"To Study Or To Play" (First Impressions - "In Your Head" - Season 9, Episode 13)

One final post to ring out 2017 - actually I'm surprised I'm doing one right now, since I didn't think there would be a new episode on January 17th, but, here it is.

And, believe it or not, there's a story happening at CalTech during one of Alex's classes.

However...

...I'm not sure how much Alex is going to be involved in it - here's the key part of the synopsis:

 "Meanwhile, Haley is desperate to land an interview with the creator of a popular lifestyle website and interrupts Alex during one of her college classes. Alex’s professor, Arvin Fennerman (Chris Geere), then proceeds to try and give Haley a piece of his mind..."
 
So, it's entirely possible that the story will have very little to do with Alex, with the focus being on Haley and one of Alex's professors.  That sounds an awful lot like the first couple of stories last season set at Alex's coffee shop, where she was little more than a spectator instead of being the main character in the story.  Let's hope that doesn't come to pass - the stories set at CalTech have been few and far between, and will probably continue to do so, and I'd hate to waste one where Alex isn't even part of it. 

One other thing doesn't add up so far - what do Alex and a professor at CalTech have anything to do with Haley trying to get (presumably) a job at a lifestyle website?  I doubt it would have anything to do with actually running it - that would be the only way I could see Haley needing Alex's advise.

I guess we'll just have to see what happens.  Maybe they'll at least let Alex celebrate her 20th birthday on the 17th.

Anyway, getting back to the scheduling:

After this episode airs, there will only be 9 episodes left (barring an unlikely bump up from 22 to 24), and almost 4 months to air them until the end of the season (either May 16th and 23rd).  It looks like we're going to have an awful lot of downtime in the second half of the season.  Given they''ll probably take a couple of weeks off while the Winter Olympics runs on NBC in February, that means after the 17th we may have as few as only one new episode in the following five weeks, and that's just for starters.

Happy New Year, everybody (especially those reading this where it is already 2018, for whom that last paragraph is probably irrelevant I guess).