ALF: Season 03 (1988)

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The former Gordon Shumway, refugee of the long-gone planet Melmac, continues to wreak hilarious havoc upon his adoptive Earth family the Tanners as ALF enters its third season. By this point in time, virtually every member of the viewing public knew that Gordon's "new" name, ALF, was an acronym for Alien Life Form. They also knew that, for all his wisecracks and anti-social excesses (such as eating everything that wasn't nailed down and breaking everything else), ALF had a heart of gold, else why would the Tanners not have turned him over to the dreaded Alien Task Force long ago? Typical third-season episodes include the opener, "Stop in the Name of Love," in which ALF helpfully arranges a blind date for teenager Lynn Tanner (Andrea Elson) after accidentally scaring off her boyfriend; the two-part Thanksgiving story "Turkey in the Straw," wherein a bum repays ALF's generosity by trying to report him to the authorities; "My Back Pages," a flashback to the "hippie" days of uptight suburbanites Willie and Kate Tanner (Max Wright, Anne Schedeen); "Superstition," in which ALF performs a bizarre Melmacian ritual to expunge himself from guilt after destroying the history book possessed by young Brian Tanner (Benji Gregory); and the season finale, "Varsity Drag," the story of ALF's brief and extremely eventful career as a newspaper delivery boy. Though viewership for ALF eroded a bit during its third season thanks to the formidable competition of CBS's Newhart and ABC's MacGyver, the series still managed to end up in a healthy 15th place in the Nielsens. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi