Did the writers make Sam grow up too fast in the later seasons

[TMC]

Around Season 6-7, they had her go away to college early instead of showing her senior year of high school. And they top it off by having her get married in the last season, when she was still awfully young. The problem by having Sam get married when she did is that we as viewers, barely knew the guy that she was with. Plus, Hank was boring as dirt.

[Novera]

You're so right because Sam in her Senior year would've been the perfect sitcom/80s fodder! Also you're right about Hank being boring, at least Al had an edge to him!

[TMC]

Originally Posted by Novera

You're so right because Sam in her Senior year would've been the perfect sitcom/80s fodder! Also you're right about Hank being boring, at least Al had an edge to him!

Hank just strikes me as the prototypical bland, inoffensively generic, hunky nice guy. All that I can think of Hank's character besides marrying Sam is his love of puppetry.

Again, I probably would've accepted Hank as Sam's husband had A) They not dropped a bomb on us with his introduction and ensuing courtship and marriage to Sam and B) Hank actually had an interesting personality and genuine chemistry with Sam.

At least you could say, that Sam's previous boyfriends like Jesse, Matt, Eric, and Benjamin, had some charm and charisma about them. Plus, the whole thing in my mind, made Sam's character look bad. Not only did she impulsively and rush into a marriage to a guy that we (at least in the eyes of the viewers) just met. But she didn't have any concrete plan for her life going forward. I mean, it was soon established, that Sam and Hank don't even have a place to stay. And they obviously can't realistically live with Tony and Angela if they're going to be married. Sam even contemplated dropping out of college. Alyssa Milano was about 19-20 when Who's the Boss? ended, so it's safe to suggest that Sam was about that age too. So why was she in such a hurry to want to get married when she still has her whole life ahead of her and more important things that she needs to accomplish?

[TMC]

Originally Posted by Novera

You're so right because Sam in her Senior year would've been the perfect sitcom/80s fodder! Also you're right about Hank being boring, at least Al had an edge to him!

I just came across this article from the Los Angeles Times from December 1991, which would've been about half way into the final season of Who's the Boss? I don't know if at that point, it was officially confirmed that Season 8 was going to be the show's last.

But the article does point out that Alyssa Milano intended on leaving after said season. So I do wonder if that was the main impetus behind abruptly marrying Sam off as a easy means of writing her out of the show. I mean if Sam is now married, then it would be awfully weird for her to continue to live in Angela's house.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by TMC

Hank just strikes me as the prototypical bland, inoffensively generic, hunky nice guy. All that I can think of Hank's character besides marrying Sam is his love of puppetry.

Again, I probably would've accepted Hank as Sam's husband had A) They not dropped a bomb on us with his introduction and ensuing courtship and marriage to Sam and B) Hank actually had an interesting personality and genuine chemistry with Sam.

At least you could say, that Sam's previous boyfriends like Jesse, Matt, Eric, and Benjamin, had some charm and charisma about them. Plus, the whole thing in my mind, made Sam's character look bad. Not only did she impulsively and rush into a marriage to a guy that we (at least in the eyes of the viewers) just met. But she didn't have any concrete plan for her life going forward. I mean, it was soon established, that Sam and Hank don't even have a place to stay. And they obviously can't realistically live with Tony and Angela if they're going to be married. Sam even contemplated dropping out of college. Alyssa Milano was about 19-20 when Who's the Boss? ended, so it's safe to suggest that Sam was about that age too. So why was she in such a hurry to want to get married when she still has her whole life ahead of her and more important things that she needs to accomplish?

Come to think of it, Boy Meets World kind of did something similar but not exactly the same type of thing when Cory and Topanga got married. Like Sam on Who's the Boss?, Cory himself, was still really young and barely out of high school when he decided to get married.

And Cory's dad, Alan tells him point blank that if he's going to be married, then he can't be living in his house anymore. Basically, Cory couldn't be co-dependent on his parents anymore, hence he needs to get his own place and figure out a way to financially support himself going forward.

I don't recall Tony or Angela ever really using the "tough love" approach to Sam when she wanted to get married at a young age. The only glimpse of the idea that Tony doesn't want his daughter and son-in-law to be living with him and Angela is the fact that they fool around too much and too loudly at night.

My point is that Who's the Boss? didn't seem to go as deeply into the consequences of Sam getting married so young than maybe they could've or should've been.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by Novera

You're so right because Sam in her Senior year would've been the perfect sitcom/80s fodder! Also you're right about Hank being boring, at least Al had an edge to him!

Hank was a boring character (at least in my estimation) because he was one dimensional. He just came across as some mildly goofy meathead who just who happened land Samantha Miceli. He is introduced as a pre-med doctor, so you would assume that he was incredibly intelligent, but he just comes across as a stupid jock.

And the fact that Hank was pulling his parents by a string in regards of not actually wanting to be a doctor (and instead, wanting to be a children's puppeteer) just makes him really unsympathetic. The issue that I have isn't that he didn't want to be a doctor in the first place. It's the fact that he was a freeloader, who still lived off his parent's money knowing full well that he was never going to medical school. And he also led his parents to believe that it was perfectly fine to marry Sam at such a young age as long as he continued his pre-med studies.

But outside of the problematic writing of his character was the fact that Curnal Aulisio, the actor who played Hank, just wasn't a very great actor in my book. He was wooden, didn't have very good comedic timing, on-screen presence, or charisma, and didn't have a lot of chemistry with Alyssa Milano.

And based on his IMDb page, he didn't do a lot of on-screen acting post-Who's the Boss? He was on a show called Teech before that and a few walk on roles on shows like Married...with Children, Almost Home (AKA The Torkelsons), Step by Step, Northern Exposure, and even Judith Light's post-WTB sitcom, Phenom. It appears that he has moved on to being a producer for reality television.