This week’s Jon & Kate Plus Eight — the last new episode before a hiatus, returning Aug. 3 — reminded long-time viewers why we were so fascinated by the show, and educated anyone who’s started watching since The Scandals that this was once a lovable family unit.
Mostly a series of clips, It was so carefully edited that TLC managed to show the family’s last-season trip to Hawaii without revealing what we fans knew was the purpose of that trip: for Jon and Kate to renew their vows! This episode was subtitled “The First 10 Years,” and began with a very different-looking Jon and Kate (he, pudgier; she, brown-haired) on their honeymoon at Disneyworld. There were character sketches of each child with the original voiceover comments by both parents. They describe Alexis, for example, as “sweet and funny” and “the loudest”; Joel: “an unending fountain of whine”; and poor, doomed-to-therapy Mady is “manipulative and controlling all the time.”
Missing from the evening, however, were some of the elements that made Jon & Kate fascinating television. Kate’s phobia about germs; her insistence that the kids eat organic food and avoid sugar, which of course only made the gang crazy for sweets; and Jon’s deadpan humor in the face of Kate’s clever sarcasm. I say this without sarcasm myself: those were the days.
There was, though, a short version of the great, harrowing airplane trip (or as one of the little ones call it, a “hair-pain”) in which flight delays and re-routing frayed tempers and reduced Kate to a sobbing wreck.
We re-witnessed “family movie night” and “family camping night” (the latter in the back yard), which Kate described back then as “a family bonding-uniting experience.” As with any family undergoing the trauma of divorce, all these memories were both heartbreakingly sweet and bitterly ironic. There was a brief flurry of “all new episodes” coming up, which seem to consist of a lot of trips that solo-Jon and solo-Kate each conduct with the kids.
I hope Jon and Kate were watching Jon & Kate this night; the memories could only do them both some good as they go their separate ways.
Good luck, and I wish them well. I’m glad they decided to avoid the media…(for now at least)
http://tvdonewright.com/2009/06/30/tv-tonight-tuesday-june-30th-2009/
Those WERE the days. The show was still watchable back then (for the right reasons). Nowadays it’s just sad to see Jon and Kate drifting far and far apart. Poor sweet kids.
Seeing this was almost as sad as seeing clips of Michael Jackson when he was a cute, talented, perfectly normal-looking little black kid.
They’ll be back soon.
The hottest celeb scenes at http://www.actressscene.com
Will it ever end?
This whole thIng is a fraud being perpetrated by TLC and the Greedlins. According to TV guide they already have 40 episodes filmed and now have to make those episodes appear as if they were filmed after the divorce announcement. They will magically edit and the first episode that will be shown on August 3rd will be the NC trip she took in late May prior to the separation. The sheeple won’t know any different.
This whole thing is a fraud being perpetrated by TLC and the Gosselins. According to TV guide they already have 40 episodes filmed and now have to make those episodes appear as if they were filmed after the divorce announcement. They will magically edit and the first episode that will be shown on August 3rd will be the NC trip she took in late May prior to the separation. The sheeple won’t know any different.
watch john and kate
http://watchcelebrity.com/john_kate.html
I can’t even watch Jon and Kate now. It just makes me sad thinking about those kids now.
EW…Back to obsessing over Jon and Kate. Have you stopped stalking Megan Fox? Can we move on…
This show just showed how much money and “fame” has changed this family. The upcoming new shows only highlight this fact. More trips, more freebies. This family now has the resources to provide for themselves, yet it seems all they want is more, more, more.
The show was scripted by Figure8 Films from an article last year in The News & Observer 3/18/2008:
Even though it’s a reality series, there are still brainstorming sessions at Figure 8 for developing story lines.
“Our subjects are in on the joke,” Hayes says. “We consult them about what stories we’re going to tell, and how we’re going to tell them, so that they’re comfortable with it. They’re more trusting, they’re more open, they’re more honest.”
Since they develop story lines, those children are actors and need the protect of the PA Labor Department!
Cancel this show for the protection of the children.
The last thing I want to watch is the destruction of a family.Some kids NEVER recover emotionally. I know a 65 year-old who is STILL lamenting her parent’s divorce from FORTY years ago!!! This show needs to be taken off the air – they have made enough $.
An Old Friend Of Jon’s (Not Kate’s) Speaks Up (Interesting): http://tinyurl.com/oyqsfm
Seriously Lady M your 65 and your parents divorced 40 years ago. You were 25 when they divorced. you weren’t a child. Get therapy and get over it. Nowadays it is common for parents to separate, and while it is not the ideal situation it is not all bad. sometimes the kids are better for not having to listen to their parents fight and be miserable! Ok on another note. I did like last nights show. It was nice to see why I started watching the show to begin with. Hopefully the tabloids will move on to their next victim and the show can go back to what it was. I don’t like Jon anymore, but it was nice to see him when he was chubbier and it seems happier.