BSC TV Series Episode # 10: The Babysitters and the Boysitters

Memory Reaction           

I didn’t think I’d seen this one before, but there were two scenes that made me flashback to seeing them the first time, so I guess I must have seen the whole thing.  The first is a scene where Jackie spills milk on the table, and Pete Black proceeds to crack on egg on the table, dip bread in it the mixture, and make French toast.  It’s how I learned what ingredients go into making French toast.

The other’s a scene where Lagan and Mary Anne were studying, and Logan pulls her up to start dancing. At the time I thought they seemed older than they were supposed to in that scene.  Now, I think the actors are all clearly older than 13 so they all seem too old in every scene.

Revisited Reaction

Logan has to cancel a sitting job and all the other girls are already busy.  Alan Gray and Pete Black offer to help out with some jobs.  Kristy doesn’t like this idea at all, but the other girls convince her it will work.  They “train” the boys and let them take a couple jobs.  At first they think it goes okay, because the kids liked them, so the BSC votes to let the boys keep serving as back up.  Kristy’s the only one still against it.

Then the girls realize that Alan taught Becca and Charlotte to play poker and let them eat lots of candy.  They also find out that Pete taught Shea and Jackie Rodowski to climb trees, a skill the kids later use to climb on the roof.  So, the BSC tries to tell the boys they shouldn’t have done those things, and Alan and Pete say no one got hurt, so what’s the big deal?  They walk out of the meeting and say they’re going to start their own baby-sitters club.  They apparently follow through with this to some degree, because Stacey sees Alan and Pete sitting for Becca and Charlotte, where they’re taking the girls to see a scary movie.  Stacey also finds out that Alan and Pete are taking Becca, Charlotte, and the Rodowski boys to the Game Center on Saturday. 

Kristy thinks this is crazy, because the Game Center’s filled with video games and play areas for kids, and is always super crowded on Saturdays. The other girls think they should tell the boys it’s a bad idea, but Kristy decides they should let them do it so they learn how unprepared they are to really deal with kids.  The BSC shows up at the Game Center to watch it all go down.

Alan and Pete turn their backs on the kids to play a video game, and when they turn back the kids have disappeared. The boys run all over looking for the kids but can’t find them, probably because the kids are deliberately hiding when they see Alan or Pete.  The BSC’s watching the kids though, and see Charlotte, Becca, and Archie getting their picture taken in one of those things where you put your face in the hole over a picture of a clown (or whatever), so it looks like your head is on someone else’s body.  The BSC takes a couple of the pictures and drop them in front of Alan and Pete, so the boys see where the kids are.  They find them, but then Charlotte runs off and Becca goes to the bathroom and doesn’t come out.  At this point, the BSC shows themselves and starts helping out with the kids.  The boys admit they don’t know everything about kids.  Kristy suddenly turns very mature and tells them no one could handle the kids at the Game Center and that doing things different from her isn’t necessarily wrong.  It is so different than how she was acting all episode so it was kind of weird to see.  But I guess these always end with the BSC doing the right thing.

High/Lowlights

• Kristy throws out a line about how Shannon Kilbourne’s out of town so that we don’t wonder why the girls aren’t calling her when they’re so backed up.

• While training Alan and Pete, the BSC makes them practice diapering a doll and feeding a baby (Mallory role playing). Which seems kind of unnecessary, considering the jobs they had lined up were for older kids.

• At the beginning, it seems like Pete’s a bigger foil/adversary with Kristy than Alan, which is definitely not the case in the books.  Pete always seemed like the nice one. But Alan gets more screen time at the end, so maybe that was just to balance out their time.

• Charlotte and Becca make Alan dress up like a baby, and he lets them.  Which isn’t something you’d expect based on what you hear about him in the books.

• Wow, we see all three Rodowski boys in this episode.  I guess they had a budget increase or something.

• Becca and Charlotte tell Stacey they want to play poker instead of go fish.  When Stacey starts asking how to play, Becca and Charlotte look at each other like it’s an impossible task and suggest doing something else.  I guess they thought she wasn’t smart enough?

• I actually don’t think it’s bad to teach kids to play poker, I learned how to play when I was little. As long as they’re not really gambling or anything.  But what is weird is that Charlotte and Becca both have acquired visors to look like dealers or something.  Maybe Alan has them in his Kid Kit?

• Jackie and Shea climb onto the roof while Kristy’s sitting for them, and tell Kristy that Pete taught them how to do it.  Pete says he only taught them how to climb a tree and didn’t leave them alone while they were doing it.  I’m on his side here, isn’t Pete’s fault the boys got it in their heads to climb onto the roof. This is Jackie we’re talking about.

• What’s weird is that Jackie and Shea use a rope to climb on the roof.  So…do the Rodowskis’ just have a rope hanging down from their roof? Because if they boys could have climbed up to hang the rope, they wouldn’t have needed the rope in the first place.

• Would Dr. Johanssen really hire Alan and Pete instead of the BSC after one job with them?

•  The BSC drops these pictures in from of Alan and Pete, and the boys see the kids are by the clowns.  They assume the kids are the ones who dropped the pictures.  But if the kids dropped them wouldn’t that have meant the kids had left the clown area?

• Alan brings some of the kids to the snack bar and asks what they want.  Becca says ice cream, Archie says hot dogs, and Charlotte says popcorn.  So Alan buys three of each.  Which seems to be a bit much….. why not just give each of them the one thing they asked for? But anyway,  it doesn’t matter because then Becca has to go to the bathroom, and Alan leaves all the food on a table while he walks off to take her.  So wasteful.

• At the beginning, the BSC’s practicing for field day, an upcoming event at school.  Alan and Pete laugh at them for falling, which leads to Kristy and Pete making a bet about who will win.  The episode ends at field day, but we don’t see who wins.  It’s kind of annoying.  It actually looks like Kristy ends up partnering with Alan, so maybe it’s a moot point.  Maybe that was supposed to show they all matured, but they had reaffirmed the bet towards the end of the episode.  It made kind of a weird transition.

• Isn’t it kind of weird to refer to Alan and Pete as the “boysitters” in the title of the episode?  If “babysitters” describes how the girls watch little kids, “boysitters” should be people who watch boys.  At least when used in the same sentence.