Reviews (1)

Peg Bowen helps Felix, but dad comes to take Sarah home
I do not think Lucy Maud Montgomery ever came up with a more maddening creation that Hetty King (Jackie Burroughs), the self-appointed moral judge of the King clan in Avonlea. Aunt Hetty is in the thick of things for both of the first season episodes of "Avonlea" collected on this third of four videos, "Magical Moments":

"The Witch of Avonlea" is Peg Bowen (Susan Cox), who lives in the woods smoking her pipe and doing whatever she wants with no concern for what the good folks of Avonlea think or say. When Felix King (Zachary Bennett) finds himself unable to spell anything during the class spelling bees because he is so afraid of Aunt Hetty, his nightmares convince him she might be a witch. So he goes off to visit Peg, who gives him a "magic" stone. His confidence restored, Felix wins the school spelling bee and moves on to the next level of competition. If you do not know that he is going to lose the magic stone before the contest then you must be totally unfamiliar with the rules of children's fiction. Meanwhile, the dreams of Felicity (Gema Zamprogna) have their own comeuppance, as events take her down a peg at the same time that Felix enjoys his moment in the sun.

The important episode here is "Nothing Endures but Change," which finds that Blair Stanley, Sara's father, has been acquitted of the scandalous embezzlement charges that forced him to send his daughter to live with her mother's relatives on Prince Edward Island. Blair arrives in Avonlea ready to take Sara (Sarah Polley) back to Montreal, at which point everyone of Sara's King relatives absolutely freaks. None, of course, as much as Hetty, who announces she will not give the child up to her father. Hetty has always blamed Blair for not only taking her sister Ruth away but in living a decadent life (of travel) that resulted in her death (she caught tuberculosis at home in Montreal). Hetty also has a few things to say about what appears to be happening between Olivia and Jasper Dale, which only makes you wonder how Alec ever managed to get away from Hetty's all encompassing powers. Sara wants to say goodbye to all her friends and attend the upcoming skating party she has been looking forward to, but her father wants to get out of Avonlea and as far away from Hetty as quickly as possible. Sara cannot abide the thought that two of the people she loves most in the world cannot even talk to each other civilly, and so she hatches up a plan to force their reconciliation. But these two stubborn adults cannot admit for a second that the other cares as much for Sara as they do, which only means that fate is going to have to take a hand to make things right.

For me the chief charm of "Nothing Endures but Change," certainly the loftiest sounding title in the series, is enjoying Hetty King getting her comeuppance a few times. She really is such an intolerant woman for somebody who does so many unforgivable things. However, her redemption is still down the road, coming in the form of Gus Pike. It is in his unflinching admiration and respect, that Hetty King is finally confronted with a true mirror of her life. ... Read more