To See The Light Pt. 1 and Pt. 2

I think this is a little bit of an unbelievable episode...

I do love the Nellie's Restaurant scenes...

Especially the corset snapping on Mrs. O.!!!!!!!!!

I thought so too. It seems that head trauma can cause temporary blindness, but I can't imagine anyone regaining his sight after having it gone for so many years.

I agree, the restaurant episodes are hilarious.

Good point.I'am so glad He got his sight back. I could tell mary was maybe a little jelouse. But i can understand her feeling left out too. Glad he passed his test and got to do what he loves.

This was a good episode........

Mrs. Oleson going into the restaurant in her corset is funny every time you watch it. I don't know what the show would have been like without her...sure at times she was too mean, but this episode, the one with Nellie and the pig farmers son Luke, the poison ivy camping trip, the list goes on...she is hysterical.

I would have been a bit envious too as Mary, if I hadn't gotten my sight back...you feel threatened and Adam was a bit clueless as he left Mary in other episodes by herself at garden party, etc. He was blind a long time to forget how it is to not have your site. They had a lot in common, but blindness bonded them in the beginning...too bad we couldn't see how their life continued with him seeing.

I love this episode too. Gotta love Mrs. O!

I noticed something horrible though. I was reading episode air dates. Part 2 of this episode's first ever air date was on 12/8/80...the very night John Lennon was shot! It aired just a few hours before. I never realized that! How sad.

I just saw the Mrs Oleson scene in the restaurant landing on the table, hysterical. : )

I thought Adam in this episode was very "blind" to everything he couldn't see. How after so many years on not seeing, he could forget what it's like to be Mary. The first time he ran around thanking God, you could say, he was in shock and not thinking, he was so happy. But later at the croquette games, leaving her to sit there alone, suddenly "teaching" was not his calling, mentioning all the things they could do now, that HE could see and not her.

I'm overly sensitive to things, but I could understand Mary's fear for a while. I wish we got to see more how they developed later, but alas, they left the show.

The resturant scenes with Mrs.Oleson was funny. When she went to pour popcorn kernals into the pot, she ended up putting the whole jar in there and put a lid on it and after it started popping, you would think glass would be popping out. Nels startled her and she dropped the glass jar in the pan. Adam should have been more considerate of Mary. It was like he forgot she was blind.

Popcorn isn't that fattening, but THAT much is : P

That was way too much popcorn.

It is if you eat too much of it on a daily base!!!! If you have too much butter on it.LOL

Loved this one!

I liked this episode and I also didn't like this episode.

Plusses:  Adam and Mary screentime, especially when he sees Mary for the first time and exclaims about how pretty she is.  So sweet!  Adam running through the field to celebrate being sighted again and exclaiming that the world is wonderful.

Mrs. Oleson and her popcorn / Nellie and Percival were funny comic relief as usual.

Minuses: Adam shouldn't have had his sight return, the main thing that was so romantic/emotional about Adam and Mary's relationship was that he taught Mary through being blind and was blind from his youth...not really realistic.  I wonder whose idea this was.... and what could have been had they left him blind.

Oh...and it was sooo cliched that Adam suffers the double misfortunes of being robbed the night before one of the exams AND getting so ill he misses the last exam! Typical Michael Landon-written calamities!

One other thing about these episodes..... I found it so disturbing that Adam didn't remember what worries and insecurities he went through when Mary had those false senses of regaining her sight in the episode "The Enchanted Cottage".

If the Raschellas had written these eps instead of Michael Landon, I'm thinking they would have made Adam more sympathetic with Mary's concerns about him regaining his sight.

There should have been a few scenes put in these episodes to show that Adam empathized with Mary's insecurities about him having regained his sight.....it was so out of character for him not to have the empathy with Mary's feelings as that was always such a trademark of their relationship.

I don't know how to feel about this one sometimes. It seemed totally unbelievable to me; but assuming it could happen, Adam's reaction seems normal. He's thinking mostly of himself because it is so exciting to be able to see after all this time. He also thinks of what it will mean for him and Mary, not just him.

Since it was rare that characters referenced past events, I can't say I was surprised Adam having empathy for Mary didn't happen at all.

bethandmanly wrote:

I don't know how to feel about this one sometimes. It seemed totally unbelievable to me; but assuming it could happen, Adam's reaction seems normal. He's thinking mostly of himself because it is so exciting to be able to see after all this time. He also thinks of what it will mean for him and Mary, not just him.

Since it was rare that characters referenced past events, I can't say I was surprised Adam having empathy for Mary didn't happen at all.

Yeah, I guess my expectations are too high! I'm expecting a lot more detail than what's given onscreen.

Just imagine what LHOP might have been if they had long story arcs like they have in some modern shows.

bethandmanly wrote:

Just imagine what LHOP might have been if they had long story arcs like they have in some modern shows.

Actually I do imagine that quite a bit!  I think that's why I feel sometimes not satisfied with some of these 2 parters or a single standalone episode....that there wasn't enough meat on the bones of the stories or enough character development. I should really stop whining about it all...makes me sad just imagining what could have been....

