Season 1, Episode 5
"Pookie and Mookie"
This episode felt like it was written by a member of the writing staff who was just about to take his vacation time next week, as in, rushed and unpolished. This episode, centered around a computer (produced and aired in 1983) is horribly outdated by today's standards. A boy (Mookie) loves his compter (having one at home was a rarity in the 80s), and his sister (Pookie) dislikes them. He asks her to finish up a computer program and leaves her a set of instructions. Before she can ask why, Mookie dies of a nonspecific disease. Pookie takes to doing what he asks, which....is never specified. She spends all summer on it, and her usage of the device upsets her family. She has confrontations with her hardass dad and overly apologetic mother, until eventually it's revealed Mookie lives inside the machine. Pookie proves this to her father, aaand....that's where it ends.
Good: Okay, the "Spirit in the machine" thing could've worked, provided something worse happened that would cause Mookie to be malevolent. For the most part the acting is good, but its all...bland.
Bad: The worst part about this episode is it really shoots itself in the foot by using computers as a plot device so early in the home computer's development. Keep in mind this episode was made well before the internet, so there isn't much room to work with aside from goofy green and black text on the screen like "Help Me". But once its proved Mookie is actually in there...it ends. The family goes back to normal, its just that their only son is now an outdated machine. (I kinda want to write a sequel that jumps ahead 30 or so years when he inhabits an IPhone.)
Not spooky in the slightest.
Grade: 3/10
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