"The Other Richie Cunningham"

Easily the worst episode so far, a D in fact, and that's only because I liked "the Potsie Club" part and the episode starts out with a standard plot, used on The Brady Bunch and Three's Company among others, where someone can't go on a blind date and he (it's usually a guy) gets a friend to pretend to be him.  Potsie hits it off with the girl, who of course (another trope here) is not the expected "dog," but then (offscreen) he attacks her and rips her dress as she tries to escape!  Then she has to hitchhike back to the hotel where she and her parents are staying.  And there are lots of jokes about men being "animals," as if attempted date rape is funny.  Even Joanie being voyeuristic, which is weird enough with Richie pranking her by telling an imaginary date that his sister would want to watch, gets even more twisted.  And to top it off, Fonzie, the "expert on women," says women aren't real people and they expect a guy to "make a pass" but they don't appreciate guys lying to them about their identities, like that's the worst part!

And then it's supposed to be enough that Potsie (still pretending to be Richie) apologizes to the poor girl, whose father (played by Ned Wertimer, then the doorman on The Jeffersons) makes her wear the ripped dress.  There's even a bit of blaming the victim, because she has "a sultry voice."  No charges pressed or anything.  The father would even still be willing to go through on the business deal, except he lied about being much more of a success than he is.

I knew HD would be problematic, but I honestly didn't expect anything this bad, and this early.  I am now starting to understand why I've always had such mixed feelings about the series.  I'm not crazy about everything that happened on Welcome Back, Kotter, but its opening credits have never made me cringe.  Still, yes, I'm sticking with this project.