Now playing Season 1, Episode 3 — The French Connection
September 22, 1998
1
13
8.0
Chuck Ranberg, David Angell
N/A
Season 1 • 13 episodes
Operatic superstar Joseph Pinoni is forced to retire after a freak accident following a performance causes him to lose his voice. Humiliated, he returns home to his family's vineyard in California to assist his mother and sister in running the business, but his perfectionism and superiority complex attitude quickly gets on everyone else's nerves.
Francesca tries to help Joe get out of his funk over losing his career by taking him out to dinner to cheer him up, but quickly regrets her choice when they are mobbed by fans in the restaurant.
Joe's best friend from Europe, Jean Claude, visits to announce his recent engagement, but it's to a woman Joe loathes. Jean Claude admits he's flat broke and is only marrying for money, so Joe invites him to live in the guest house at the vineyard.
To encourage Joe to get more involved with community, Marie puts him in charge of directing the school play at the youth center. Joe's diva like direction angers the parents, but the children love his over the top antics and have him convert their usual performance of ""Yankee Doodle"" into selections from ""Salome.""
Joe attempts to end a long standing feud with a neighboring family, over a punch bowl Marie claims they never returned, when he notices Michael showing an interest in the youngest daughter of the other family.
While cleaning out the attic, Michael and Joe come across Marie's old diary, and deduce it was written about the time Marie was expecting Joe. After reading a few pages, Joe gets the assumption that Marie was having an affair with a neighbor, and thinks he's illegitimate.
The family, tired of Joe's constant bumming of rides because he doesn't drive, signs him up for driving lessons, but the instructor they hire turns out to be a psychotic nut who takes Joe hostage during the lesson.
Joe and Jean Claude go overboard to try to impress members of a local cultural society by planning an elaborate dinner party, but they get drunk while tasting wine during the meal preparation and ruin the whole evening.
Joe and Jean Claude are forced to serve community service as hospital orderlies after they are arrested for recklessly driving bicycles while drunk. Joe, completely incompetent in the job, fears he may have killed a patient when a man dies after Joe obliged him with a drink on his last day.
Jean Claude's sister comes to visit him, but Joe is afraid his friend will want to kill him when he recalls that the last time Joe met her, they had a wild one night stand.
Joe gets a swelled head when he learns a benefit concert is being organized in his honor to recognize his career in theater, but while preparing to go to the hall a comedy of errors ensues.
Joe does everything in his power, including seduce a magazine critic he despises, to ensure that Francesca and the winery get a positive review in a prominent wine industry publication.
When Joseph and Francesca want Marie to write a cookbook to help promote the winery, she agrees to only if Joseph will go to confession. But Joseph doesn't know the secret behind Marie's recipes that she has yet to confess.
Encore! Encore! is an American sitcom starring Nathan Lane as an opera singer. On the verge of becoming "The Fourth Tenor", Lane's character injures his vocal cords and must move in with his family, who run a vineyard in Northern California. The series premiered on NBC on September 22, 1998. Encore! Encore! struggled in the ratings from the start. After its fourth episode aired on October 27, 1998, NBC put the series on hiatus for two months. Thirteen episodes were ordered but the series was cancelled at midseason with two episodes left unaired. The final network episode aired on January 20, 1999. All 13 episodes later ran on Bravo.
Joe's best friend from Europe, Jean Claude, visits to announce his recent engagement, but it's to a woman Joe loathes. Jean Claude admits he's flat broke and is only marrying for money, so Joe invites him to live in the guest house at the vineyard.
Nathan Lane
Joseph Pinoni
Glenne Headly
Franceseca Pinoni
Ernie Sabella
Leo Wodecki
James Patrick Stuart
Claude Bertrand
Trevor Fehrman
Michael Pinoni
Joan Plowright
Marie Pinoni
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