Like a hazy dream, i am watching on FreeVee and wondering...is this really happening, or rather did this happen in 1978? I guess it did because I am having fun watching. The lead characters are examples of career women being manhandled in a male dominated 70's society, but the humor is maudlin and somewhat excruciating. It was shot in NYC and you can really tell the difference in acting styles, and set design. Exterior shots look like Rhoda's building, but i cant be sure. And sometimes the scripts and pacing feel like a NY stage play, esp since there's quite a bit of cringe in the way the lead girls over act and emote in very silly ways, but it is an incredible unintentional expose on feminism in the 70's. Everyone is sweet natured and people acted kinder. The men in the supporting cast are misfits and all the women are heroes. Dixie Carter is surprisingly bad here and her bad timing is difficult to explain, but Gretchen Wyler is pretty funny and every once in a while a good joke or a comic bit lands well. Bess is the stronger of the two, but her character is often forced to deliver lines all alone onstage, and it is campy. Lynnie is very presentational and indicated a lot and had too many jokes about being Catholic that completely sink with a thud. Her 2 part episode w/Danny Aiello as her love interest is extremely sappy like a Kmart version of Moonstruck. There are workplace ensemble scenes and apartment scenes, and lots of new york extras and actors playing parents and or agency clients. Kay Medford was in ep 3, James Naughton (I Love My Wife) was in ep4. Christopher Hewitt was in ep 5. The wardrobe is from Bloomingdale's and both women have those curled under joan of arc/bowl haircuts from 1978 that look a bit like mushroom caps. The theme song is noisily sung (belty/wail broadway style) and difficult to understand the lyrics until you hear it more than once. It's a sorta cute sitcom but episodes always feel half finished, like a lot of mistakes were included, set walls dont actually look real... as if this were taking place on the new york stage. Still it is fun to discover an ancient, fully -formed sitcom shot in NYC that history and vintage tv networks seem to have forgotten, and i managed to get thru all 19 episodes posted at free vee. Imdb seems to credit both leading ladies with 22 episodes, so maybe there are lost episodes?!
