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It's not a timing thing?
It's not a timing thing?
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I just intensely dislike Joe.
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Unless they're very, very objective, people always hate whomever they can't control (especially if they "want" them).
How that applies to Rhoda & Joe, I'm not at liberty to say.
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Look up David Groh's turn as abusive DL Brock on General Hospital and you'll be relieved that Rhoda escaped unscathed. Can't say the same for poor Bobbie Spencer.
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I remember that.
I never liked the Brock character, but David Groh was not to blame.
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Rhoda
Season Four
Who’s Shy / All Work And No Play / Happy Anniversary / The Jack Story / Rhoda Cheats / Gary and Ida / As Time Goes By / Two’s Company / Brenda And The Bank Girl / So Long, Lucky / Jack’s Back / Five For The Road: Parts I & II
Some episodes have felt painfully long. Perhaps the most glaring example was Rhoda and Jack locked in the WC for half an episode with only a bottle of champagne for entertainment. There was some pretty poor drunk acting and the episode didn’t really have anything to say, so it felt like filler.
As the season has progressed, I’ve realised that Jack is analogous with MTM’s Lou Grant and Phyllis’s Dan Valenti: the gruff boss with the soft underbelly who has a quiet respect for the leading lady (and which is reciprocated in turn, despite their frequent clashes).
Speaking of Dan Valenti, Carmine Caridi had a significant guest role as a police officer in So Long, Lucky. Since he was last seen very recently as a main character from another series in the franchise this I expected it to jar more than it did. As it turned out, his series of Rhoda-related mishaps throughout the episode meant it was one of the funnier ones for all concerned. The moment where Rhoda watched in frozen horror as the bird flew from the cage out of the window got some huge laughs in the O’Drama house, and I also loved that the episode tapped into Rhoda’s pushier nature where she could not accept and let go of the fact that this man did not want to be around her, and so the circle went on.
Two’s Company - the episode in which Benny bought into Gary’s jeans empire - saw the most annoying of caricatures in Tina the hopeless assistant, whose little quirks were liberally and unsubtly piled-on for the sake of creating a broad sitcom character. It seemed like a one-off, so how my heart sank at seeing this episode noted on Wikipedia as her “first appearance”. It seems she’s to be a regular for the final season. Now I’m definitely counting my blessings that it’s short, but I’m hopeful she might be tweaked to make her more palatable for regular viewing, just as Gary was. He was a character I found overbearing in his first couple of appearances, but the new, improved Gary quickly won me over and I’m sorry he won’t be in the final season. It’s also disappointing he never had a proper exit, but that seems par for the course with supporting characters in this series (Sally Gallagher springs to mind).
Any episode with a focus on the wider Morganstern clan is usually one of the better ones. The “surprise there’s no surprise party (but there is really... Surprise)” anniversary episode had its moments. Brenda’s imitation of Ida at her most assertive in Who’s Shy was really funny, while her sassy attempts to psyche out the competition in Brenda And The Bank Girl were also fun. Her eating the entire chocolate bar in the final episode was a tad annoying, though. This is due to the writing, not Julie Kavner's performance which is always solid. I just found it unbelievable that Brenda would do something so selfish in that particular situation.
In scenes where food is involved I still get distracted when noticing that none of it ever goes near Valerie Harper’s lips. She’ll serve it, talk appreciatively about it, push it round, gesticulate with it in her hand… anything but eat it. One exception came in the final episode where I saw her eat some of a (possibly botulism-infested) peach. Really, though, the weight loss became less jarring as the season progressed, and I think wardrobe, hair and makeup had much to do with it. Rhoda’s hair got a bit fuller and softer, diffusing any unflattering angular lines in the face, while in place of the abundance of skin (and bone) and very tight tops from the first half of the year, she increasingly wore dresses that were straight or even loose with light - almost diaphanous - material that created a very flattering wispy, floaty, softening effect. Valerie also looked healthier later in the season, and lost the shocking grey pallor on display in early S4 episodes.
