BSC TV Series Episode # 11: Dawn Saves the Trees

Memory Reaction

This is one of the few videos I actually owned, and yet I don’t have any really strong memories of it.  I just know it’s kind of similar to the book about Dawn getting all environmental, except with a cute boy thrown in.  I think the boy’s mother is Dawn’s nemesis over the trees that need saving and it causes all sorts of conflict.  But no scenes or moments stand out to me.  I must not have watched it that often.

Revisited Reaction

The girls are all at some park with Charlotte, Becca, and Jamie Newton.  I don’t know why all seven of them need to be there to watch three kids, but I guess they didn’t want to hire more kid actors.  They’re by some pond having fun, but when they leave they see some park officials measuring something.  They go talk to them and find out the town’s putting a road through the park. This means they will be committing the unforgivable sin of cutting down trees. The BSC, especially Dawn, is horrified at this and decide to they need to stop it.  They go to town hall and get a huge pile of information on the proposed road.  Dawn decides they’re just trying to stall her, so she tosses the info and the girls plan a protest, with the kids of course.  They seem to get a positive response from the media and plan to go to some town meeting to argue against the road.

Meanwhile, Dawn meets a friend of Logan’s named David Cummings.   David’s played by a young Zach Braff.  Dawn thinks he’s super cute and is excited to find out that David wants Dawn to come with him on a triple date with Mary Anne/Logan and Kristy/Bart.  But when David comes to her house to pick her up, he sees the posters for the protest.  David says he thinks the road will allow more people to enjoy the park.  Dawn doesn’t like that at all and is suspicious that he knows so much about the road.  David admits that his mom’s the head of the Commission of Public Works and behind the whole thing.  So, Dawn storms upstairs and the date doesn’t happen.  This is the second episode where Dawn has had a guy pick her up for a date that didn’t happen.   That’s not a good precedent.

At the town meeting Dawn makes her statement and Mrs. Cummings is all, I appreciate your passion but did you even read the proposal? It turns out the road’s being built to give the handicapped access to this pond and is meant to make more people enjoy it.  It will also have bathroom facilities and proper trash/recycling containers.  It also will only require 12 trees to be cut down within a 50 acre wooded area.  I don’t think that’s so bad.  It isn’t like they’re planning to destroy the entire park or something.  The commission votes to move forward with the plan, and Dawn leaves all upset.

After the meeting the rest of the BSC tells Dawn she should have considered a compromise and can go a bit overboard with things.  They also tell her she was kind of bitchy to David (who was watching her during the town meeting).  Anyway Dawn does some research and finds out about parks that used wooden planks or packed dirt to give handicapped access to places, and she comes up with a plan to make the dirt idea work in Stoneybrook.   Because they teach skills like that in middle school.

She calls David and apologizes to him and asks him to bring their idea to his mom.  I would have been kind of insulted if someone apologized and followed it up with asking for a favor.  But he’s a teenage boy and she’s a girl.  David tricks his mom into going to the park where Dawn presents the idea.  She says she’s annoyed at being tricked but likes the idea and brings it to the commission.  They vote to accept it.  It seems kind of unrealistic, but whatever.  In BSC-land horrible things like trees being cut down aren’t allowed to happen.

High/Lowlights

• They refer to Jamie liking peanut butter and honey sandwiches.  I feel like that’s a reference to the books, and that being his favorite sandwich.  I hope I’m wrong though, because I hate the fact that my brain has retained that detail for 20+ years, when it could have been remembering something more useful.

• Stacey refers to when she used to go to camp and get homesick…it sounds like she’s talking about when she was a kid.  But we know that Camp Mohawk was her first (and only) camp experience.

• Who sees an official prepping for construction, and walks up to ask what he is doing?  I think most people would just ignore them?  Then while Dawn goes to talk to him, we see a reaction shot of every single BSC member looking at one another asking what he could possibly be doing.  They act like it’s the most intriguing mystery ever.

• Claudia says the town will never listen to a bunch of kids. Dawn says they have just as much a say in what happens to public land as adults.  But they kind of don’t. You have to be 18 to vote.  And they certainly don’t pay taxes on their baby-sitting money.

• After meeting Zach Braff, Kristy asks Dawn if she thinks he’s cute.  It seems kind of out of character for Kristy to be the one pressing Dawn about the cute boy.

• Some of the kids are helping the girls make posters for their protest.  Jessi tells them to take a break and they start playing Mother, May I.  A couple minutes into it, Dawn walks up and asks them to start helping her again.  Now, I didn’t exactly want to watch a never-ending game of Mother, May I, but it seemed kind of mean for Dawn to not even let them finish one game. 

• The posters they make for the protest look a lot like the ones from the one with the student council election.  They do this weird thing where they write on the posters, then stick on what looks like really big stickers or something to decorate.

• I noticed during this episode that the actress playing Dawn has brown eyes.  Then I noticed that the actress playing Mary Anne has blue eyes.  Who cast this show?  There must have been hundreds of blonde blue-eyed girls that could have played Dawn.  It’s not like the one we got is super-talented.

• When they mentioned a group date involving Bart, I thought we might get to meet him.  But Kristy says they’re meeting him downtown.  I guess that makes sense for ease of casting, but I still would have liked to see him.

• Dawn thinks compromise is giving up.  Great attitude, Dawn. 

• These girls always have to win don’t they? Not only does the town change their minds, they talk about forming a youth committee with the BSC involved.  That’s just out and out winning, there’s no compromise involved at all.