Mike the Executioner
What went on up there? Poppers and weird sex!
Yeah, when the show was ending, Will was interviewed by......the L.A. Times, I think? He compared television to being on the bench and movies to having a starting spot in the lineup. He had been training for years, but now, he was ready for the coach to put him in the game. I think he made the right decision ending the series after six seasons. If it had lasted longer, we would have ended up getting some awful episodes, and the characters would have become parodies of themselves.
And yes, Will was definitely watching Martin. I think them working on Bad Boys together influenced his acting style on the show because his performances became bigger and bigger. Him serenading Uncle Phil with Dreamgirls is something that would have never happened in the earlier seasons. It's almost like the writers had no idea how to end that episode, so they just told Will to figure it out on his own.
I remember him mentioning it being John Amos in his book, but it could have also been Sherman since they both guest starred that season. I can also see Will trying to avoid that Jeffersons cancellation because that's probably the most disrespectful way to end a long-running show. How do you let the actors find out through the newspaper?
Yeah, he mentioned that when season four started, he didn't feel like he was the same comedically because of Six Degrees, so the writers shifted focus to Carlton for the first couple episodes. It wasn't until the episode where he was trying to get Hilary to date his teacher and he did the whole "Dum Dum Didday" scene that he felt like he was funny again. This is just my theory, but I feel like as the show went on, Will had to think more and more about how to be Will Smith (the character). It didn't come as easy to him as in the earlier seasons, so he compensated for it with the improvising and the Eminem-style performances.
To me, Fresh Prince never reaches that point where it becomes unwatchable. The first four seasons are perfect, and the last two seasons are good for the most part, with great stuff in isolation. Season six has "Get a Job" at least. But yeah, the shift started happening in season five. The episodes with Ashley becoming a pop star were weird and ended up being a preview for what Ashley would turn into. Then you have that episode where Will is caught by Lisa at a party and it becomes a serious Ashley episode for some reason, the witness protection episode (which, to be fair, was just a story Will was telling), the episode where Will makes out with Robin Givens and it's treated like it didn't happen. And of course, the season finale which undoes literally everything that we saw for half a season with no explanation as to why.
Fast forward to the season six premiere and Will inexplicably has nothing to do, just sitting around the house playing with toys and nobody wants anything to do with him. Then he burns the kitchen down and he has to figure out how to keep Uncle Phil from seeing it because he has an important dinner that same night.