The final two-parter was enjoyable enough. I always enjoy a cosy, haunted house type of atmosphere, and this had plenty of that, right down to the thunderstorm as the five remaining characters travelled in the car (the Poor Man's Process adding to the intimacy). As a change of pace it worked fine.
Summing up, then, while this is far from the best this series has to offer (much less the entire Maryverse), I feel it overcame some of its challenges and recovered towards the end enough for me to feel optimistic about the final short season.
Season Four
Who’s Shy / All Work And No Play / Happy Anniversary / The Jack Story / Rhoda Cheats / Gary and Ida / As Time Goes By / Two’s Company / Brenda And The Bank Girl / So Long, Lucky / Jack’s Back / Five For The Road: Parts I & II
Some episodes have felt painfully long. Perhaps the most glaring example was Rhoda and Jack locked in the WC for half an episode with only a bottle of champagne for entertainment. There was some pretty poor drunk acting and the episode didn’t really have anything to say, so it felt like filler.
As the season has progressed, I’ve realised that Jack is analogous with MTM’s Lou Grant and Phyllis’s Dan Valenti: the gruff boss with the soft underbelly who has a quiet respect for the leading lady (and which is reciprocated in turn, despite their frequent clashes).
Speaking of Dan Valenti, Carmine Caridi had a significant guest role as a police officer in So Long, Lucky. Since he was last seen very recently as a main character from another series in the franchise this I expected it to jar more than it did. As it turned out, his series of Rhoda-related mishaps throughout the episode meant it was one of the funnier ones for all concerned. The moment where Rhoda watched in frozen horror as the bird flew from the cage out of the window got some huge laughs in the O’Drama house, and I also loved that the episode tapped into Rhoda’s pushier nature where she could not accept and let go of the fact that this man did not want to be around her, and so the circle went on.
Two’s Company - the episode in which Benny bought into Gary’s jeans empire - saw the most annoying of caricatures in Tina the hopeless assistant, whose little quirks were liberally and unsubtly piled-on for the sake of creating a broad sitcom character. It seemed like a one-off, so how my heart sank at seeing this episode noted on Wikipedia as her “first appearance”. It seems she’s to be a regular for the final season. Now I’m definitely counting my blessings that it’s short, but I’m hopeful she might be tweaked to make her more palatable for regular viewing, just as Gary was. He was a character I found overbearing in his first couple of appearances, but the new, improved Gary quickly won me over and I’m sorry he won’t be in the final season. It’s also disappointing he never had a proper exit, but that seems par for the course with supporting characters in this series (Sally Gallagher springs to mind).
Any episode with a focus on the wider Morganstern clan is usually one of the better ones. The “surprise there’s no surprise party (but there is really... Surprise)” anniversary episode had its moments. Brenda’s imitation of Ida at her most assertive in Who’s Shy was really funny, while her sassy attempts to psyche out the competition in Brenda And The Bank Girl were also fun. Her eating the entire chocolate bar in the final episode was a tad annoying, though. This is due to the writing, not Julie Kavner's performance which is always solid. I just found it unbelievable that Brenda would do something so selfish in that particular situation.
In scenes where food is involved I still get distracted when noticing that none of it ever goes near Valerie Harper’s lips. She’ll serve it, talk appreciatively about it, push it round, gesticulate with it in her hand… anything but eat it. One exception came in the final episode where I saw her eat some of a (possibly botulism-infested) peach. Really, though, the weight loss became less jarring as the season progressed, and I think wardrobe, hair and makeup had much to do with it. Rhoda’s hair got a bit fuller and softer, diffusing any unflattering angular lines in the face, while in place of the abundance of skin (and bone) and very tight tops from the first half of the year, she increasingly wore dresses that were straight or even loose with light - almost diaphanous - material that created a very flattering wispy, floaty, softening effect. Valerie also looked healthier later in the season, and lost the shocking grey pallor on display in early S4 episodes.
The final two-parter was enjoyable enough. I always enjoy a cosy, haunted house type of atmosphere, and this had plenty of that, right down to the thunderstorm as the five remaining characters travelled in the car (the Poor Man's Process adding to the intimacy). As a change of pace it worked fine.
