DON’T TRUST STRANGE DOCTORS WHO SELL HOMEMADE STUFF

Something's Going Around

Original Air date September 9, 1989 

       

Writers: Len Janson and Chuck Menville

Director: Charles Grosvenor

Main Cast:

• Dave Coulier as Peter Venkman
• Frank Welker as Raymond Stantz
• Maurice LaMarche as Egon Spengler
• Buster Jones as Winston Zeddemore
• Kath Soucie as Janine Melnitz
• Frank Welker as Slimer
• Rodger Bumpass as Louis Tully

(Rating 4 of 5)

Summary: Peter is very sick and his symptoms start to take on a supernatural form of elevation and mutation.  Concern for Peter has Louis Tully calling in a Doctor McCatheter to come to the firehouse and look at Peter.  McCatherter also sells a health food special potato chip.  McCatheter tells Peter that he has become to allergic to ghosts and must give up ghostbusting.  They decide to get a second opinion and in the meantime Janine reluctantly takes in Peter as a house guest.

Sick Peter.

                McCatheter is actually a ghost and he has given the Ghostbusters those chips in order to poison all of them.  Soon all of the Ghostbusters have the same allergy Peter has and when they try to confront McCatheter their new illness makes them unable to combat him.  He takes over the firehouse and invites other ghosts to join him. 

The "doctor" has a look.

                Egon decides they must detox and the only way to do that is to overload their systems.  So they lock themselves in a room with Slimer and overload their reactions.  The allergies are ghost-like and at full overload the Ghostbusters can trap them.  Once Janine pulls the trap on the infection the fully healthy Ghostbusters take down McCatheter. 

This is the point things got difficult.

My Take: Seriously any “doctor” who is trying to sell you his own home made potato chips shouldn’t be trusted by anybody.  Also considering Peter’s symptoms were supernatural I think it was a fairly obvious ghost attack. 

                Now for my stray observations:

• What happened to the apartment he had in Ghostbuster II?  Are things going so bad that he lost it?
• Also Mercury is dangerous the Ghostbusters should get on top of that right away.
•  For a second I actually thought that McCatheter was going to literally take over the Ghostbusters’ business and fight ghosts.
• Although I do give McCatheter some credit, if I were a ghost I would try to eliminate the Ghostbusters as well. 
• If overexposing themselves was the cure then maybe they should never left the firehouse to begin with. 

This was a reasonably good episode.  I like having Louis Tully as a character.