Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Hang Time!  This week, we learn about geography.

Episode 4.13 “Nothing in Common”

(Dir by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on October 24th, 1998)

We’re back in Indiana!  I guess the San Antonio trip is over.  Yay.

Michael, Silk, and Rico panic when they see Coach K. walking around their favorite after-school hangout, The Stadium.  It turns out that Coach K. wants to buy the place and make it more friendly to older customers.  Michael, Silk, and Rico totally freak out and I don’t blame them.  No one wants to see their teachers outside of school.  Anyway, they come up with the brilliant idea of having Rico’s uncle pretend to be a health inspector so that he can scare off Coach K.  It doesn’t work because Rico’s uncle asks how Rico is doing on the team but Coach K. still decides not to buy the Stadium because this is a silly show where plot developments are brought and abandoned at random.

Meanwhile, Mary Beth is upset when Hammer resists her attempts to change him.  Mary Beth wants to go to an art exhibit.  Hammer wants to go to a boxing match.  (Personally, I’m probably an even bigger culture snob than Mary Beth and I would be happy to go to either of those.  I love museums but a boxing match is a good excuse to wear something nice and show off your cleavage.)  Mary Beth wants Hammer to go sailing.  Hammer wants to spend his time at a biker rally.  Realizing that she’s trying too hard to change Hammer, Mary Beth dresses up in leather and hangs out at a biker bar.  She teaches the bikers all about the proper utensils to use at a formal dinner.  It was actually pretty cute and, in the end, Hammer and Mary Beth agreed that they didn’t have to like the same things as long as they liked each other.  Awwwwwww!

I liked this episode.  Season 4 may not be as strong as the previous three seasons but the Hammer/Mary Beth relationship works surprisingly well.  As far as I’m concerned, any episode that features more of Mary Beth and Kristy being wacky and less of Julie getting annoyed is a good one.

Episode 4.14 “And Then There Were Nuns”

(Dir by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on October 24th, 1998)

Oh hey, we’re back in San Antonio.  Continuity be damned!

With only a few days left in Texas, Kristy suspects that she’s in love with Antonio.  She tells Mary Beth and Julie that she can imagine a future with Antonio.  Awwwwww!  Antonio invites Kristy to a wedding …. in Mexico!  Kristy agrees.  Before leaving, she leaves a note for Julie and Mary Beth.  Unfortunately, it’s a poorly-written note and Julie and Mary Beth are convinced that Kristy’s run off to Mexico to get married!

Because everyone on this show is stupid, they don’t tell Coach K or any other adults about what is happening.  Instead, everyone except for Julie and Michael head down to Mexico and try to stop the wedding.  I guess it’s lucky that they all happened to have their passports with them.  (Either that or they crossed into Mexico illegally.)  Of course, since they won the big Tri-state tournament. they have to get back to San Antonio by 4 p.m. so that they can get ready to do a media appearance.  Michael and Julie are convinced that their friends can go to Mexico and come back while the Coach is taking an hour-long nap.  Apparently, the show’s writers were under the impression that San Antonio is right on the border.  It’s not.  San Antonio is 155 miles away from the border and it appears that the wedding is taking place in a fairly small and remote village.  In short, this trip is going to take a lot longer than an hour.

Admittedly, King of the Hill used to do the same thing.  Hank Hill was literally an hour away from every location in Texas.  But, in that case, it was obviously meant to be intentional and it was a fun in-joke for Texans.  (It helped that Mike Judge was one of us.)  But, in this case, it just feels incredibly dumb on the part of the Hang Time writers.

Anyway, Silk, Rico, Hammer, and Mary Beth arrive at the wedding but a nun tells them that this is a private ceremony.  So, of course, they all dress up like nuns and sneak into the ceremony and….

….

….

Sorry, silently screaming.

The important thing is that it all works out in the end.  Coach K. finds out where the team has gone so he, Michael, and Julie show up for the wedding.  Meanwhile, Antonio promises Kristy that, someday, he will find her in Indiana.  Awwwww!  I’m going to guess that the media appearances were handled by the team’s non-starters, who probably talked about how much fun it was to spend every game sitting on the bench while Michael, Julie, Rico, Silk, and Hammer got all the glory.

What a stupid episode.