[A few earlier pre-season 3 thoughts HERE.]
I'm about to finish my first The White Shadow marathon run since maybe 2008; the only episode I have left is the finale, which I'll wait a day or two before I watch. The 3rd season is a weird one...maybe half the team had graduated, which is always a big problem with shows set in high school, and the show barely bothered pretending the team actually played any games anymore. I have just a few random thoughts/notes on Season 3 before I finish the series again.
No mention at all of Coolidge heading off to a big-time college to play? From what I can tell he averaged about 55 points and 111 rebounds, but no letters from every school in the nation? Or ANY school? There's a coupla episodes throughout where Coolidge considers jumping to the NBA - somehow. Yet no talk of college recruitment? Wouldn't that be a major story arc?
Then again, they didn't really know the show was ending, so theoretically we could say that Coolidge would be coming back for another year...but that would mean that during the first season he was a freshman, which is had to believe based on his size, how he interacts with his teammates, and the fact that right out of the gate that year he started averaging about 55 points and 111 rebounds, so.
It's weird on shows like this when they hafta replace half the cast and then pretend that cast has always been there. The first two seasons, all the characters seem like they've known each other since they were kids, you can tell by their interactions. Suddenly there's not just a few new kids on the team but we're supposed to believe they've ALWAYS been friends with Cool/Thorpe etc.
On the other hand, this is the first season I've noticed a lot of "team members" standing around in the background who we never see before/since. One of the cool things about the first two seasons is that during any glance at the screen, you could identify all the players. Incredibly, each player in such a wildly large cast had such depth to them that you cared about them and what they did, even in the background. There was really no filler until Season 3.
I mean you guys know I love The White Shadow with all my heart but how long are we really supposed to believe the worst epithet they liked to use was "turkeys"?
One great thing the season did that doesn't get any credit for is basically discovering Michael Winslow, whose character of course was never heard of before or after his big episode.
Right before he gets shot, Thorpe and Coolidge go back & forth reciting The Who's Pinball Wizard. And not just referencing it, but nailing the theme of the song in a way that suggests they'd listened to it obsessively. Which I'm thinking maaaaaaaaaaaaay be some wishful thinking from somebody hoping to finally solve racism. Trust me, no high school kids at Carver in 1981 were Who fans. Reminds me of the gang from Marshall!
Thank God this show didn't end in the 1970s, they surely would've tried to spin off some cheesy-ass variety show featuring all their goddam shower singing.
I mean I know he's supposed to be some sort of villain but if you don't just absolutely fall in love with Wardell Stone then I don't know what to tell you people.
So Thorpe is shot, but not once does someone mention Curtis Jackson? Who not only was shot a year earlier but had died? This team loved him and yet when Thorpe gets shot, it's as if nobody even remembers Jackson's name? Dafuck? I mean I know that area of LA is famously violent but are THAT many of everyone's closest friends getting shot?
Well. I guess that it...for now.
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