The Osbournes, Season 3, Episode 1: The Turn of the Screw

The new season of The Osbournes began at 10:30 pm, January 27, with a number of episodes already in the can. The concern now is if there will be enough footage to do ten episodes, much more the full twenty promised when the contracts were signed last year for this new season. The problem, as everyone no doubt already knows, is that of Ozzy’s ATV injury late last year that led to a steel rod in his back, several broken bones, a death scare at the scenes, and the doctors’ prognosis that Ozzy will be out of action for months and possibly may never be able to sing again. MTV is still up in the air on what they will do about planned future episodes. Good taste would demand that they stop filming and move on to other things, but good taste and MTV don’t mix, so it is hard to say what will happen until something is officially announced.

With all that in mind, it is hard to be jolly about watching Ozzy having to face the troubles he has on the show that aired for the first episode of this season.

The show begins with Ozzy and Sharon in the bedroom discussing the number of dogs they have. Ozzy insists it is 13 and that they need one more in order to not run into bad luck. Sharon starts naming them off in order to prove him wrong, but soon realizes that Ozzy is right. Ozzy then announces that he wants a gun. Why? Because he wants one. Can’t really argue with that type of logic.

After the new opening credits, which tells us that the title of the episode is “The Show Must Go Oz!” Ozzy is seen walking up the stairs of the house. As he passes the framed pictures of their pets on the wall, he points and says, “Dead… dead… dead… ” Sharon can be heard off-camera telling him to stop, especially when he starts naming some pets dead that Sharon states are not.

Entering the bedroom, Ozzy sees that Sharon is depressed. Sharon admits that she had a sour meeting with “the guy who got me the job” at her daytime talk show. She states that she was told she had to “work harder on the show.” Ozzy tries to make her laugh by suggesting she do a tap-dance, but Sharon isn’t really in the mood to be whimsical about the problems she is facing. She feels something needs to be done to help her show out.

As predictable as an ABC family sitcom, a fast edit shows Sharon and Kelly in another room later on. Sharon asks Kelly to do something for her, and Kelly immediately guesses that Sharon wants her to appear as a co-host on an upcoming episode. She guessed right and tells her mother “no” in no uncertain terms. Sharon then pulls her typical shtick, where she gets down on her knees and playfully begs Kelly to do the show. Kelly refuses to submit to her mother, however, telling Sharon that it is The Sharon Osbourne Show, not The Sharon & Kelly Show.

Sharon is seen calling Jack and asking him to be a co-host on her show. He tells her no just as quickly as Kelly did and hangs up. As she plots her aim at her next target, some workers on the house realize that they have to move a 980-pound golden Buddha from inside the garage to the porch. While they discuss the move, Sharon is seen with Ozzy. She worms her way around to asking Ozzy to do her show. Ozzy refuses repeatedly.

As a trainer wakes Jack up and puts him through a workout, the workers out in the yard begin moving the Six-Million-Dollar Buddha out of the garage, through the house and onto the back porch. Ozzy, upon hearing from Jack that they moved the statue, goes out to tell the workers that he wanted it out front. The workers all groan in unison.

Ozzy is next seen admiring the Buddha on the porch and giving it a kiss. It’s the last bit of solitude Ozzy has on the show, as we’ll see. Meanwhile, while Ozzy is at peace on the porch, Sharon is at the studio, arguing over what is going on the show and how she will do it. Later, Kelly is seen arriving back at the house and tripping on the stairs. She goes in to the bedroom to see Sharon and Ozzy lying in bed. Kelly has her hair in front of her face and Ozzy – acting like a typical parent – tells her to brush it back. Kelly doesn’t want to and goes into a quick rant about having to do whatever they want her to do no matter how old she is.

Sharon’s not interested in the argument, as she has her own to concentrate on – getting Ozzy to change his mind about being on her show. She keeps digging into him and he keeps refusing. In a short clip from another time, Ozzy tells the camera-crew that Sharon has a habit of telling only bits and pieces of things to him and, once he agrees to do something, will tell him later all the bad parts that are involved. Cutting back to the bedroom, Kelly and Ozzy both tell Sharon to stop and Sharon then switches to a passive-aggressive mode. She wipes her eyes with ointment, looking pitiful and sad and causing Ozzy and Kelly to sit silently looking off in space. Ozzy then agrees to do the show because of the guilt he has in rejecting her.