I Love Lucy
Face to Face
TV Flash files “Face to Face” as hour 134 of 180 in the TV Flash guide — I Love Lucy (1951–1957) on CBS, season 5, episode 7, aired 1955-11-14, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S05E07: listed hour 134 of 180 in the I Love Lucy guide, hour 7 of 26 in season 5. It aired 1955-11-14 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “Homecoming” (S05E06). Next is “Lucy Goes to a Rodeo” (S05E08).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Ricky's agent says that the Ricardos should move to a fancy apartment and get out of the "dump" that the Mertzes own. The Ricardos stand up for the Mertzes, saying they're happy where they are. Just for fun, though, Lucy goes to look at a high-price New York apartment. Meanwhile, the Mertzes make up a fake fight to get the Ricardos to move out, because they think living elsewhere would do wonders for Ricky's careers. After the fight, Ethel calls up her Aunt Martha, saying that there will probably be a vacant apartment soon. But when the Mertzes find out Lucy visited the ritzy apartments, and when the Ricardos find out Ethel called Aunt Martha, the two couples start bitterly feuding. The feud spreads when they all appear on the TV show Face to Face. In the end, all of their real motives are explained, and they end up friends again.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Face to Face sit in the I Love Lucy guide?
S05E07 is listed hour 134 of 180 — hour 7 of 26 in season 5, season 5 episode 7.
When did I Love Lucy S05E07 air?
Face to Face aired 1955-11-14 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Where should I start?
Start with the 1951 nightclub opener, then the candy-line hour. Those two teach the marriage contract and the physical-comedy machine; the rest of the run is variations on both.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Ball owned the joke and the company. Watch the live-audience blocking, the marriage-as-engine, and the way Desilu turned a Monday night into national infrastructure. Reruns still teach timing that prestige comedies keep rediscovering as if they invented the studio audience.
CBS Monday, 1951: three networks, a living room with no scroll, and a redhead who treated physical comedy like a contact sport. I Love Lucy did not drop. It arrived, film rolling, audience laughing in the same room as the furniture, and America discovered that a sitcom could be both popular and formally serious. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were not merely a TV couple. They were the production company. Desilu’s three-camera method, the live audience, the blocking that still gets stolen — that is the industrial…
Filed against
- Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo
Lucille Ball invented the sitcom industrial complex as Lucy Ricardo — physical comedy gold, multi-cam chaos, and a star marriage the public thought it owned. Off-screen Desilu power made her TV’s first true mogul-star. On TV Flash she…
- Desi Arnaz as Ricky Ricardo
Desi Arnaz co-starred as Ricky Ricardo and helped innovate multi-camera sitcom production — bandleader-actor, star marriage the country thought it owned, and the factory that taught sitcoms how to breathe. Live-audience architecture every…
- Vivian Vance as Ethel Mertz
Vivian Vance’s Ethel Mertz is I Love Lucy as live-audience architecture — six seasons of a star marriage the country thought it owned, blocking every multi-cam still copies without sending flowers. On TV Flash she is the friend as…
- William Frawley as Fred Mertz
William Frawley’s Fred Mertz is I Love Lucy’s landlord as a second marriage the country thought it owned — six seasons of live-audience architecture, Desilu timing, blocking every multi-cam still copies. On TV Flash he is the downstairs…