612/Seperate Planes

Show Outline

Paul and Jamie have to fly to Los Angeles for the wedding of an old friend (Lori). They're taking seperate planes because Jamie wants to make sure that Mabel is not an orphan, just in case one of the planes crashes. "Who lives like that?" Mabel is supposed to stay with Paul's parents, but Burt has a bad cold and to make sure the baby doesn't get sick too, Paul takes the baby with him. The baby is a big hit with the stewardesses, especially one who seems to have two personalities when it comes to trying to get into the First Class section. Paul takes full advantage of the stewardess' desire to help a single father with a cute baby. Eventually this back-fires, by costing him a chance to meet with the president of Columbia Pictures . Meanwhile Jamie has the misfortune to be seated next to the same loud-mouthed, pushy lady who fought with her for the "good room" at the hospital when Mabel was born. In the end, Jamie has to admit Paul was right when he thought the idea of seperate planes was a stupid idea.

Commentary

I found this episode pretty funny, especially the way Paul uses Mabel cuteness as a way to get stuff. I didn't much care for the lady who sat next to Jamie, but it did fit with the story. It's just that, that lady was awfully easy to hate. I really enjoyed both Paul and Helen's rebuttal to the baby's name. They both got compliments on the baby's name, and came back with, "thanks, we took a lot of heat for that". It was not at all hard to guess the origin of that line (the on-line discussion group alt.tv.mad-about-you). Overall, not a bad episode. They finally managed to work Mabel in AND keep the writing light and funny. We knew they could do it. Hopefully they can keep it up.