The pilot sets up the entire series. Jason Bernard is the principal and a few episodes later his character, Coach Reeves' old friend who hires him to work at the ghetto school of Carver High, was played by a much more fitting Ed Bernard.
This pilot balanced the plot of James Hayward (Thomas Carter) needing a job and Ken Howard's title character trying to help him out. The strangest aspect is how the team members are, in order to make Reeves' job more edgy to set up the series, more like criminals than what they'd become: endearingly flawed students and decent basketball players that need a little shaping.
Even butt-of-all-jokes Abner Goldstein is described by pretty but firm VP Joan Pringle as "a future Baby Face Nelson" and Salami is hardly wallpaper... He'd get more screen-time in the 8th episode. We'll get there.
This pilot balanced the plot of James Hayward (Thomas Carter) needing a job and Ken Howard's title character trying to help him out. The strangest aspect is how the team members are, in order to make Reeves' job more edgy to set up the series, more like criminals than what they'd become: endearingly flawed students and decent basketball players that need a little shaping.
Even butt-of-all-jokes Abner Goldstein is described by pretty but firm VP Joan Pringle as "a future Baby Face Nelson" and Salami is hardly wallpaper... He'd get more screen-time in the 8th episode. We'll get there.
