This show had a very low budget since it was produced for PBS. And while its production values are almost laughably bad when viewed in a current light, its acting and writing are good enough that it remains a surprisingly watchable trip down memory lane -- for that rare group of people who actually remember watching this as a kid.

The show focuses on the lives of a group of 5 teens (Jennifer, Kevin, Tony, Pepper and Lolo) who hang out at a youth activity center called Powerhouse. The characters range in ages between 11 and 17. There is great chemistry between the actors and at times they feel like a family.

What is remarkable is how serious the show's plots could get. The gang would often face major challenges such as alcoholism, kidnapping, and anti-Semitism. Although the show has a slightly embarassing "Afterschool Special" vibe to it, the skill of the actors helps things remain fairly natural and so it ultimately ends up better than many of the other shows in its genre.

It is a very difficult show to find, because it was never released on VHS, so the only available copies are videos made off of broadcast TV. Snce so few people watched it in the first place, very few people ever taped it. I finally did manage to see the show recently, and I was surprised by how much I still liked it. It is not likely to gain new fans -- far too low budget -- but existing fans hoping to experience a bit of nostalgia will be rewarded if they manage to find this show.

For being 25 years old, this pilot episode holds up surprisingly well. Sure, there are some very hokey elements, such as the fact that the "high school" students all look like they are older than the actor playing the teacher.

But overall, this pilot episode features a complexity to its characters and storyline that is surprising. The lead actor is a dad going through a messy custody battle with an ex-wife. We see what appears to be a white supremacist movement hunting down a black man in the desert, and we see a power hungry Vice President hatching a devious plan to take over the government.

What always made this show a bit odd is that the premise is extremely comedic, but for the most part the actors play their parts straight. I think this helps make this pilot episode remain watchable. Instead of having to sit through painfully dated comedy, we instead are treated to a type of storyline that is very unusual for a TV show. So, no matter how dated this episode may be, the fact that almost nothing has been made for TV like it since it originally aired, makes it still a worthwhile viewing experience.

Up until this point, Yukino's father has been a bit of a one-dimensional character, so it is nice that in this episode we get to see a fuller account of his life.

The episode focuses on Mr. Miyazawa's childhood in which he was an orphan living with his grandfather. We get many poignant scenes in which the young Miyazawa helplessly watches his grandfather grow older and frailer over the passing years.

Meanwhile, we witness the way in which the young Miyazawa meets and falls in love with the girl who ends up becoming his wife and the mother of Yukino and her sisters.

It is all great background info that only serves to provide a richer background for the main storyline. As much as I was enjoying Arima and Yukino's romance, it is continuing to surprise me, how much I also enjoy these episodes that focus on other characters.

It is a nice feeling to see this show back on course again, after the two previous re-cap episodes. I am once again eager to see the next episodes.

This episode, is very closely tied together with the previous episode and focuses on the interesting life of Yukino's former nemesis Tsubasa.

There is quite a lot of humor in this episode as Tsubasa is quite a funny character. However, mixed in with this humor, is some very serious stuff that is very interesting to watch.

We watch the complexities involved as Tsubasa's dad seeks to marry a woman who has a son about the same age as Tsubasa.

There are some very touching scenes as Tsubasa and her brother contemplate the possibility of becoming siblings. We also get to see a glimpse at some of the difficulties Tsubasa has being a cute little girl who seems to bring out everyone's worst side.

All this story is told with great pacing and interesting use of various animation techniques. It is a classic episode from the series and all the more to be cherished due to the fact that the series starts to kind of go downhill from here on out.

This anime is somewhat known for the production problems that plagued it. One of the problems often mentioned is that the writer of the comic book that the show was based on took too long to generate stories.

As a result, the TV show caught up with the story progress of the written source material. Unfortunately, the TV show was required to produce an episode, so in order to kill time until the writer had come up with the material, the show made some re-cap episodes with pre-existing animated material.

This is the first recap episode, and it is simply absurd. There have only been 13 episodes, and this episode and the next are both re-caps. This episode just covers the first 8 episodes and, while it is nice to see the story in summary, it is mostly just tragic to see that this anime which was capable of such amazing heights, was forced to descend to such a cheap trick as a re-cap episode.