Sylvia

He sure is. Tyler is a seven year old little kid.

Before I read all seven pages of comments, I'm going to write my own, having just finished watching both parts of this two-parter. For the record, I watched what I had recorded on COZI-TV, so I know that there were missing parts to make room for the billions of commercials. I really wonder what was cut out.

But based on what I did see, I really dislike this episode for multiple reasons. First, however, let me mention some good things about it:
1) Sylvia really seems to be a sweet girl.
2) Albert is well-meaning, even if somewhat misguided.
3) Perhaps my favorite part of the episode is Caroline's talk with Albert, when she brings up the fact that being in love is not really sufficient to make a marriage work. I also really appreciate her asking Albert what Sylvia thinks about the child. I'm not exactly sure what her point was, but I thought perhaps she was leaning towards Sylvia possibly wanting to put the child up for adoption? Anyway, I felt like Caroline was looking at the whole situation with more wisdom than perhaps anyone else in the entire episode.

Now, for at least some if the parts I really dislike:
1) Sylvia's father!!!! What a jerk! Even before the rape, he's a jerk. And he was especially a jerk when he called Sylvia a whore. And when he told her she reaped what she sowed. And pretty much every other time he was on screen throughout the episode he was a jerk. And what is strange is that it seems like everyone in town thinks he was a fine guy before all this happened with Sylvia. Is he one way normally around the townsfolk and then a jerk at home with Sylvia? Towards the end, it seemed like maybe he was coming around to see the light, but that could have been worked out if he had gone in to talk to Sylvia before she died, asking her forgiveness, telling her he loved her, etc.
2) Of course I dislike the rapist guy.....and what the heck is up with him and that clown mask?? Did he die when he got shot there towards the end? Why did he go back to Sylvia? Did he just want to rape her again??? Did he intend to kill her?? Also it was just way too convenient that the one guy in town who Albert went to for a job happened to be this guy.
3) It seemed like this episode was full of lies from start to finish - Willie lying about Sylvia, Sylvia lying about grading papers, Sylvia again lying about not having been out of the house when she had the mud on her boots, Sylvia's dad lying to Doc Baker about Sylvia "falling," Mrs. Oleson lying to the entire town about Albert being the father, Albert himself lying about being the father, etc. It just got to be so tiresome to me.
4) Mrs. Oleson was especially cruel in this one. But Doc Baker was very foolish to tell the news about the pregnancy over the phone. Everyone in town knows that Harriet listens to the phone calls. Why didn't Doc just say, "no, I'm only going to tell you in person! Harriet Oleson is probably listening in right now!" and hang up?
5) The whole school board issue with making Sylvia come and stand in front of them was ridiculous. I guess the episode may have been trying to show how the females are often blamed when they are the victims of sexual harassment and rape, but after just watching the episode where women's rights came to Walnut Grove, much of this just made me angry.
6) I also was kind of sick and tired of hearing Sylvia and Albert say "I love you" over and over. Maybe that's what young people "in love" do, but it just seemed like they were constantly saying it!
7) The "death scene" was very unbelievable. Sylvia seemed to be talking fine - no gasping for air or wincing in pain or anything.
8) I think the writers took the "easy out" by killing off Sylvia. It's like hitting the "reset" button, and after this episode I presume everything will be back to normal in Walnut Grove with never another mention of that girl Sylvia who got pregnant out of wedlock.

Okay, well, now I guess I'll try to read what others wrote about this episode. I think it was perhaps too deep a topic for a show that is generally thought of as a "family show" even though I know they have a lot of episodes that deal with very heavy subjects. I don't remember if I watched this one back in the day when the show aired. And if I did, I don't remember what I thought about it. Did parents let children watch this episode?

littlehouselover wrote:

I'm watching it now, but I'm not sure I'll finish. I think it's too dark for a LHOP show. Maybe, even with the darkness if they didn't conveniently kill her, I would have liked it more, but it was so "pat". A miscarriage would have sufficed and then moving to get her away. It was such a dark part for a young girl to play.
The father and Harriet acted like her development was unusual...she couldn't have been the first young woman to start blossoming in school. It's a normal process and she wasn't dressed inappropriately.

It was a sin in a sense to be not "innocent" as a woman and many lied as some do today in some countries. It's really sad. I'm not sure what Michael Landon wanted as the point, to tell and not be scared...but it was so depressing, no resolution really, no hope.

I think this pretty much sums up my feelings as well.....no resolution and no hope. I also think it's strange that her father would want her to bind her chest. At age 14 in those times, wouldn't many young women be looking for a husband?? And even getting married? It seemed like the father had some issue with his deceased wife. I think he mentioned something about the devil being in her.....did she have an affair or something? Was Sylvia perhaps not even the biological child of Mr. Webb??? Mary Ingalls probably had as much development at that age as Sylvia, and she was engaged to John, Jr. by about that time, right?

I also am not sure what point Michael Landon may have been wanting to make with this episode. If it was to make a point that being a victim of sexual assault is not the victim's fault, I feel like it failed. Even with the ending, since Sylvia died, it almost seems like once again (as per her father), she "reaped what she sowed." (I don't mean that I believe God was punishing her or that she deserved to die, but it almost feels like the episode, by having that conclusion, just reinforced this idea.)

Rob wrote:

Davetucson wrote:

How dare he put anything of a sexual connotation on that show.  After all, it was a family show......

I haven't seen that show in a long time, but I remember it having a definite nightmarish quality.  Like "May We Make Them Proud."  And to be fair, the rape of a young girl goes a bit beyond sex.  I can see why a lot of people found it disturbing.

I actually like MAY WE MAKE THEM PROUD, while I don't like SYLVIA. To me, there is a wonderfully redemptive quality to MAY WE MAKE THEM PROUD.....and also because it features the death of a main character, there is not just a reset button at the end of the show. But I don't find anything redemptive about SYLVIA. It is just disturbing and depressing. And what is weird is that I almost dislike Sylvia's dad more than the rapist!! I guess because he should have loved and cared for Sylvia but he was so horrid to her that I would not have been all that surprised to find out he himself was the rapist! I guess that would have been taking the episode even into deeper darkness and disturbing qualities....

Toby wrote:

Someone commented on Amazon that Michael Landon came on at the end of the original airing of Sylvia and urged younger viewers to tell if they were living this kind of life.  If true, that would explain what he was thinking when he made this episode.  I always wondered why he had Sylvia die at the end, but he may have wanted to convince abused children that it was imperative that they come forward and tell as opposed to keeping the abuse a secret.  

That makes more sense for the episode about the young boy who was being abused (CHILD OF PAIN)....And while yes, women / girls should tell someone if they are raped, it seems unlikely to me that ML would come on and urge "younger viewers" to tell if this happened to them, considering that "younger viewers" were probably completely confused by this episode and would not have likely even realized that Sylvia was raped or understood what that meant.

Oh, reading some other comments on other websites about this episode reminded me - I also hate all the talk about "boys will be boys" etc. That kind of talk was appropriate for the boys sneaking a peek at the "lingerie" ads in the catalog, but seem completely inappropriate when talking about the boys being peeping toms! I think the boys should have been brought up before the school board rather than poor Sylvia and made to confess what they did and perhaps even apologize to Sylvia!

One more thing - why on earth didn't someone just walk over to the feed and seed and get Sylvia's father, since that was where they said he was when she fainted? However, when we see Doc Baker calling, he calls her father at their house, not the feed and seed - what's up with that???