The Ascent of Stan

A character starts to think they've abandoned their previous ideals and sold out or become an old fuddy-duddy. Usually they try to prove they're still the same as they were before. By the end of the episode, they accept the way they are now.

ALF

Appearances

• The Mary Tyler Moore Show: Season 5, episode 19, "The Shame of the Cities" (1975). Lou is depressed because he's no longer the hard-hitting investigative reporter he was in his youth, and he feels he sold out when he became a producer.
• Newhart: Season 4, episode 7, "The Geezers in the Band" (1985). When two out of three members of Dick's college jazz band, The Jazztones, show up at the inn (the third died three weeks ago), Dick starts to worry that his fun, wild and crazy days are behind him, so he convinces the other Jazztones to go tobogganing to prove they're still as exciting as they used to be, but they only make it 20 feet.
• ALF: Season 3, episode 10, "My Back Pages" (1988). Willie and Kate find their home movies from Woodstock in the attic, and Willie tells Alf about the '60s. Alf criticizes Willie for selling out because he's no longer a hippie.
• Just Shoot Me!: Season 2, episode 11, "Sewer!" (1998). When her college friend, Erin, visits with tales of her adventures uncovering human rights violations abroad, Maya feels like she sold out and wants to get back to her investigative journalism roots, so she spends the night of Jack's birthday waiting for phosphates to get dumped into the sewer for an article, but she realizes she likes "working at that stupid magazine with all those idiots" and dumps the article instead.
• Dharma & Greg: Season 2, episode 9, "Brought to You in Dharmavision" (1998). Dharma realizes that she's changed since she married Greg and become too much like a Montgomery. She sees the ghost of George, the Native American man who passed away on her roof, and he tells her to go on a vision quest, so she and Jane go into the woods, where Dharma realizes that no matter what other think she is, she's still herself, and Greg is the only one who accepts her for who she is.
• Spin City: Season 4, episode 5 "Rebel without a Chair" (1999). Carter has won the "Activist of the Year" award, but the rest of gang points out that he hasn't actually been involved in any activism for a long time, and he starts to feel like a fraud. He makes up for it by using his platform at the award ceremony to expose Mike's homophobia.
• Frasier: Season 10, episode 4, "Kissing Cousin" (2002). When Roz's young cousin, Jen, comes to visit, Roz tries to stay out all night clubbing with her like she used to when she was in her 20s, but she gets exhausted. When she tries to tell Jen that she's tired, Jen complains that she used to be cool and now she's all "401K or something," making Roz start to feel like she became a lame old person, but when a pathetic 47-year-old caller tells Frasier about how he's still trying to act 18, Roz decides to embrace her age.