Due to a recent wave of nostalgia for the seventies, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" has become recognized by many critics, historians and viewers of Nick at Nite as a landmark TV series that captured perhaps better than anything else on TV at the time the social changes that took place in the US following the turbulent sixties and women's liberation. The series focused on a single woman (Mary Tyler Moore previously known to America as the perfect embodiment of domestic femininity playing Dick Van Dyke's wife) whose job and friendships gave her life meaning at a time when most women
were only beginning to realize that there was more to life than being a wife and mother. Mary Richards was the perfect seventies heroine in that she was a woman nearing middle age stylishly with the domestic social values of fifties/sixties behind her and the sexual liberation of the seventies in front of her. A woman who has been trained her whole life to be subservient to men is now working amongst them, standing up to them and gaining their professional and social respect.
Lately there have been a plethora of shows that attempt to do what MTM did in the seventies. "Caroline in the City" is one of them, "Suddenly Susan" is another. Unfortunately these shows are taking place in the wrong time period because neither "Caroline" or "Susan," female characters who grew up during the sexual revolution and the AIDS crisis, have any adequate justification to feel overwhelmed by the prospect of being a working woman without a husband. A woman who choses work over marriage is no longer an edgy premise for a sit-com.
Caroline (Leah Thompson) is a cartoon artist who has recently moved to New York having grown up in the midwest. She struggles to preserve her small town values in the fast paced world of the big city. In order to give Caroline's character the innocence that MTM had, the writers keep drawing on her midwestern upbringing as a contrast to her cynical sarcastic native New Yorker friends. I don't know where this woman supposedly grew up but I don't know how she could have been living in NYC for as long as she has and still hasn't gotten over it. While MTM often seemed overwhelmed by the crassness of her female friends and her male colleagues because she was brought up in an era where she just may have been innocent of such behavior, Caroline remains overwhelmed by her New York friends for no other reason than she looks cute when she's overwhelmed.
A typical show goes something like this: Caroline gets really excited about something old fashioned. Her friends "wise cracking" Annie and "cynical-black-wearing" Richard (who is such a closet case and for some reason we are supposed to believe he's in love with her) get annoyed by her pollyanna attitude and make fun of her. She gets upset and gets even and the cynical New York gang sees the importance of Caroline's small town values. The End. There is no character development. There is no plot line that doesn't resolve itself within an episode or two (cept for her on-again-off-again romance with the closet homo Richard). There is no chemistry between her and her friends and Leah Thompson is simply too old to be acting cutsey.
were only beginning to realize that there was more to life than being a wife and mother. Mary Richards was the perfect seventies heroine in that she was a woman nearing middle age stylishly with the domestic social values of fifties/sixties behind her and the sexual liberation of the seventies in front of her. A woman who has been trained her whole life to be subservient to men is now working amongst them, standing up to them and gaining their professional and social respect.
Lately there have been a plethora of shows that attempt to do what MTM did in the seventies. "Caroline in the City" is one of them, "Suddenly Susan" is another. Unfortunately these shows are taking place in the wrong time period because neither "Caroline" or "Susan," female characters who grew up during the sexual revolution and the AIDS crisis, have any adequate justification to feel overwhelmed by the prospect of being a working woman without a husband. A woman who choses work over marriage is no longer an edgy premise for a sit-com.
Caroline (Leah Thompson) is a cartoon artist who has recently moved to New York having grown up in the midwest. She struggles to preserve her small town values in the fast paced world of the big city. In order to give Caroline's character the innocence that MTM had, the writers keep drawing on her midwestern upbringing as a contrast to her cynical sarcastic native New Yorker friends. I don't know where this woman supposedly grew up but I don't know how she could have been living in NYC for as long as she has and still hasn't gotten over it. While MTM often seemed overwhelmed by the crassness of her female friends and her male colleagues because she was brought up in an era where she just may have been innocent of such behavior, Caroline remains overwhelmed by her New York friends for no other reason than she looks cute when she's overwhelmed.
A typical show goes something like this: Caroline gets really excited about something old fashioned. Her friends "wise cracking" Annie and "cynical-black-wearing" Richard (who is such a closet case and for some reason we are supposed to believe he's in love with her) get annoyed by her pollyanna attitude and make fun of her. She gets upset and gets even and the cynical New York gang sees the importance of Caroline's small town values. The End. There is no character development. There is no plot line that doesn't resolve itself within an episode or two (cept for her on-again-off-again romance with the closet homo Richard). There is no chemistry between her and her friends and Leah Thompson is simply too old to be acting cutsey.