An action-packed slog

Absolutely Fantastic

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

I am old enough to remember The Brady Bunch when it came out, and I can assure you it is not a very accurate reflection of society at the time. Although the wardrobes sure do bring back that groovy vibe. The plots are dumb, contrived, predictable and there is never any real drama. Even so, these episodes are 22 minutes of pure escapism, and some are not bad for that purpose.There is a lot of visual appeal in every episode. For one thing, the kids are all growing up and changing very quickly before our eyes, with Greg and Marcia becoming young men and women who drive by the final season. Obviously attracted to each other. The house is so cool too, is that a typical California house? I always loved Mr Brady's den and the kitchen, but the layout will always be an enigma.It was always nice to see how relaxed and cheerful Mrs Brady could be, when she had a full-time housekeeper. Never mind how they paid for it, including Social Security taxes for Alice.Above all, the weather. For people living in other parts of the country,this was voyeurism. Is California weather always that perfect? Does it ever rain, or get muggy, or uncomfortable in any way?The actors were typecast and for the most part, never did much afterwards.It was ironic, as the years went by, to learn that they had their issues with drugs and such.Then Mike Reed later came out as gay.So although the show generally was not very good, it has a certain nostalgia.

If you think that you're a slave to your children, then get this.... On their honeymoon, Mike & Carol Brady were so lacking in any imagination (duh!) that (are you ready for this??) they actually brought all 6 of their demanding brats along with them (including Tiger, the dog, and Fluffy, the cat, too).... Sheesh! Spare me!! This very first episode (from Season One) about Mike & Carol's honeymoon, pretty much, set the pace and mood for what the viewer could expect from all of the episodes that followed.It really killed me how this show repeatedly tried to drive home the notion that even though these petty, little brats may have gotten up to some real devilish shenanigans, underneath it all, they were sweet, darling angels, through & through.I can't believe that this TV Sit-Com (which first aired in 1969) actually lasted for 5 seasons. Right from the very start one could clearly see that the script-writers lacked a whole lot of imagination. They seemed to be too intent on retaining the squeaky-clean wholesomeness of the entire Brady bunch at the expense of allowing even a few marginally risqué moments to sneak into the show's silly & predictable situations.Anyhow - The way I see it - You either like The Brady Bunch, or you don't. It's as simple as that.... (And, that is how they all became The Brady Bunch!)

I remain convinced that if there is a Hell, this show is the only program on TV down there that isn't a test pattern nor an infomercial aside perhaps from Gilligan's Island or the Love Boat. I saw almost every episode as a child (Crush on Maureen McCormick). Just hearing the theme music makes we wanna puke now.The talentless cast (Beyond the parents and Marcia, each of whom really could act though they showed little of it here) have mercifully seldom been seen on the small screen since.But their collective inept attempts at sanitized family comedy on this concoction ripped-off from derivative scripts left over from Leave It To Beaver set against phony laugh-track haunt me still particularly due to the fact that a lot of episodes which were different were actually just reinterpretations of other episodes of the same show.The proof of the repressed horror this nonsense manifests is the fact that they kept trying to revive it with series and TV movies which were progressively worse than the versions which preceded them. It mutated like a virus. Eventually you even had the annoying housekeeper doing rice commercials.If you watched it in reruns, like me, you probably grew up without cable and watched it because it was all you could get at certain times of the day. Even if you had cable your choices were limited and certain American "Superstations" from Atlanta or Boston or Chicago might show it, often before or after Gilligan's Island which is a gruesome concept, or worse with yet another episode of The Brady Bunch.This was the type of vapid, unimaginative, formulaic television I grew out of by age 8. After that it became not the escapism which television at its best can be, but rather something to be escaped from via the off button on my TV. Its sole lasting lesson to me was one all TV fanatic kids eventually learn: Never leave the remote beyond your reach! My idea for the greatest episode of this show would be if the family depicted were to go on a cruise on the Love Boat and have the casts of each show become stranded on Gilligan's Island where they could then meet a kind of Croatoan fate.Like a ton of old TV shows this nonsense had a following simply because it was on in a time-slot against shows on other networks which were a lot worse.

Question for this episode... What did the locket look like? I can't remember for the life of me and I cannot find the answer anywhere and cannot download the episode to my Ipod because my husband has it on travel for a week!I like this episode because it is the only episode that tells you a good trivia about Alice being the middle child a We're having a bit of Brady Trivia and we know that Jan lost the locket while looking out the window at the little bear stars.... what the locket a BEAR or a HEART.... please e-mail the answer to me or post it... I apologize for posting a question here but cannot find another place to ask that might have fast feedback. Thanks so much.