For the second part, I agree, although they risk alienating their fan base. That's their choice. As for the first part, speak for yourself. For some of us it was very painful. :frankiemad:

I have gotten to the point where I can tolerate that episode (acceptance does not necessarily mean approval). I never understood why some people have to get what they want at the expense of others - but it happens.:cheese:

Cheese is the perfect icon to use for that statement.

I don't believe that I've yet given my opinion upon this, quite possibly the most hotly-debated of all Foster's episodes. To be honest I've been a little cautious about doing so in the past, given how much of a sore spot it is for some fans, but here goes.

In many ways, the structure of this episode reminds me very strongly of the Frasier episode, Crane vs. Crane, in that it spends most of its duration convincing us to place our sympathies within a particular cause and then rather cruelly opts to pull the rug out from underneath us at the very end, possibly in the interests of unpredictability, but ultimately at the expense of the viewer’s feelings and the episode’s own story arc. In both cases, the end result is more frustrating to the viewers (or at least a significant proportion of them) than anything else, and winds up pretty much obscuring whatever moral point the episode may have been attempting to deliver. As much as I adore Frasier, the episode “Crane vs. Crane” has never sat particularly well with me. It’s certainly not without its merits, but its final message, that Frasier is far from infallible and that Niles will occasionally get things right, doesn’t feel nearly as important or satisfactory as the point that the episode originally appeared to be making, and ultimately sacrificed, about society’s rather shallow and narrow definitions of normality.

Swap “Frasier” with “Frankie” and “Niles” with “Bloo”, and you more or less have the final rhetoric offered by “Imposter’s Home for Make Em Up Pals”, and again, it feels somewhat irrelevant, almost petty, compared to everything that’s come before. That Goofball may have been telling the truth all along about his identity doesn’t quite excuse the fact that he was still a complete nuisance to poor Frankie throughout his stay at Foster

Interesting comparison, JJ! I like Frasier too, and have since before I moved to the Seattle area. ;) I think I remember what episode you're talking about. I don't like seeing any character being persecuted to such a great extent, at least without getting some comfort and/or revenge in the end. I don't remember feeling as let down when watching "Crane vs. Crane", but then I was never attached to Frasier like I am Foster's. I do remember however the episode didn't impress me either. :P

Yeah, the comparison probably isn't entirely perfect, particularly seeing as how at the end of "Crane vs. Crane" Niles, unlike Bloo, does at least have to acknowledge that his final victory was a pretty hollow one. Plus, unlike "Imposters", the bulk of the episode doesn't consist of a particular Frasier character having to undergo an agonising endurance test - indeed, if not for that rather nasty twist ending, CvC would be a pleasant enough episode to watch, more or less. I guess the connection has less to do with the specific content of the episode than it does the basic structure - ie: encouraging the viewers to empathise with one side of an issue merely to spring an unpleasant "Gotcha!" moment upon them at the end. I'm left with a rather bitter aftertaste in both cases.

I don't like this episode. Not only because it tortures Frankie, it was just not funny. If it had a character who deserved it like Bendy, I still wouldn't of last. It's like the writers said let's do a horrible episode about torturing some good character.

I just didn't care for this episode. It could have been good, borderline okay at best, but it just... didn't sit right with me. It was just kinda... bleh. :P

Now, I have NO INTENTION to see this episode, nor did I ever want to post in this thread, but I just saw something from TV.com that caught my eye regarding the episode:
It kinda makes me wonder if Craig wrote this episode without Lauren not knowing about it. :frankiemad:

I'm sorry are you implying that Craig (Lewis) just went ahead and wrote this episode behind everyone's back and just kind of sprung it on everyone at the last second?

That sort of unprofessional behavior would get any television writer into so much hot water that their career would essentially be sunk for good.

So I hardly would think that was the case at all, especially with the other Craig at the helm creatively constantly checking in on every script from first draft to last.

And that said, C.Lewis while yes was the assigned writer for this episode, it's a safe bet that CMC, Lauren, the other writers and possibly network executives would have given their feedback and made contributions to the story here and there as it was being made.

And despite all that there is also the time factor at play, deadlines must be followed to letter. So maybe they did in fact have the best episode ever at one point but a lot of it had to be sacrificed without destroying the basic structure of the story in order to get the thing out on time.

Who knows? None of us can really say for sure because we weren't there.

BTW C.Lewis left the show not because of the feed back associated with this episode, but because he wanted to move on to his own projects (One of which was his short lived Adult Swim series "Saul of the Mole Men") So this would have been his last episode no matter what.