"Mary & Rhoda": A Review
written by Harrison Blackwell, longtime fan of MTMS
July 11, 2000
It was a reunion that wasn't as quality as it could have been.
Most of us weren't expecting a sentimental, sappy reunion, but we were expecting other things. We expected that Mary Richards had remained active in the news business. We never dreamed that Rhoda would raise a daughter in Paris. We expected some reminiscences...maybe about the time Lou locked everyone out of Mary's apartment when she gave him that surprise birthday party. Or about Mr. Malaprop, Ted Baxter, meeting Walter "Cronkie" Cronkite. Or that maybe that Sue Ann Nivens is now retired in Hawaii, yet still living a lively existence off her cookbook royalties. Something, anything about the old days. No such luck. Turns out that Mary Richards did very well for herself in what time she spent in the news business. Rhoda had a less glamorous experience, but hey, there can only be so many Marie Cassatts. And they both got great daughters out of their marriages. What's the problem? What they're doing now. Mary's working alongside the likes of anchorwoman Cecile Andrews (Christine Ebersole, formerly a regular on Saturday Night Live), a woman who is stuck perenially in grammar school babydom. She works for yuppie, gadget-fetished network owner Jonah Seimeier (Elon Gold), a guy who would make Bill Paley puke. And when she's introduced around Station WNYT, she's known as "the woman who's sixty." Rhoda, who's just come off a spiritual quest, is now doing parking lot art shows and making cream-cheesed bagels for a similar Jonah. And she's living with Mary. This is how they're phasing into their twilight years?
But "Mary and Rhoda" does have a nice atmosphere. Just seeing Mary coming off the airport escalator and her embracing Rhoda after a long hiatus are monumental moments. And the subhappenings are usually enjoyable. Watching Valerie chop veggies for a core of health-obsessed models is fun, and there's a rotten Mary Richards party where Rhoda cooks up her special "rocklette", a hot rock with cheese melted on it. Funny stuff. What isn't so funny, and what nearly kills the piece, is the heinous whole Mary/Cecile Andrews collaboration of a documentary on a teen shooting. Cecile (overacted to the hilt by Ebersole) initially makes a complete ass out of herself and then rakes the parents of a good-kid-turned-felon across the gravel, elbowing them with such zingers as, "How does it feel to know that your son is a killer?" And then she follows with, "Oh, this was great! It oughtta give us some good numbers." Meanwhile, Jonah pushes for sensationalized programming ("No nice, no boring, no thinking. Anything else, great.") Mary, thankfully, steps in and cuts an acceptable version, even if it means her job, but never does she truly stand up to her bitchy coworker, as Mary Richards certainly would have.
Who do we have to thank for this, for better or worse? Katie Ford (whose credits include "Family Ties") wrote the script with input from Mary and Valerie. Which one of them thought up the scene where Mary daydreams that she's a fruit vendor dressed in a pickle costume? Who thought up Rhoda's husband, Jean Pierre Rousseau (surely a take-off on the famous flutist named Rampal)? And what about the athletic dogchase bit (the one that caused Mary to break her wrist)? Clearly, this was a time-filler (with an allusion to Mary's standing as an animal rights advocate) set up to make sure Rhoda stays in New York. Valerie Harper was not given a lot to do in the movie, and what little she's seen doing is disappointing. Even an inclusion of one scene where she and Mary sat down in Mary's spacious living room with coffee in hand and talked about the old days would have been enough to fill in that blank.
"Mary and Rhoda" is not comedically tight enough. For the most part, it's upbeat, thanks to the scenes with attractive gals Joie Lenz and Marisa Ryan, who had some fantastic chemistry with Mary and Valerie, respectively. But for the most part, it's just a little feeble.
In 1997, plans were announced for a "Mary and Rhoda" sitcom, with basically the same set-up as the TV movie. Ultimately, neither Mary nor Valerie wanted to do a weekly series again, and a year or so later, the idea was canned. Six or so scripts were drafted, and the stories included guestings by Ed Asner, Betty White, and others, but the quality of the original Show was not there and the networks quickly passed. By the time "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" went down in 1977 in a shower of sparklers, it had produced dozens upon dozens of highly polished episodes. The reason: they had good writers and producers. Every week, and in every episode, a captivating problem or situation was addressed, it developed quickly, then concluded with a blast. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it left the viewer with a feeling of inevitability, a feeling of realism, and even sometimes a feeling that they could take on the cement-paved world differently as a result. And that's probably why the original Show took home a total of twenty-seven Emmys. "Mary and Rhoda", a la contraire, starts off a little wobbily and never quite recovers. Even in the best scenes, there's usually ninnyism (take the touching moment when Mary and Rhoda reunite--just a moment later, Mary is shouting, "It's Rhoda! (times five) Rhodaaaaaa!" And when Mary's touching news segment finally airs to a restaurant full of onlookers, a bartender tries to admonish his momentary lapse into melancholy, "Oh, it's these damn cocktail onions!" C'mon!
So, what was done, and what wasn't, was done...and we can be thankful that Mary and Rhoda reunited. What will become of them? Who knows, maybe we'll find out in another five or ten years. Until then, keep watching the reruns.
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