BSC TV Series Episode # 5: The Baby-Sitters Special Christmas

Memory Reaction

I was convinced I never saw this episode, but I predicted the end pretty early in.  So either I did see at least part of it once, or it’s just really predictable.  Or both.

Revisited Reaction

It’s Christmas, so guess what the BSC is doing? Planning a party for some sick kids at the hospital.  Because that’s the kind of girls they are.  They also do a Secret Santa gift exchange since they don’t have the money to get everyone in the club a gift.  That part’s just an excuse to see a montage of them all bumping into each other at the store and spying on each other.

We also get a couple of side plots.  Kristy really wants a fancy new baseball mitt and asks if her mom will get it for her for Christmas.  It’s “very expensive,” so her mom only agrees to pay for part of it if Kristy does extra chores around the house.   We get several montages of Kristy washing windows and doing yardwork where she accidently steps in a bucket of water and dumps a wheelbarrow full of yardwork stuff on the ground.  She gets her glove on Christmas Eve and is super excited about it. But then at the hospital party she gives the glove to a little boy whose parents have so little money they have to work all the time and can’t visit him.  That was the part I predicted.

Meanwhile, Stacey’s having trouble sticking to her diet with so many holiday goodies floating around all the time.  She sneaks some sweets, but Dawn catches her, acts all judgy, and lectures her.  Stacey ignores this saying it’s no big deal, but she starts to feel sick.  Dawn keeps being judgmental. On Christmas Eve Stacey feels so bad she gets brought to the hospital.  On Christmas morning the rest of the BSC finds her there when they go to the party and she gives some silly confession about how she sometimes hates not being normal but knows she shouldn’t eat sweets.

High/Lowlights

• These girls say “wow” a lot.  During the opening credits we see them walking around a store talking.  The director must have told the actors to act amazed or something, because they all keep pointing to things and picking them up.  And saying “wow.”  Constantly.

• Also during the credits we see all the girls gather around Santa Claus at some department store.  As they all come around him he actually rolls his eyes at them and their chatter.  That made me laugh.

• The creepy part of the Santa scene is that Jessi starts to stroke his beard. 

• This is another episode where a client, in this case Mrs. Rodowski, asks for two sitters even though she never did in the books.  They say it’s because someone needs to sit with Shea while he practices piano and someone else needs to watch Jackie and Archie.  But it’s really an excuse to let Dawn watch Stacey eat a Christmas cookie she made with the boys.

• I was somewhat pleased at this explanation because Shea totally played piano in the books and I love good continuity.

• Speaking of cookies, why would you bake cookies with Jackie “The Walking Disaster” Rodowski? That seems like asking for trouble.  Although, in this episode Jackie seems extremely un-klutzy.

• When Kristy asks her mom about the glove, her mom asks her how much it costs.  Kristy just keeps saying it’s expensive, then finally whispers her the price.  It seems really weird because no one else is there, so why whisper? I guess they didn’t want people watching this 20 years in the future hear a price that sounds cheap now and laugh at it being called expensive?

• This kid at the hospital, Ned, watches the girls set up for the party a few days before Christmas.  When he says he’s not that into Christmas, Kristy’s all, “what? How can anyone not be into Christmas?”  I don’t know, Kristy, maybe he’s Jewish?  And okay, this kid isn’t Jewish.  But he could have been, so it seemed like a rather insensitive comment.  The books were much more aware of diversity stuff like that.

• Ned seems to have a broken leg.  Why would a kid have to stay overnight in the hospital so long for a broken leg? He’s moving around in a wheelchair so it’s not like he’s in traction or anything.

• Charlotte seems younger in this episode than I pictured her reading the books.  I don’t remember that about her other episode.

• We see Claudia, Jessi, Mary Anne, and  Mallory go into a store to Christmas shop.  They all say to the saleswoman, “I’m looking for a gift for my Secret Santa.  Where’s the hats/perfume/etc.”  By the time the last girl comes in, the saleswoman guesses that she’s shopping for a Secret Santa.  She seems amused by the whole thing.  Why not just say friend?  And if you know what you’re getting, why not just ask where the hats/perfume/etc. are? Why does the saleswoman care who you’re buying it for?  But anyway, I guess this scene is to make up for the fact that these four characters didn’t really have anything else to do in this episode.

• It’s very convenient that Kristy’s family always opens presents on Christmas Eve, so that she already has the glove to give to Ned when she got hit with the Christmas spirit.

• It’s even more convenient for the producers that Kristy and her mom actually exchange gifts alone in a room without their huge family around.  Fewer actors to pay.

• When the girls are at a restaurant, Stacey keeps drinking water and talking about being thirsty.  Now, I know thirst is a symptom of diabetes.  But I have to say, my mom’s diabetic, and has been all my life.  I have never seen her drink a ton of water like that or complain about being so thirsty.

• It’s good to see that the show follows the lead of the books and shows Stacey having to go to the hospital because her blood sugar is high once.  They should have showed Stacey being in much worse shape if they wanted to have her end up at the hospital.

• Kristy’s mom tells her she doesn’t need a baseball glove because she already has three.  Kristy points out that Karen has a ton of dolls, but her mom and Watson still got her a new one for Christmas.  Kristy’s mom yells at her for snooping instead of explaining why it’s okay to spoil Karen, but not Kristy.

• Awe, at the party Jackie and Charlotte are there and when Jackie stands under the mistletoe, Charlotte kisses him on the cheek.  He’s annoyed about it, cause he’s a 7-year-old boy.  But they are cute kids.

• Stacey keeps “sneaking sweets” throughout the book and Dawn’s a total jerk to her about it.  She keeps acting all judgmental about how Stacey isn’t supposed to eat that stuff.  Now, while Dawn has a point, she should be nicer about it instead of having it come across like a lecture. 

• The worst part’s at the end Stacey basically tells Dawn she was right.