Dawn Saves the Trees (TV#11)

What happens:

The BSC takes its charges to a nearby park where they look at tadpoles, hang nuts for birds and squirrels, do some cloud-watching, and generally enjoy nature. Jamie Newton finds a "baby" bird--looks to be an adult house finch or a sparrow--that's fallen from its nest, and the BSC decides to call an animal rescue place to come get bird (although they leave it completely alone in the woods, so it's almost certainly going to get eaten by a cat or something). They also discover that some developers are planning to tear down a large part of the area to build a road through it. Dawn rallies the BSC to lead a demonstration.

The BSC heads out to do some preparation, where they run into Logan and his friend David. Dawn gets an instant crush on him, and it seems David might be interested, too. He even asks if Dawn can come to the movies with Mary Anne, Logan, Kristy, Bart, and him. But it turns out that David's mother is part of the commission building the road. He points out that a road will enable more people to enjoy the park (like people in wheelchairs), but Dawn won't hear any of it. She sticks to her principles, if a bit brusquely, and cancels the date. I was hoping we'd get to see Bart. Oh well.

Dawn speaks out at a planning meeting, but the commission still votes to go ahead with the plan. Dawn's pretty down about, but Mary Anne and Stacey tactfully points out that there could be a middle ground. The BSC convinces Dawn to talk to David to see if they can re-present their proposal to his mom. The BSC researches alternative road ideas, and comes up with a way to provide access for people with mobility impairments and leaves the trees intact. Dawn apologizes for how she acted (she basically just yelled at them) and David's mother agrees to reconsider. The commission reconvenes and approves the BSC's plan. And much to my surprise, the episode ends with the now healthy sparrow (I got a better look at it) flying away.


Things I noticed:

I like that no one says they can't touch the bird because then the parents will reject it because it will smell like humans. Most birds have terrible senses of smell. They say to leave it alone because they might be scaring the parents away, which is far more accurate.

In the TV show, Dawn's really the only boy-crazy one. What's more in line with the books is that Dawn starts to get a power-hungry like in Dawn Saves the Planet. She also wears dolphin earrings, and the books indicate in a few places that she likes dolphins. Although there's a point when I expected the girls to point out that Dawn has two holes in each ear and they don't.

Kristy, Claudia, and Jessi have brown eyes like in the books, and Stacey and Mallory have blue eyes like in the books. Dawn has brown eyes instead of blue, and Mary Anne has blue instead of brown.


Special guest stars: Zach Braff as a vaguely mullety David Cummings, Najah Dupree as Becca, Jimmy Galeota as Jamie Newton, Gina Gallagher as Charlotte Johanssen, Kathryn Grody as Mrs. Cummings, Danny Tamberelli as Jackie Rodowsky