Today in the Department of Before They Were Star Trek Stars, Brent Spiner guest stars in "Prelude," episode 20 of the fourth season of Family (original air date April 20, 1979).
Family was one of the big prestige dramas of the late 1970s. In this episode, Spiner plays Fred, an assistant high school swim coach who recommends the titular family's younger daughter (Kristy McNichol in her breakout role) to be the first girl on the varsity team. She immediately develops a crush on the head coach. He is fully aware of her feelings, but despite Fred's halfhearted admonitions, he does absolutely nothing to discourage her until after she wins the big swim meet for him.
In a story that could only air in the 1970s, this is all played as a no-hard-feelings, no-harm-done rite of passage, smiles all around, and did I ever mention that everybody in my small town knew that my Grade 12 English teacher had affairs with students for years, and everybody thought it was OK because they were pretty much sort of hovering around the age of consent and he married the one who got pregnant, and it didn't end until a few years after I was gone and a new administration came in, and apparently one of the girls had some kind of breakdown and the whole town blamed her? This episode didn't trigger anything for me at all!
Anyway, Brent looks absolutely adorable in his huge glasses and little shorts and long hair.
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