Tansson Media Blog

 Jumping a season from my previous review of the season, I go to the second season premiere of The Facts of Life . Unlike the first season, the series now focuses on only four young girls at the Eastland School as opposed to the large ensemble of yesteryear, three of which are returning cast members, alongside Mrs. Edna Garrett. Starting off the season, we once again find ourselves with exposition, with Tootie (Kim Fields) and Natalie (Mindy Cohn) explaining to each other and Blair that Mrs. Garrett got a new job as the school dietitian, as opposed to being a housemother. Surprisingly, we also see Arnold Jackson (the late Gary Coleman) return from Diff'rent Strokes  in one of the final scenes the two shows crossover. Minutes into the show, we see the motorcycle driving Jo Polniaczek (Nancy McKeon) enter, moving in from The Bronx, New York as Blair's latest foil, transferring from public education to start a new life. While they do not necessarily see eye to eye, they at least ...

"There's a place you've got to go for learning all you want to know about the facts of life." - Gloria Loring singing the original theme song of the series. Running from 1979 to 1988 on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) network as a spin-off of Diff'rent Strokes , the series The Facts of Life  ran nine seasons as a staple of television, produced by Norman Lear's Embassy Television. While I wasn't born until over a decade after the series ended, I began watching the series in syndicated reruns on The Hub Network in elementary school, instantly falling in love with the character's fun antics and the life lessons of housemother Mrs. Garrett (Charlotte Rae). In my journey to become more familiar with the series from the era I adore so much, I chose The Facts of Life  as my first series to re-watch select episodes from. Despite focusing much of my rewatching on the later seasons, I did want to first re-watch the pilot episode, stemming from a season I...