Thursday, August 1, 2024

The Golden Girls: The Operation


THE GOLDEN GIRLS: THE OPERATION

Written by: Winifred Hervey

Directed by: Terry Hughes

Airdate: February 6, 1986

As the son of a nurse, I never dreaded hospitals. To be honest, I rather enjoyed them and still like hospital food. That would not be much comfort to one of the Golden Girls characters in The Operation, light on plot but winning on dance numbers. 

Housemates Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur), Blanche Deveraux (Rue McClanahan) and Rose Nylund (Betty White) are taking tap dancing classes together and form the Tip Tap Trio. Dorothy, however, comes back after one class hobbling in pain. Her mother, Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty) is quite worried and pushes for Dorothy to go to the doctor. The other women agree, and Dorothy reluctantly goes. She comes back to tell them she has Morton's Neuroma, a benign tumor on her foot. She also tells them she refuses to have a simple surgery done due to her paranoia about hospitals. 

Reluctantly, Dorothy goes. However, when Dr. Revell (Robert Picardo) tells her about how her regular doctor is in the middle of a malpractice suit and presents release forms, Dorothy freaks out and flees. The other women push Dorothy back to the hospital. When she meets and talks to her hospital roommate, breast cancer survivor Bonnie (Anne Haney), Dorothy realizes how foolish she has been.

The dance recital Rose and Blanche ultimately perform almost does not come to pass. Blanche confesses to Rose her terror at performing, in front of audiences that is. A humiliating dance recital when she was five has traumatized Blanche from dancing in solo numbers. Rose is thoroughly unsympathetic and drags Blanche to the recital. Despite her initial fears, Blanche and Rose are a massive success. Dorothy, however, is enraged when she finds they are no longer the Tip Tap Trio but the Two Merry Widows. Performing Tea for Two, Dorothy eventually makes her rage known. 

The Operation does not fill in much if any character background. We learn that Dorothy's phobia about hospitals comes from when she was left alone in the hospital at age five when she had her tonsils removed. Sophia reveals that she was in labor for 23 hours to deliver Dorothy and that she worked as a fry cook to help Dorothy pay for college. 

Two scenes get cut from The Operation rebroadcasts. The first is a scene in the kitchen where Dorothy goes a little more into her hospital fears and shows she is physically unable to dance. The second is when a priest (Bill Quinn) accidentally performs the last rites of the Catholic Church to a horrified Dorothy. I think the second scene is not always cut though. In a curious note, Belita Moreno as the Nurse is uncredited. This is surprising given that she has dialogue in The Operation

The Operation's overall plot is simple: Dorothy needs surgery but is terrified of hospitals. The real highlights are the two dance numbers that White and McClanahan have. Rose and Blanche have a shared interest in showbusiness given how often they both perform on stage during the course of The Golden Girls. This is the second time where Rose and Blanche perform for audiences after The Custody Battle. In future episodes, we will see Rose and Blanche either auditioning or acting in community theater, even cohosting a telethon. Dorothy rarely partakes in performing in community theater with them. Yet I digress.

White and McClanahan have two dance numbers in The Operation. They showcase their dancing skills quite effectively. Both dance numbers are funny, but not because they are klutzes. Instead, the humor comes from the situations themselves. In the first dance number, the humor comes from how long they would be backups to what would have been Dorothy's very big and long solo section. In the second, once they magically appear in full costume, they perform Tea for Two, where the humor comes from Dorothy's visibly enraged reaction to being cut out. Rose and Blanche's obliviousness to Dorothy's anger, complete with them tossing a flower to a furious Dorothy, makes it all the more hilarious.

I think White proved herself the best dancer, as she had to do some impromptu tap-dancing steps twice. McClanahan was no slouch in the dance department by any means. Her dancing was smooth and flowing. The Tea for Two number, while good and amusing, was a bit uncoordinated as they were not always in sync. 

White had some excellent acting moments, with her confronting Blanche about her fears being a highlight. White is playing against the normal manner of Rose: sweet, kind and empathic. We see in The Operation a Rose Nylund who is thoroughly unsympathetic to Blanche's past traumas. Once Blanche confesses a deep, dark and humiliating secret, White's face immediately darkens. "Hey, we've all got our sad stories," a cold-blooded Rose quietly but firmly tells Blanche. Rose is absolutely right in her reproach. What makes it funny is how against type White is playing here.

Equally funny is McClanahan. The story Blanche tells Rose is in itself funny, with McClanahan's delivery of it hilarious. What puts the coda on the scene is McClanahan's shocked reaction at finding Rose so dismissive of Blanche's trauma. Her disbelief in being told off by Rose is brilliant. 

Oddly, Arthur came off as the weaker element despite The Operation being a Dorothy-centered episode. She was hardly bad in the episode. Arthur had a great scene where her growing panic about the hospital erupts in her fleeing in terror. She also has a great moment of alliteration, where she complains about being "probed, poked and prodded" by endless doctors to where more men have seen her behind in one day than in her entire life. She also has a quiet moment of reflection when Bonnie tells her about how she is there for her second mastectomy and how traumatic the first one was. 

It is just that Arthur had to carry more of the drama. That and she had no big musical numbers. Getty rattled off some strong quips both hilarious (at the end of Rose and Blanche's rehearsal, a deadpan Sophia says, "I won't dance, don't ask me") and heartfelt (pointing out Dorothy's ridiculousness by being ridiculous herself).

I think the dance numbers elevated The Operation. It was a good episode, with moments of humor and heart. 

Maybe if they wanted to keep being the Tip Tap Trio, Dorothy's spot could have been filled in by Coco. 

8/10

Next Episode: Second Motherhood

No comments:

Post a Comment

Views are always welcome, but I would ask that no vulgarity be used. Any posts that contain foul language or are bigoted in any way will not be posted.
Thank you.