Harassed

It's funny that, the first season of the syndicated series It's A Living, that had a great but lowly rated first season (as did Cheers, by the way) and a second season attempt to retool everything including the title, Making A Living, which has no flow whatsoever...

Well at this point the character with the obnoxious hair, that is, Sonny the lounge lizard pianist, has his hair cut normally while the returning waitresses, including my personal favorite (that I crushed on as a kid), Dot, has horribly puffy 80's "big hair" that looks like these waitresses are actually male lions...

Ann Jillian, the wild girl, is the only character who remains the same, although she's PG racy instead of the first season's PG-13 and, basically, it's a great show, and Crystal Bernard, fresh from playing the cute innocent southern girl from Happy Days is the cute innocent replacement of Wendy Schaal from season one, still the best season because the show just was what the writers intended, not yet trying to be what the producers ordered.

After a three-year hiatus, this episode marked the return of IT'S A LIVING to TV in first-run syndication. The Season 2 cast carries over with the exception of Louise Lasser and Earl Boen. To fill the "ditzy" slot, Crystal Bernard debuts as Amy Tompkins, a small-town girl who hails from Texas. Amy does not have the sweet charm of Vicki (Wendy Schaal) or quirkiness of Maggie (Louise Lasser), so for now she is a fish-out-of-water hick type new to the big city.

This first episode of the new format puts Amy in the spotlight as the target of a stalker, who makes obscene phone calls to her at work (Sonny has a good scene screening the caller), has stolen some of her personal items and sends gifts and cards. Cassie has a funny part where she explains the protocol about accepting gifts from men.

A minor subplot mentions Cassie is dating her doctor. There are some fun jokes about him not used to seeing her dressed, etc. Another subplot has Nancy and Howard bickering because he doesn't like the discount fish she bought from a new supplier.

Richard Stahl plays Howard, the third chef to appear in the series. He has a dry, sardonic wit and is more laid-back than Dennis (Earl Boen) and will never show any paternal feelings toward the girls like Mario (Bert Remsen) had. This reboot will see Nancy pursuing Howard but she is much more persistent and aggressive than she was with Dennis. It does pay off however, as the two will eventually marry.

The whole show has a brighter, crisper, sharper look compared to the ABC years. The opening riff to the actual episode is extremely upbeat and very Vegas-y. This being 1985 the gals all have big hair and Sonny has thankfully lost the Seventies 'fro and sports a more flattering haircut.

This episode and the revamped series as a whole seem rushed. These syndicated shows ran about three minutes less than network fare at the time. The script is very jokey, with little time to pause. Everything seems very rapid-fire and many episodes like this one have too many subplots that are underdeveloped because there just isn't time to flesh them out. The ending of this one raises more questions than it answers about the whole stalker plot.

Not a great episode to kick off the reboot. The best parts are when Nancy compares herself to Wonder Woman and Cassie paying Nancy a compliment after she takes down the stalker with her reservation book.