1.19: Organization Woman

"Time to LV! I'm sorry you'll have to MU, CT & VU as best you can this morning."

Welcome to The Aunt Harriet Show!

I've watched silent comedies from 1914 that have required less accommodation than this episode asks of me. About 2/3 of the way in, Steve arrives home and sees his family running around like crazy. It is all very nicely put together and smoothly done and, when it originally aired, I'm sure it was the Hilarity that rocked the US. But, I found it tiresome and I wasn't actually sure that it was funny.

Harriet is Steve's sister. She's engaged to Frank. Frank is an efficiency expert. Remember them? I think they're still around but back then they were looked on with laughter. Nowadays, efficiency experts make people sick to their stomach. If you've ever sat in a job with someone sitting next to you timing everything you do and saying things like "If you put the stapler right above your left hand, instead of by your right side, you would save 2 seconds every 10 minutes", then you know that these folks are worse than the average HR department.

But, circa 1960, the efficiency expert was a hoot! And, Aunt Harriet arrives at the Douglas household to help out while Steve is away... and she efficiencies everyone! And, the show becomes all about Aunt Harriet and, in the end, her attempts to become super-efficient so Frank will set a date for the wedding. Steve spots this when he gets home and walks into the middle of a crazy world:

Everyone is using a lot of acronyms. And, there's a huge chart of what everyone has to do and when they have to do it. And, there's a traffic flow chart through the place. And, doors are labeled with "In" & "Out" (more or less... And, it turns out that Harriet is so busy being efficient that she won't let Frank talk when they're together... and he just wants to propose! Well...

I can't say I was a huge fan of Aunt Harriet. She made me tired. Yes, I know the organization is thrown out at the end for the charming love of the Douglas household yelling and yelling. Yes, the efficiency is shown to be too much. But, Steve's powers of deductions are almost to astounding. He strolls in, sees what's happening and gauges the problem instantly. He tells it to Harriet and, then, it's just a slow roll towards the end.

It took a few minutes before I realized that this episode seems to be a backdoor pilot for a "Harriet and The Efficiency Expert" TV show. The boys, Bub and Steve do so little. And, Harriet gets all the long significant close-ups. The episode moves fairly quickly for a My Three Sons episode but it all, kind of, has little to do with the main characters. Of course, not to put a well-made show down, it is a nicely mounted episode. Mr. Tewksbury doesn't let us down on that side. And, I do like the fact that they are still fiddling around with the set-up. But, the fiddling can end up being slightly detrimental.

We know the Douglas household. Here's someone coming in who tries to change the whole thing. But, it's happened before. And, I imagine it will happen again. And, is a family sitcom the sort of thing where this happens? Possibly... Maybe that's the charm. But, why not just make an anthology series featuring new chracters interacting with the Douglases every week? (Maybe I still think it's too early in the show to do this kind of thing? Maybe this show was commenting on other shows of its type? I'm still learning here...)

This episode feels like a time caspule from the year (maybe the week) it aired. And, so it should be watched and appreciated. Wheter I enjoyed it or not, I really can't say. More Steve please.