DVD Tales from Avonlea - Beginnings

Episode 1.1, "The Journey Begins" tells how young Sara Stanley (Sarah Polley) is shipped off to her late mother's relatives on Prince Edward Island when When her father is threatened with financial ruin. Sara arrives in Avonlea with her Nanny Louisa is tow, only to meet up with the formidable King family, headed by the imperious Aunt Hetty (Jackie Burroughs), who also happens to be the local school teacher.

Episode 1.6, "The Proof of the Pudding" finds Felicity in charge of her siblings when Alec and Janet go to Charlottetown to celebrate their anniversary. Sarah is added to the mix when Aunt Hetty goes to visit the Governor's office to prevent an over-zealous lawyer from denying the King's water rights to the local pond. Actually it is sawdust that ends up in the pudding and the woman who shows up at the King's farm is not the tone deaf Great Aunt Eliza but Agnes Leslie, the wife of the Governor.

Episode 1.3, "Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's" is one of the best adaptations of a Montgomery short story. Mrs. Rachel Lynde (Patricia Hamilton) is put in charge of the boy's Sunday School class and when she finds the young boy who work's Alexander Abraham's farm has gone truant, she heads out to save the boy's soul. However, everybody involved is in for a big shock when they all end up in Abraham's home only to discover he has been quarantined because of the small pox.

Episode 1.4, "The Materializing of Duncan McTavish," begins when Sara asks Marilla Cuthbert (Colleen Dewhurst) "Did you ever have a beau?" Having endured a lifetime of slurs because she never did, Marilla defiantly declares "I had one once" and weaves a fantasy about her beau Duncan (because it is her favorite name) and McTavish (because she sees an advertisement for McTavish Porous Plasters). Of course, who should arrive in town but Duncan McTavish himself and Sara Stanley knows Fate has brought the two former lovers together again.

Episode 1.11, "The Witch of Avonlea" is about Peg Bowen (Susan Cox), who lives in the woods smoking her pipe and doing whatever she wants with no concern for what the good folks of Avonlea think or say. When Felix King (Zachary Bennett) finds himself unable to spell anything during the class spelling bees because he is so afraid of Aunt Hetty, his nightmares convince him she might be a witch. So he goes off to visit Peg, who gives him a "magic" stone to give him confidence

Episode 1.13, "Nothing Endures but Change," finds that Blair Stanley, Sara's father, has been acquitted of the scandalous embezzlement charges that forced him to send his daughter to live with her mother's relatives on Prince Edward Island. Blair arrives in Avonlea ready to take Sara back to Montreal, at which point everyone of Sara's King relatives absolutely freaks, especially Aunt Hetty, who announces she will not give the child up to her father. Sara wants to say goodbye to all her friends and attend the upcoming skating party she has been looking forward to, but her father wants to get out of Avonlea and as far away from Hetty as quickly as possible. Sara cannot abide the thought that two of the people she loves most in the world cannot even talk to each other civilly, and so she hatches up a plan to force their reconciliation.

Episode 2.2, "How Kissing Was Discovered" begins Great Aunt Eliza (the real one) coming for a visit and turning the King household upside down. Meanwhile, Alec discovers that playing cricket is not as easy it was when he was a younger man and Felicity has her eye on a young cricket player on the visiting team. After all, she is now all grown up and has decided it is time to receive her "first kiss." However, Sarah and Felix have made a new friend in Gus Pike (Michael Mahonen), a young sailor recently arrived in Avonlea and looking for work. Alec lets Gus stay in his barn and while Felicity will not give the boy the time of day, it is clear that he finds her rather interesting.

Episode 2.3, "Aunt Hetty's Ordeal" begins the pivotal relationship between Gus Pike and Hetty King begins. Given how Hetty treats Sara, Olivia and everybody else in the extended King family, you have to worry about poor, uneducated Gus. The problem is that everybody in Avonlea knows to take Hetty King with a grain or salt. But Gus thinks everything Aunt Hetty says is carved on stone tablets and when Hetty makes a heated offhand remark to the young man it has significant repercussions. Gus had been a minor character in previous episodes, and "Aunt Hetty's Ordeal" is where he starts becoming more important to the show in general (and Felicity King in particular). This is also the point where Hetty King, who tended to be a bit insufferable for my money, started to thaw, because the big difference between Gus and Sara, is that Gus is not family and Hetty ends up opening her heart to him.

Granted, these are probably the better half of those first sixteen episodes. But the legion of fans for "Avonlea" would be better served by having each season available on DVD and they may well hold out for that then pick this up.