Season 9 Episode 22: User Friendly

Bud volunteers for a research study at the university, and the equipment generates a virtual encounter with whoever the subject is thinking about, which in Bud’s case is Amber. The study runs him through it while two researchers and a janitor watch from a control room, and the running commentary they provide on what they are observing is the funniest sequence of the episode, ending with the janitor’s assessment of what the session will require afterwards. Bud becomes dependent on the machine almost immediately. The change in him is dramatic enough that his sister notices: he cleans himself up, he loses interest in the real Amber, and he starts boxing up the possessions he no longer needs, which Kelly inventories out loud. Meanwhile Al has found a light switch in the house that does not appear to operate anything, and the investigation of that switch consumes him. With Jefferson and Bob Rooney assisting, he progressively dismantles the house looking for the circuit, running wires across the staircase and through the living room, and the answer, when it arrives, is in the backyard and belongs to the dog. This is the last appearance of Amber.

Al’s half of the episode is one of the series’ purest pieces of nonsense: he finds a light switch in the house that does not appear to do anything, and he, Jefferson and Bob Rooney set about tearing the place apart to find out what it is wired to. Bud’s thread closes a door: this is the last appearance of Juliet Tablak as Amber, who had been built up across the season and who, by Tablak’s own account years later, had already signed on to carry over into the proposed Trumaine spin-off that never got made.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: April 9, 1995
• Season and episode: Season 9, Episode 22
• Overall episode number: 206
• Written by: Russell Marcus
• Directed by: Sam W. Orender
• Taped: March 10, 1995
• Production note: The final appearance of Juliet Tablak as Amber. In a 2017 radio interview Tablak said the character was to have carried over into the proposed spinoff Radio Free Trumaine, and that she had signed on, before Amber was removed at the last minute and replaced by a new character played by Keri Russell.
• Production note: Marcy’s hair is noticeably shorter from this episode, close to her season 5 style.
• Title note: From the computing term.

Guest Cast

• Juliet Tablak as Amber
• JD Cullum as Dr. Kessler
• Elaine Hendrix as Sandy
• John Kendall as Bruno

The Switch That Does Nothing

The control room scene is the best-written thing in the episode because the humour comes entirely from clinical detachment. Sandy correctly identifies what she is watching as foreplay, Dr. Kessler offers an alternative diagnosis involving the colon, revises his position, and then a second opinion is sought from the janitor, whose contribution is purely logistical.

Al’s light switch is a perfect Al Bundy obsession: it costs nothing, it benefits nobody, it cannot be abandoned, and it ends with the structure of his own house compromised. Recruiting Jefferson and Bob Rooney guarantees that no electrical work will be done competently, and the eventual discovery of what the switch controls is the only possible punchline.

Bud’s opening attempt on Amber is the clearest statement of the character the ninth season produced. He opens with an apology for past conduct, she specifies which past conduct she means, he confirms it, and his proposed amends is a four-word question. Amber’s reply, and Al’s completely unrelated shouting at the television underneath it, is the joke.

Kelly’s inventory of the box Bud is discarding is the moment the episode turns its premise into a character point. He is giving up the things that have defined him for nine years, and his sister is the only person who finds that worrying.

Elaine Hendrix, who plays the researcher, returns in season 11’s “Lez Be Friends” as Elaine. She and David Faustino dated for a time in the mid-nineties.

Famous Quotes

• Bud, making amends: “It has come to my attention that I may have been a bit forward with you in the past.” Amber: “You mean like when you grabbed my shirt and went ‘Honk! Honk!’?” Bud: “Yeah. And I was thinking that maybe I could make it up to you this weekend. Your pants or mine?”
• Amber: “For your information a woman is more than a loose assortment of body parts put here for your entertainment. We have minds too.”
• Kelly, arriving with a TV Guide: “Look. ‘Beverly Hills, 90, 210’. Boy, they must be really dumb. That far in the future they’re still in high school.”
• Sandy, observing the experiment: “Oh, I recognize this. It’s foreplay.” Dr. Kessler: “Either that or he has a spastic colon.”
• Sandy, seeking a third view: “Hey, Bruno. What does this look like to you?” Bruno: “Looks like I’m gonna need a bigger mop.”

Notes

• It is established that Bud has had sex four times.
• Peg lists what has replaced her favourite talk shows, works out that one of them has not been replaced at all, and that is the joke.
• Goofs: the wiring Al has run is off to the side of the staircase in one shot and spread across it in the next, and Amber’s hands change position between consecutive shots of the same line.