It was a hard decision giving this one only seven stars. On the one hand, it is part of that exceptional first season of Northern Exposure. But, on the other, it's also an example of how even a show of this caliber can succumb to lazy writing and hackneyed plot devices. Furthermore, even though this show was just a slight bump in an otherwise stellar season, it was also, possibly, a portent of numerous episodes to come (mostly after season three) that would also suffer from similarly poor writing. The most glaring shortcomings revolve around the two separate storylines involving Maurice and Holling. In the former, as Maurice considers making Chris his heir and sole beneficiary of the Minnifield fortune, we're treated to the rather worn-out "odd couple" trope that, at times, almost smacks of below-average sit-com writing. And in Holling's story, the writer's make that truly annoying blunder of essentially negating and contradicting all the development they've put into a character up to that point. For six episodes, we've been treated to stories of how seasoned and formidable of an outdoorsman Holling is; how numerous times, in the wild, he's stared death in the face and lived to tell the tale. So what are we treated to in an episode that is supposed to feature the titanic showdown between Holling and Jesse The Bear that almost killed him years earlier? Nothing more than a gimmicky plot, played mainly for laughs, about how when he takes Shelly into the woods with him to hunt for Jesse, he ends up completely ignoring the bear in favor of two days of canoodling with Shelly in his tent. The only aspect of the episode that seems to retain the real spirit of quality Northern Exposure is the near-always enjoyable acrimony between Maggie and Dr Fleischman. Certainly a long way from the worst Northern Exposure episode you'll ever see, but pretty far from the best as well.