"Please Don't Give My Jeannie No More Wine" finds the Nelsons dining at the Bellows residence, with the distinguished Congressman Farragut (Alan Oppenheimer) due to arrive later. Failing to bring a bottle of wine with them, Jeannie blinks up a bottle from the cellar of a Persian shah from 1591, which renders the doctor and his wife invisible (though they can still see each other). Tony has to draft Roger to keep close to the congressman until they get the Bellows to sober up. A 'deliciously tipsy' Mrs. Bellows again flirts outrageously with Major Nelson, describing him as clumsy but cute! The cheap invisibility gags just don't measure up.
I Dream of Jeannie (TV Series)
Please Don't Give My Jeannie No More Wine (1970)
User Reviews
Review this title3 Reviews
Simple solution ignored - again
gjw28 May 2022
When Dr. & Mrs. Bellows become invisible (due to drinking a magical wine), Major Nelson and Jeannie spend the entire episode trying to deal with the problem.
Yet all Jeannie had to do was blink the couple into their beds and make them fall asleep (or simply "freeze" them in place) until they became visible again.
This sort of thing is a frequent problem with "I Dream of Jeannie" (and also with "Bewitched"): the writers make the magical characters virtually omnipotent most of the time, but then make them unable to deal with even simple problems when it's convenient for the script.
For instance, on "Bewitched", it is shown more than once that Samantha can "freeze" people in mid-stride and keep them motionless until she chooses to unfreeze them, at which point they just start up where they left off, without even realizing that anything happened.
Now think about how many times on that show just "freezing" someone temporarily could have easily solved the problem at hand (such as when a visitor to the Stevens home is about to see something peculiar, and Darren & Samantha have to scramble to head them off).
Yet the writers conveniently forget that she can do this whenever doing so might interfere with the writers' desire to stretch out a simple problem into a 30-minute episode.
The same thing happens often with Jeannie, and this episode is just one example. It's hard to enjoy a plot when the simple solution to the problem is so obvious, yet the characters seem too dumb to think of it.
Yet all Jeannie had to do was blink the couple into their beds and make them fall asleep (or simply "freeze" them in place) until they became visible again.
This sort of thing is a frequent problem with "I Dream of Jeannie" (and also with "Bewitched"): the writers make the magical characters virtually omnipotent most of the time, but then make them unable to deal with even simple problems when it's convenient for the script.
For instance, on "Bewitched", it is shown more than once that Samantha can "freeze" people in mid-stride and keep them motionless until she chooses to unfreeze them, at which point they just start up where they left off, without even realizing that anything happened.
Now think about how many times on that show just "freezing" someone temporarily could have easily solved the problem at hand (such as when a visitor to the Stevens home is about to see something peculiar, and Darren & Samantha have to scramble to head them off).
Yet the writers conveniently forget that she can do this whenever doing so might interfere with the writers' desire to stretch out a simple problem into a 30-minute episode.
The same thing happens often with Jeannie, and this episode is just one example. It's hard to enjoy a plot when the simple solution to the problem is so obvious, yet the characters seem too dumb to think of it.
The series as a whole
hmoika17 January 2021
Warning: Spoilers
This review is more for the entire series; but it also pertains to this weak episode.
Last year, I bought the DVD box set for Jeannie. It had been decades since I'd watched the show, and I just wanted to take another look. Generally speaking, I'd give the entire series 4 stars.
There were just far too many lame, preposterous scripts throughout the run of the series, so that the actors must have felt "hemmed in." Case in point: the script for this episode makes the same mistake that I've seen in so many previous episodes: a wacky idea is concocted by the writer, and then the next 30 minutes has the same wacky idea played out again and again. There rarely seems to be any "movement" of the plot: it's just the same old gag doled out for the run of the episode......until it's time to wrap things up. There's just no sense of a real "story."
For this particular episode, I feel that it was a huge mistake not to have the Bellows become visible again, only to have them once more "disappear" moments later. I would have loved to SEE Mrs. Bellows a bit tipsy from her wine. But no: the plot just plodded along in the same old way.
I do wish I could have enjoyed this series more. Barbara Eden was a joy to watch!
Last year, I bought the DVD box set for Jeannie. It had been decades since I'd watched the show, and I just wanted to take another look. Generally speaking, I'd give the entire series 4 stars.
There were just far too many lame, preposterous scripts throughout the run of the series, so that the actors must have felt "hemmed in." Case in point: the script for this episode makes the same mistake that I've seen in so many previous episodes: a wacky idea is concocted by the writer, and then the next 30 minutes has the same wacky idea played out again and again. There rarely seems to be any "movement" of the plot: it's just the same old gag doled out for the run of the episode......until it's time to wrap things up. There's just no sense of a real "story."
For this particular episode, I feel that it was a huge mistake not to have the Bellows become visible again, only to have them once more "disappear" moments later. I would have loved to SEE Mrs. Bellows a bit tipsy from her wine. But no: the plot just plodded along in the same old way.
I do wish I could have enjoyed this series more. Barbara Eden was a joy to watch!
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
