Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC  from 1975 to 1979.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

Gabe is finally happy so, of course, Julie is pissed off about it.

Episode 3.21 “There’s No Business: Part 2”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on February 2nd, 1978)

This week, Gabe’s comedy career continues!

The Sweathogs are hurt when Gabe doesn’t even come by the school to say goodbye to them before their substitute teacher is brought in.  Julie is upset that Gabe agrees to do a muti-week tour without even asking her about it first.  (Then again, one gets the feeling that if Gabe had turned down the tour, Julie would find an excuse to get mad about that as well.  At this point, I’m just waiting for Julie to run off with Epstein but Marcia Strassman had more chemistry with Robert Hegyes than she ever did with Gabe Kaplan.)

At first, the only person who is happy about any of this is Mr. Woodman.  Without Gabe around, the Sweathogs are running wild and Woodman finally has a reason to give everyone detention.  “It’s Woodman’s Golden Reign of Terror!” Woodman declares.  But then the Sweathogs, due to being sad over being abandoned by Gabe, become listless and Woodman is left with nothing to do.

“We need you back, Kotter!” Woodman tells Gabe just before Gabe goes out on stage to perform.

Gabe agrees.  Gabe bombs on stage so badly that his show business career comes to an end.  Gabe returns to teaching.  “Did you bomb on purpose?” Woodman asks when he sees Gabe in the school.  Gabe doesn’t reply but we all know the answer.

The problem is that Gabe “bombing,” occurs off-screen and we only hear about it second-hand.  It’s hard not to feel a bit cheated because the idea of Gabe giving an intentionally bad performance sounds like it would have been a lot more fun to watch than sitting through yet another scene of Julie giving Gabe the death glare while Gabe looks like a deer in the headlights.

On the plus side, this episode did feature some good Sweathog moments.  John Travolta, who hasn’t really gotten a lot to do in the latter half of the third season, explains that the best way to deal with someone leaving is to pretend that they’re dead so you don’t have to worry about them anymore.  All of the Sweatogs dress up to visit Gabe before he performs and all of the cheap suits provide a nice visual moment.  The Sweatogs may not have the money for expensive suits but they still want to look their best when they see Gabe.  They respect their teacher, even if he is thinking of abandoning them,

In the end, this entire two-part episode was a bit of an anti-climax.  Because the show would cease to exist if Gabe actually did go on tour and we’re not even done with the third season yet, we all know that Gabe is going to eventually return to the Sweathogs.  And considering that Gabe seemed a lot happier as a comedian than as a teacher, it’s kind of hard not to feel bad for the guy.  He’s stuck with Arnold Horshack!  Your dreams were your ticket out but now your dreams are your prison.  Welcome back indeed.