Why Root for Characters Who Have Forgotten Their Roots?
"The Dallas Morning News", TV Week
by Ed BarkHello, Mary-Lou. If only. ABC's Mary & Rhoda turns out to be a two-hour reunion movie with too few uninvited guests. Or even mentions of them. What we have instead are two age-old TV icons battling ageism, depression, impending poverty, and rebellious daughters in an awkward movie that oddly distances itself from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Man-less in Manhattan, Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) and Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper) could just as easily be Rhoda Richards and Mary Morgenstern. Or Thelma and Louise. Maybe Bonnie and Chloe. The connective tissue to their Minneaolis heydays is so slight it's absurd.
Remember the tearful Mary-Lou-Murray-Ted-Georgette-Sue Ann group hug and shuffle on the March 19, 1977 finale? That's when Mary said, "Thank you for being my family." Then they all sang "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" in the WJM-TV newsroom before Mary flicked off the lights and closed the door on her landmark namesake sitcom. Yeah, well, goodbye to all that. Mary and Rhoda is about now, not then, Ms. Moore repeatedly says in interivews. So here we have Mary and Rhoda reconnecting for the first time since WJM. And sying nothing of their old buddies. Absolutely nothing. Life just doesn't work that way, but Mary and Rhoda somehow thinks so. In her zeal to avoid "reintroducing old familiar people"--or even dropping their names--Ms. Moore has severed ties with her past in the manner of a butcher copping of a pork shank. Not nice, "Mare."
The movie begins wiht Mary returning from Italy, where she's been mourning the death of her congressman husband, who died while rock-climbing. Their daughter, Rose (former Dallasite Joie Lenz) is enrolled at New York University, but yearns to be a stand-up comic. Rhoda's been living in Paris with a philandering husband whom she finally ditches. Back in her native New York, she's trying not to be an embarrasment to daughter Meredith (Marisa Ryan), a pre-med student at Columbia University.
Having lost all touch with each other, the moms reunite when Rhoda spots Mary hopping into a cab. Their initial enthusiasm for each other is one of the movie's few high points. It's a long way through the rest of the movie, though, which includes the sight of Mary hopping around in a pickle costume. Don't ask.
The script, by relative kiddo Katie Ford, mostly cries out for something other than hokum. Some of the setups are painful, as when Mary is summoned by her lawyer. Don't worry, she assures her daughter, and attorney's office is "hardly a hotbed of emotion." A split-second later, she's exclaiming "What!!!" upon learning her husband has left her nearly broke. Here's another one. "C'mon, ya gotta be positive," Mary tells Rhoda who's fretting about whether her photographs are worthy of a gallery showing. "All right," she retorts. "I'm positive I can't do it." Wah-wah-wah. Later, when she's really down on herself, Rhoda sums herself up in a big, broad, New Yawk moment: "I'm a 50-somethin' bagel toastuh, snack makuh, dry cleanuh-pickuh-uppuh."
Yes, these are the jokes, folks, but much of Mary and Rhoda is meant to be otherwise. We're supposed to find high drama in 60-year-old Mary's quest to reform television journalism in her new job as a producer for WNYT-TV, headed by a 33-year-old ratings monger named Jonah Seimeier (Elon Gold). Apparently they're going for Lou and Mary in reverse. Lou once said memorably, "You know what, you've got spunk." One-two. "I hate spunk!" Jonah says, "No nice, no boring, no thinking. Anything else, great." Assigned to baby-sit egotistical anchor Cecile Andrews (Christine Ebersole), Mary remains determined to put a "human face" on the news. What a concept. And she finds just what she's looking for in the grieving parents of a son who joined the wrong crowd, shot a fellow gang member in self-defense and now is wearing prison orange.
Cecile unconscionably milks the story, but mary slips her humane, edited version onto the air and then watches it with the transfixed patrons of her favorite bar and grill. Even the gruff barkeep gets the sniffles. But when an underlying wonders whazzup, he grouses, "Oh, it's these damn cocktail onions." Double-sheesh on that one. Through it all, Ms. Moore favors form-fitting dresses that accentuate her every curve while Ms. Harper is confined to bulky, shapeless attire. Shades of Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz? Just wondering.
Mary and Rhoda, originally envisioned as a weekly sitcom, has numerous other plot holes and potholes. That's invariably the case when you try to transform a tightly written half-hour comedy series into an entirely different animal. Imagine the opposite tack. What if a Gunsmoke reunion took the form of a half-hour comedy? "Hey, Matt, is that a gun in your holster or ar ya just happy to see me?" Hoo-hah.
It all could have been easier to take with help from the old Mary Tyler Moore Show's breakout supporting characters. Ted Knight is deceased, so no Ted "Hi guys" Baxter. But the rest are still with us, as are the show's original group of writers. Maybe they somehow could have pulled together a pleasant surprise. Or at least have given us something in the spirit of the original. Instead we get Mary and Rhoda in Manhattan, with both divorced from the realities of what made them great. The only other carryover from those days is the big "M" in Mary's apartment. It looks homesick.
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