Last night, my BFF Evelyn and I watched yet another episode of the 90s sitcom, California Dreams.

Why Were We Watching It?

As I’ve mentioned in my previous posts about California Dreams, I started watching this show because all of the old episodes of Saved By The Bell: The New Class were taken down from YouTube.

Actually, last night was my fourth or fifth time to watch this particular episode.  For the past few weeks, I’ve been meaning to do a write-up on The Treasure of PCH and each time, I’ve ended up not having time to get it written.  However, since this feature is called What Lisa Watched Last Night, that meant that each day I tried to write this review, I also had to rewatch the episode the night before.  Last night, as I sat through the Treasure of PCH for yet another time, I promised myself that I would not let this day end without writing the review you’re currently reading.

Evelyn was watching with me because I asked her too and she’s the best!  That said, she did say that she’s never going to forgive me for making her watch this episode.  (Then again, she said that after the last episode we watched, as well…)

What Was It About?

Fueled by their mellow take on California reggae (yeah yeah yeah), the California Dreams are rich!  Well, they’re not really rich but they are making more money than they’ve ever made before.  Lorena (Diane Uribe) is concerned that the Dreams are getting greedy.  Jake (Jay Anthony Franke) argues that the Dreams don’t care about money.

Jake’s belief is touching but rather odd, especially when you consider the fact that, in the previous episode, the Dreams dishonored the memory of Sam’s (Jennie Kwan) grandmother in order to make money and the fact that, in the very next episode, Tiffani (Kelly Packard) would be driven to abuse steroids in order to make money.  In fact, just about every episode of California Dreams seems to be about the Dreams doing something weird and/or stupid to make money.

Maybe Jake just isn’t that smart.

Anyway, Lorena bets Jake that greed can tear people apart.  They proceed to come up with a plan to test everyone’s loyalty.  Will the Dreams prove Jake right or will they behave in the exact same way that they behave in every other episode of this show?

What Worked?

I always enjoy the Lorena-centric episodes, just because Lorena’s the character that I tend to have the most in common with.

I actually appreciated the fact that Lorena and Jake’s plan fell apart because they made a fairly believable mistake. Admittedly, it’s a pretty stupid mistake but, for the most part, this episode is about people acting stupid.

“Gotta find the money…gotta find the money…”  I have to admit that I laughed at that.  That said, for someone so intent on finding the money, Sly (Michael Cade) didn’t really seem to be looking as much as he was just randomly running about.

“DIAMONDS!”  Jay Anthony Franke’s delivery of this line was so over-the-top that it was oddly charming.

What Did Not Work?

“Surf dude with attitudes…”  Seriously, the blandness of that song never ceases to amaze me.  (And who is that old guy fishing?)

It’s difficult to take the show’s lesson seriously when that lesson is more or less dependent upon everyone acting like a total idiot.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

Since this episode was pretty much dependent upon everyone acting like a total and complete idiot, I would like to say that there weren’t any “Oh my God! Just like me!” moments in the entire show.

However, I do really like diamonds…

Lessons Learned

Greed can tear apart even the best friendships…or something like that.