Sunday, August 9, 2015

BSC TV Series Episode # 9: Jessi and the Mystery of the Stolen Secrets

Memory Reaction
All I remember from this is how we find out Matt Braddock’s learning to lip read.  After I saw this episode, I kept waiting for them to reference this in one of the books and I don’t think they ever did.  I guess book to TV continuity is easier for them than TV to book continuity.  Ann M. Martin and her ghostwriters probably never watched the series, while I’m sure the TV writers familiarized themselves with the books.
Revisited Reaction
At the beginning, the whole BSC’s at a Krushers’ practice helping out.  We find out that Charlotte has a crush on Buddy Barret and has only told Stacey about it.  But then later, Jackie Rodowski starts teasing her about it.  Charlotte gets mad at Stacey for telling people, even though Stacey swears she didn’t.
Later, Jessi’s sitting for Matt Braddock at her house when she gets a call from Mrs. Masters in Hollywood.  Derek’s going to be in town for the weekend and needs a sitter, but it needs to be kept a secret so no reporters show up.  But at the sitting job, of course reporters show up and try and take pictures of Derek.  Mrs. Masters blames Jessi for this and threatens not to use the club again.
The BSC decides that since none of them told either secret, someone must be reading the BSC notebook, where both Charlotte’s crush and the Derek thing were mentioned.  The girls identify three kids that had an opportunity to read it recently – Vanessa, Karen, and Jackie.  They try and set up each of them with a chance to read the notebook again to see if they snoop.  Vanessa doesn’t look and criticizes Mallory and Jessi for acting silly in the library (trying to set her up).  Karen doesn’t look either, and tells Kristy and Dawn they should have a lock on the book if it’s so private.  Jackie doesn’t look, but wants to when he finds out the BSC has a book where they write about him.  He wants to see what they said about him. Jackie tells all the other kids and they also get upset about the sitters writing about them behind their backs.
When the kids try and confront Jessi and Dawn about the notebook, Matt Braddock’s there.  Jessi realizes that he’s following the conversation even though people had forgotten to sign, which is when we find out he’s learning to lip-read.  He was nearby when Stacey and Charlotte were talking about Buddy and was there when Jessi was on the phone with Mrs. Masters.  He didn’t know that these things were secrets and that people would be upset if he repeated them.  He mentioned Charlotte liking Buddy to some other kids and told his uncle (a reporter) about Derek. Jessi talks to him about this and how he needs to be careful.  And Dawn manages to calm the rest of the kids down by comparing the club notebook to doctors’ or teachers’ records.  So all is well.
High/Lowlights
  • At the Krushers’ practice, we see all the kids wearing purple shirts with white letters of the team name.  I know in the books they wore white with black letters.  I can’t imagine all the boys being okay with purple.
  • Kristy does have red letters on her shirt, which matches the books, but the fact that it’s on purple make it almost impossible to read.
  • I like that they remembered Jessi had the special relationship with Derek, and that’s why Mrs. Masters called her directly.  Sometimes they forgot things like that in the books so that they could feature certain characters.  It used to really annoy me.
  • It seems kind of weird that the Masterses would come all the way from California for a weekend and then not let Derek leave the house the whole time. 
  • Derek comes off nerdy than I remember in the books.  Wasn’t there a whole thing because his character wore glasses but he didn’t and it surprised everyone? But he has glasses on here.  And I’m not saying glasses makes a person nerdy, the kid just seems nerdy.
  • Dawn says that Karen had access to the notebook when she (Dawn) went to get ice cream at a Krusher’s game.  Since when does Dawn eat ice cream?  Maybe she was getting it for Karen, but then wouldn’t Karen have gone with her?  What kind of sitter leaves the sittee alone like that anyway?
  • I don’t know why the girls didn’t just ask Jackie who told him about Charlotte’s crush.  It would have been much easier than spy stuff.
  • This show must have a really small budget.  Whenever they have the girls on a sitting job for a kid with siblings, there is just one kid there with a quick explanation that the others are somewhere else.  We also hardly see any adults. 
  • There’s an article in the town paper about Derek being in town, with the subheading , “Baby-sitter denies press access.”  It’s kind of hilarious. Like….did the paper call Jessi and get a comment from her about that? Also, the paper would know she didn’t tip them off, and even if they don’t want to reveal their source it seems silly for them to talk about how they got access. 
  • Charlotte and Stacey have a heart to heart where Stacey apologizes about the Buddy thing getting out.  She says she wrote about it in the club notebook, and Charlotte’s pissed because she only wanted Stacey to know, not the rest of the club.  But she forgives Stacey.
  • Matt claims he didn’t know Charlotte would get upset if he told people she had a crush on Buddy.  Now….really? I think it’s completely realistic for a little kid to spread gossip like that, but did he really not realize people would tease her? And did he really see every word of Jessi’s conversation with Mrs. Masters EXCEPT the part where she said it was secret? And why was he keeping the lip reading a secret anyway? Jessi was probably a little too forgiving of him there.
  • The actress playing Jessi is the only one of the main girls I remember seeing in something else.  She was Clarissa’s friend in an episode or two of Clarissa Explains It All, which I also totally loved as a kid.
  • The title of this episode makes me realize that Mallory’s the only girl in the club to not get an episode with her name in it.  Poor Mallory.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your right, Mallory never got one. I kept waiting for Mallory's turn for an episode. Given how the BSC talk about Jackie, I'm not sure I like Dawn's explanation for the club notebook on the other hand I'm glad Jackie never read it. There's no way they weren't mocking, badmouthing and complaining about him for being a klutz. He would have been really hurt by what he read.

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