things change drastically in relationships just because of a seemingly innocuous label was dead on.
Moonlighting: As the terminal gets ready for its slow time of the year, the gang sits down and tells stories of jobs that they've done during past rough seasons in order to make ends meet. Alex is working at a Medieval Times inspired restaurant, Joe is chartering flights for a famous chimpanzee, and Helen and Brian are working for Roy's lodge as a magician and his assistant. Roy apparently belongs to the worst lodge ever, because they decided to book A MAGICIAN for a stag party.
Sleepless in Nantucket: Alex and Brian's relationship continues to progress, as they decide that it's time to move in together. Ultimately, though, between Alex's freaky looking retainer and Brian's basketball hoop clothes hamper, the two wind up at each other's throats rather quickly. They eventually determine that their failure to deal well with the situation is caused by the fact that they think living together necessarily implies an eventual marriage. As in "Exclusively Yours," the development of the Alex/Brian relationship seemed to do a good job of paralleling many real-life situations. Unfortunately, this is still a sitcom at the end of the day, and all of the comedy in this one was so hackneyed as to be rendered unfunny.
Boys Will be Girls: Brian and Joe's hardass high school football coach comes through the island for the dedication of a new gym which will bare his name. The Hacketts are so haunted by their memories of this man that they decide to break in to his hotel room and dress him up like a woman as he sleeps. He unexpectedly dies before they have an opportunity to make it in to the room, meaning that they're actually putting a wig and makeup on a corpse. The result is the entire island coming to believe that the long-time local teacher may have been a transvestite for many years. The brothers ultimately wind up doing nothing to dispel this myth, which leads to a shocking revelation at the funeral from the coach's son. This episode was bizarre because, aside from assorted Lowell nutiness, the situations on Wings were fairly realistic, and having the Hacketts do an almost I Love Lucy-esque plotline seemed out of place.
Roy Crazy: We've already seen plenty of Lowell's ex-wife, so now let's bring in Roy's! She comes to Nantucket seemingly looking for one last ride in the sack with her former husband, leaving the crew amazed that a.) anybody would want to sleep with Roy and that b.) a woman who looks as good as she does would ever contemplate marrying him. Roy eventually turns down her advances when he realizes that she's just using him in order to get back at her current husband. It was certainly odd to see Roy acting like a normal human being. Also odd is the out of nowhere return of a minor character from "Business or Pleasure," namely the waiter who served Helen and Lynch on their first date. He's back and has the hots for Helen, although his lack of social skills prevents him from getting anywhere.
Long Distances Lament: Speaking of Lynch, here's another episode focusing on his relationship with Helen. When he once again cancels a scheduled trip to the island to see her, she calls his secretary and leaves a nasty message before going out with another man. Lynch proves that he's a decent human being by dropping everything and flying out to make amends, though by that point Helen is long gone. Meanwhile Joe is having trouble juggling women, as he schedules two dates for the same time and has to drop one. Unfortunately, he's ditched by the girl that he wanted to spend time with, so, when he and Lynch run in to each other, they head out for a night on the town. Oddly enough, they wind up in the same bar as Helen and her date, after which the woman who Joe stood up joins the party. The scene with virtually every patron in the bar hiding from another patron was probably one of the funnier moments of the season.
Call of the Wild: One of Brian's old friends from his days as a party boy turns up, having just written a novel based on the wild times that they had together. As could be expected, he starts to pull Brian back in to some old behaviors, which upsets Alex to the point that their relationship is finally 100% done. The breakup seemed to come out of nowhere, as they've been together for several episodes now, with many of those episodes focusing on problems between the two. Given that they'd always make up relatively quickly after past fights, the issues here didn't seem to be any more severe than anything else that had previously been easily resolved.
A Decent Proposal: We've got a ton of plot advancement in the last twenty minutes of the season to make sure that there are fresh stories for the next run of episodes. Brian is still saddened over the loss of Alex, and his efforts to win her back go from valiant to pathetic in about thirty seconds. Meanwhile, Joe finally manages to swing a loan that will get Sandpiper Air another plane. The biggest news of all comes out of the Helen/Lynch relationship, as the two finally decide that the long-distance deal is just too hard to work and the solution is marriage. With Lynch proposing, it looks like we're headed towards a big Wings wedding . . . but then Helen is caught in bed with Joe was the closing credits begin to roll. This certainly would have provided any fan of the show with several reasons to make sure that they caught the sixth season opener, but, after watching all of season five, I can't understand how the show would have many fans left to entice.
Special Features
There aren't any, actually.
The 411: Wings is the very definition of mediocre. I remember that, during its initial run, it never seemed to be a show that people went out of their way to watch. Instead, it was that series which was just "good enough" to serve as a lead-in or follow-up to a more popular program. Nobody was getting invested in the characters or hooked in by the humor, but they were willing to remain tuned in because they were either gearing up for something far better or coming down off of it. Though the series tries to emulate many of the great ensemble comedies of years past, it lacks the originality of Taxi or the writing of MASH and falls flat in just about every way possible. When it was part of an entire night of television, surrounding shows were able to mask those weaknesses. However, when the series is viewed in isolation, it's not nearly interesting enough to keep me entertained.