I enjoyed this long episode...It was interesting in many ways.

I just finished Part One, so I'm not going to read the rest of the reviews until I've had a chance to see Part Two, but here are some of my comments about Part One:

It seems a bit cliche that Adam would regain his sight by having another concussion, but perhaps it is medically possible. On the other hand, since he came to and regained his sight right as or after Ma and Mary were praying for him, perhaps we can just take it as a miracle rather than having a real scientific explanation. I also never figured out what surgery he had, but I watch what I've recorded from COZI-TV, and maybe they cut out part that explained why he needed surgery.

I think Percival is kind of rough on Nellie, and although I'm glad that he had a positive effect on her, but I think he was being kind of mean about trying to keep her from gaining weight with the pregnancy. And I do think that he was not very nice calling Mrs. Oleson fat. Also I'm not so sure I like the way he and Nellie call each other their little pet names like "my love" - for some reason, it feels kind of fake to me.

As for the main storyline.....I can kind of understand Adam being so excited to have his sight back, but I do feel that he is neglecting Mary and his duties at the blind school. It seems so sudden that he has now turned away from his interest in teaching and wanting to be a lawyer. I don't like that he does not try to include Mary among his new sighted friends very much and just left her sitting there. He could have had her play croquet with him, perhaps standing behind her and helping her aim the croquet ball or something like this. Plus he seems to have completely forgotten that he promised to be at the fish fry in time to cook the fish. I love the scene when he first realizes he can see, though. However, I kind of wish they had left him blind. I thought it was really neat that he and Mary, both being blind, were still a very capable husband and wife team and had a united purpose together.

I've finished Part 2. I still feel like Adam was being insensitive to Mary and just making plans for the both of them without her input. Mary, however, was very sweet to step up to supporting her husband and going and talking to the professor in order to get him to change the rule so Adam could complete the test.

The corset scene with Harriet was quite funny to me. But I think Nels is being unreasonable and not actually being supportive of Harriet in her quest to lose weight. Instead of berating her and trying to prevent her from eating, I think it would have been better if he had supported her by making healthy and low-calorie dishes for her. I don't know how much people back in those days knew about nutrition and dieting for weight loss, though.

reneerose wrote:

I liked this episode and I also didn't like this episode.

Plusses:  Adam and Mary screentime, especially when he sees Mary for the first time and exclaims about how pretty she is.  So sweet!  Adam running through the field to celebrate being sighted again and exclaiming that the world is wonderful.

Mrs. Oleson and her popcorn / Nellie and Percival were funny comic relief as usual.

Minuses: Adam shouldn't have had his sight return, the main thing that was so romantic/emotional about Adam and Mary's relationship was that he taught Mary through being blind and was blind from his youth...not really realistic.  I wonder whose idea this was.... and what could have been had they left him blind.

Oh...and it was sooo cliched that Adam suffers the double misfortunes of being robbed the night before one of the exams AND getting so ill he misses the last exam!   Typical Michael Landon-written calamities!

I agree with these sentiments.....at least we didn't have the new bump on the head when Adam was mugged leading to him suddenly reverting to blindness! That would have been just way over the top, like a sitcom where someone's amnesia comes and goes with every bump on the head. But, yeah, how many traumas does Adam have to endure in one episode, albeit a two-parter? I also agree that to me it was really neat that they were both blind and how dedicated they seemed to the blind children. I found it a bit unbelievable that Adam just seemed to so quickly not even care about the children. Did he even wish them goodbye when they went away for the summer? (And I also thought that some of them didn't have homes, so where did those kids go??)

reneerose wrote:

bethandmanly wrote:

Just imagine what LHOP might have been if they had long story arcs like they have in some modern shows.

Actually I do imagine that quite a bit!  I think that's why I feel sometimes not satisfied with some of these 2 parters or a single standalone episode....that there wasn't enough meat on the bones of the stories or enough character development.  I should really stop whining about it all...makes me sad just imagining what could have been....

I actually don't really love TV series that are always about a story arc, i.e. always continuing from week to week. But I do like continuity within a series, especially a dramatic series like LITTLE HOUSE. And I do like character development, so that even with continuing story arcs, we see that events of previous episodes have left a lasting impression on characters or helped them change and develop.

I also wonder how it would really be for someone who has been blind for many years to regain their sight suddenly - would they be able to jump up and run around right away? Would that be disorienting to them? Also, what about reading......reading Braille is not the same as reading printed letters.....would that just come really easily? Had Adam already been reading when he was a boy before losing his sight? I even think that the brightness of everything all at once may be a bit overwhelming. I guess I'm thinking like when you are in a dark room and suddenly a bright light comes on. I suppose these questions are too much for an episode like this, but I would like to have these kind of issues explored a bit.

One other thing- if Adam really had to become a lawyer, I wonder if he could have become the first blind person to practice law or something like this.....could he have taken an oral exam, had someone to help him study (since I doubt there would be any law books in Braille), etc.? That could have been an interesting story arc.