AS excellent as TV has been in the age of streaming, there has never been a night on network TV as out-of-this-world as Saturday nights in 1973. 50 years ago and it felt as relevant, topical and timely as if these shows were airing today. One night-one channel (CBS) and you sat back and watched All in the Family, M*A*S*H*, Bob Newhart and the Carol Burnett Show.
But wedged in there was the Mary Tyler Moore, and it was the gem. Even a half century later, just seeing the font type of her show logo raises my pulse.
The new doc on HBO will look very familiar to those of that generation. Fact, we’ve see these clips dozens of times, but somehow It’s still a bittersweet, mostly sweet, thing to see them again.
Basically, the doc is a “clip job “with junket style interviews with Rona Barrett, and with precious few bits from the cast members. I’m pretty sure they’re all dead now – even Betty White took her final curtain call recently.
If there’s anything new, it’s seeing just how forward thinking, and, dare I say it, radical she was back in a time where smiling sweetly and nodding one’s head was all that was expected. She was razor sharp, knew her stuff and knew how to project it.
Yes, it’s a little disappointing that the filmmakers couldn’t get more recent bits, especially from MTM herself, but that’s surely very expensive to license. They did spend some time on her breakout role as Dick Van Dyke’s wife on his eponymous show, but it’s the freeze frame of her tossing her beret in the air that makes the eyes a little dewy.
She made it after all, and we were all the better for it.
Currently streaming HBO Max.
