In my comment on the first episode of Gidget (https://trakt.tv/comments/196317), I accused its characters of being cardboard cutouts, and mused that the show would need to do more than simply coast on Sally Field's cuteness. The second episode fared somewhat better under my keyboard (https://trakt.tv/comments/196455), but it still wasn't great.
By the time I reached episode 6 (https://trakt.tv/comments/199455), I'd gotten both some "goodies" and some "baddies" under my belt, but I'd also noticed that the series appeared to be afraid of following through on its stories when it counted.
Having now finished the series, I can make some observations about the general writing trends.
First, whenever Gidget wants to do something that goes against the established gender norms of the time period, that desire inevitably becomes meaningless by the end of the story. She challenges the status quo many times, but never seems to actually change it—and she often decides that the status quo is better than what she wanted, even. If anything, her abortive attempts at feminism come across as discouraging other girls who might be watching the series from standing up for change.
Second, I found the character writing pretty inconsistent. Besides Gidget and her father, Russell, the other recurring characters—sister Anne, brother-in-law John, best-friend Larue—never developed any depth at all. Anne and John were simply foils for Gidget and Russ. It's laughable the number of times the show used the same basic "Gidget asks John for help and John screws it up" plot. Larue isn't a foil in the strictest sense, but she's not much help either. For a best friend, she's kind of just…there a lot. The rest of the characters we meet are mostly one-and-done guests, who obviously never get a chance to grow out of their basic archetypes.
Lastly, the stories are frequently just… uninteresting. This point is last because it's the criticism that is the least fair for me—a twenty-something male watching the show fifty-three years after its premiere—to levy, but I still needed to say it. Even when Gidget makes a decision to do something long-term, like continue her relationship with boyfriend Jeff after he goes off to college, it ultimately means nothing. She's technically "going steady" (I think this exact phrase was used, though unlike with many newer shows it's practically impossible to find searchable transcripts of Gidget episodes) for the entire 32-episode run, but she's conveniently arranged things so that she can keep pursuing boys at school despite this fact. And since so many of her problems are related to this constant… um… What's the feminine equivalent of "skirt-chasing"?… it's hard to take them seriously.
Maybe I just don't understand the teenage girl's mind. I'd be the first to admit that—I never was one, especially not one growing up in the 1960s—and I'm sure people like me were never the target market for this show. But I have to wonder if the low quality of writing in this series was because the target audience consisted (presumably) of young people, particularly girls. Perhaps Gidget existed mostly to attract teenagers—boys with Gidget's cuteness, and girls with the allure of a kind of vicarious fantasy.
Other shows of that era—like The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Hogan's Heroes (1965), The Brady Bunch (1965), and even Gilligan's Island (1964)—displayed much higher writing standards in general. I haven't finished those shows yet, as they all had much longer runs, but since Gidget is only one season I think it's fair to compare it with only the first season or two of its contemporaries. The comparison isn't favorable, but I guess that's why Gidget only ran for one season, in the end.
Review by dgwVIP 10BlockedParent2019-01-01T09:30:23Z
Average episode rating: 6.65625
In my comment on the first episode of Gidget (https://trakt.tv/comments/196317), I accused its characters of being cardboard cutouts, and mused that the show would need to do more than simply coast on Sally Field's cuteness. The second episode fared somewhat better under my keyboard (https://trakt.tv/comments/196455), but it still wasn't great.
By the time I reached episode 6 (https://trakt.tv/comments/199455), I'd gotten both some "goodies" and some "baddies" under my belt, but I'd also noticed that the series appeared to be afraid of following through on its stories when it counted.
Having now finished the series, I can make some observations about the general writing trends.
First, whenever Gidget wants to do something that goes against the established gender norms of the time period, that desire inevitably becomes meaningless by the end of the story. She challenges the status quo many times, but never seems to actually change it—and she often decides that the status quo is better than what she wanted, even. If anything, her abortive attempts at feminism come across as discouraging other girls who might be watching the series from standing up for change.
Second, I found the character writing pretty inconsistent. Besides Gidget and her father, Russell, the other recurring characters—sister Anne, brother-in-law John, best-friend Larue—never developed any depth at all. Anne and John were simply foils for Gidget and Russ. It's laughable the number of times the show used the same basic "Gidget asks John for help and John screws it up" plot. Larue isn't a foil in the strictest sense, but she's not much help either. For a best friend, she's kind of just…there a lot. The rest of the characters we meet are mostly one-and-done guests, who obviously never get a chance to grow out of their basic archetypes.
Lastly, the stories are frequently just… uninteresting. This point is last because it's the criticism that is the least fair for me—a twenty-something male watching the show fifty-three years after its premiere—to levy, but I still needed to say it. Even when Gidget makes a decision to do something long-term, like continue her relationship with boyfriend Jeff after he goes off to college, it ultimately means nothing. She's technically "going steady" (I think this exact phrase was used, though unlike with many newer shows it's practically impossible to find searchable transcripts of Gidget episodes) for the entire 32-episode run, but she's conveniently arranged things so that she can keep pursuing boys at school despite this fact. And since so many of her problems are related to this constant… um… What's the feminine equivalent of "skirt-chasing"?… it's hard to take them seriously.
Maybe I just don't understand the teenage girl's mind. I'd be the first to admit that—I never was one, especially not one growing up in the 1960s—and I'm sure people like me were never the target market for this show. But I have to wonder if the low quality of writing in this series was because the target audience consisted (presumably) of young people, particularly girls. Perhaps Gidget existed mostly to attract teenagers—boys with Gidget's cuteness, and girls with the allure of a kind of vicarious fantasy.
Other shows of that era—like The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Hogan's Heroes (1965), The Brady Bunch (1965), and even Gilligan's Island (1964)—displayed much higher writing standards in general. I haven't finished those shows yet, as they all had much longer runs, but since Gidget is only one season I think it's fair to compare it with only the first season or two of its contemporaries. The comparison isn't favorable, but I guess that's why Gidget only ran for one season, in the end.