User Reviews

Buffy makes friends with Angela, a chubby girl who eats lunch alone and tries to help her.

An OK episode. Angela also has a crush on Jody but he is not interested in girls. Buffy decides to have a party and bribes Jody into inviting some boys. Angela is hurt when she finds out how Jody and the boys are invited. Season 5 is almost over and it seems like it was the right time to end it, since the stories were getting redundant and the acting a bit awkward.

I recently saw this episode during a weekend binge of this television show. I found this episode ironic in that one of Buffy's little friends in this episode was Erin Moran. The actress who later played Joanie on the Happy Days series. In an interview Erin shared that she often was asked to lose weight by the producers Happy Days so she would be seen as more attractive. Funny how the seeds of body image are planted into girls minds. Even in an otherwise harmless tv show like Family Affairs.

The only real acting in this dismal episode is that of Sebastian Cabot offering a plate of cookies to Robot Buffy and her half-alive fat friend. I'd like to say though that watching this does sort of bring me way back as this episode came out when I was a freshman in high school and a lot of the period cues in the episode ring a bell with me. But by now most of the fancy furnishings etc. In that luxury penthouse apartment look like something you'd find at a garage sale these days with an apologetically low price tag.

The styles worn by Buffy, Jody and their friends (and their sister Cissy) are real time warps.

There's a small part played by Erin Moran who would go on to be Richie Cunningham's little sister Joanie on Happy Days. At 11 years old it's got to be one of her very earliest appearances and I could tell it was her before I looked her up in the credits.

The big, big, big problem with this is that Anissa Jones (Buffy) was too old. She was clearly no longer interested in the show or playing her role, and for that I put most of the blame on the producers who were bent on keeping her like a 7 year old eternally. She hated the role, especially having to lug that stupid doll around years later than any normal girl would have (though Mrs. Beasley didn't make an appearance that I noticed in this episode).

But really, the 'acting' in this episode is about on the level of what you'd see in a play put on by 4th graders. It's really that bad except for Sebastian Cabot (and Brian Keith yelling "French!" once.) There's not a lot of fill-in dialog; part of the time there are just kids sitting and saying nothing. It's just poor writing.

Cissy insisting that the kids at the party get up and dance is just cringe-worthy. I feel bad for the kids for having had to put on that lame display, and for myself having watched it. OW! This approaches Ed Wood / Plan 9 From Outer Space awful.