Elyse (Meredith Baxter) and Steven (Michael Gross) are getting ready for their high school reunion, in The Boys Next Door. Written by Trish Vrandenburg, it first debuted on 6 March, 1988.

Alex (Michael J. Fox) is wowed to find out that Elyse went to school with Roger Erdman (Robert Klein). He’s a multi-millionaire whose company Alex is a fan of. Elyse talks about how nerdy the man was as a kid, and when he shows up wants to revisit some of their old times together.

Elyse was popular and she was Roger’s only friend, he had a bit of a crush on her and wants to reignite their friendship and reinvigorate the good times. At the reunion, they recreate their do-wop group but when Roger attempts to kiss Elyse following the performance it puts a whole new level of stress on the rebirth of their friendship.

The pair are able to sort things out, and walk away from one another with a treasured friendship, and it just seems weird to be writing about high school reunions when mine is just a couple of weeks away…

The reunion itself is a goofy affair. Speaking of goofy, Alex has a car alarm on his wallet. It’s a funny gag, but doesn’t jibe with the tone of the rest of the episode.

A Sign of the Times was written by Matthew Monaster and was first broadcast on 13 March, 1988.

Andy (Brian Bonsall) gets a chance to shine in this episode when he becomes the Official School Buddy for his class. He gets paired up with Josh (Darrell Thomas Utley), a young deaf boy. When some of the other kids start to pick on Josh, Andy stops talking in solidarity.

Hey look there’s a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt as one of Andy’s classmates.

As the Keaton family learns what is going on, they go to the school to talk with the teacher, Miss Metcalf (Terri Hanauer) and Josh’s mother, Mrs. Richards (Susan Kohler) how best to help out the two young boys, their friendship, and how they’ll deal with the bullies – Andy gets into a fight with them.

It’s Josh, who thanks Andy for his help and wants his friendship and for him to talk. It’s a great episode about dealing with the differences in children, and how cruel and, adversely, how compassionate, they can be.

Return of the Native is a filler episode, one produced a least a season previous, as Andy is a baby and the cast, specifically Jennifer (Tina Yotehrs) looks a lot younger.

Written by Lloyd Garver, this episode was first broadcast on 20 March, 1988, and not only was it produced at least one season previous but it’s also a clip episode. Sigh.

Cousin June (Danielle von Zerneck) arrives from England, and as she comments on how things have changed and people have grown, this spurs on a lot of clips from previous episodes. Honestly, the occasional clip episode is fine, but to trot out a couple of them, not only throughout the series but a season is a little much. And they made it an hour-long episode!

So as the penultimate episode of the penultimate season, this feels like a bit of a letdown.

Father, Can You Spare a Dime? closed out the season on 1 May, 1988. It was written by Peter Schneider and Ben Cardinale.

The story puts Nick (Scott Valentine) front and center. When he learns that his art class that he runs at the community center is coming to an end he realizes he wants to open an art school that would allow him to continue his work with children.

But how is he going to get the money? He can’t get a loan, and he doesn’t have a huge cash flow. So he reaches out to his estranged father, Joe (Dan Hedaya who absolutely pops with the cast), who is more than a little reticent to back his son.

Mallory (Justine Bateman) tries to mediate between the two, but Joe wasn’t the best father to Nick, and they may not be able to get over their past, even if he decides to help him out. The two characters clash, vent and finally are able to see each other as people, and perhaps find a way to let go of the past and move forward together.

And hey! There’s Gordon-Levitt as little Dougie again.

Next time I start the seventh and final season of one of my favourite sit-coms every, Family Ties.