Summing up, then, while this is far from the best this series has to offer (much less the entire Maryverse), I feel it overcame some of its challenges and recovered towards the end enough for me to feel optimistic about the final short season.
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Skimming through IMDB, I was surprised to see how infrequently Ida (41) and Martin (16) actually appeared. I know Nancy Walker left for a season, but my recollection was the Morganstern parents being prevalent in the show.
I don't recall these episodes at all, but the plot is intriguing. I too am a sucker for comedy in a haunted house (-style) setting, although generally find these rarely work as well after B&W fell out of fashion.
I find myself wondering if I ever actually watched RHODA in its entirety, as your comments on S4 have triggered no memories. I thought I had watched it all; at some point it may have just turned into background noise to me as during the time I would have watched RHODA in reruns I was less inclined than I am now to quit a show.
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Back when I started Rhoda's first season, I remember us agreeing that Ida was best in small doses, and I got the impression from what you said that Ida could end up a little overused in the series, with familiarity breeding contempt.
I'm delighted that your memory around this was a little different from what we actually got, because Ida has mostly kept her scene-stealing ability. Season Four is the one in which she's most heavily appeared, and even that was 14 of the 24 episodes (Seasons One and Two were 9 a pop).
Martin is the character who always leaves me wanting more. He's classed as a regular for Season Four (at least, he is according to Wikipedia), but he only appeared in two episodes. The series does a nice job of his absences not being glaring, but I still wish we'd seen him a little more.
This season is actually pretty forgettable, so your background noise theory is still quite probable.
Of the thirteen seasons I've watched in the Maryverse so far, I'd say Rhoda S4 is the worst. It's certainly the one that feels the most like a generic American sitcom. The fact that Johnny Venture appeared in almost half the episodes sums it up.
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Yes, RHODA's changing/lack-of identities, already much-discussed, always leaves me perplexed. Once they dispensed with the family/Joe dynamic from the early years, deliberately shifting to single-girl-Rhoda-in-Manhattan, I can't decide if they did their late-'70s-disco-era thing too much, or if they should've leaned into it more than they did, shifting into a Slutty-Rhoda-does-Studio-54 distinctiveness where Rhoda & Brenda wind up like Diane Keaton at the end of LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR.
It's the perfect counterbalance to the bittersweet finale of MARY TYLER MOORE. And perhaps more honest. Certainly more unusual for series television.
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Rhoda
Season Five
Martin Doesn’t Live Here Anymore / In Search Of Martin / Rhoda vs. Ida / Brenda Gets Engaged / Meet The Goodwins / Ida’s Roommate / Martin Comes Home / Jack’s New Image / Martin Swallows His Heart / The Date In The Iron Mask
As predicted, the short season count goes in its favour. Season Five is a definite step up from the previous one in terms of watchability anyway and I suspect the season’s brevity is a factor in this as there’s less room for filler.
Because of this, the changes for Season Five feel mostly like improvements. I really like the jazzy new arrangement of the theme with its abundant sax (with my only reservation being that it’s spliced onto the opening bars of the Season Four theme, which means the key changes slightly right after Valerie’s credit). The tone of the season overall is good enough. Ida’s increased presence means more of an emphasis on the family which is no bad thing, and Martin’s absence has become a plot point this year with him running off to Florida (and Ida telling her neighbours he’s in prison to avoid the disgrace of them knowing he’d willingly gone without her).
There’s no sight or mention of Johnny Venture this year, which is a gift in itself. Gary hasn’t been missed as much as I’d feared and, while I’d have preferred the apparently-forgotten Ramone to be floating about the costume hire shop instead of silly one-joke Tina, at least her character has remained somewhat in check and without too much screen time. Even Valerie Harper’s tight perm is an improvement over the distractingly unflattering aesthetics of Season Four.
Once again it seems the playlist doesn’t have the episodes in strict air order. The Total Brenda should have come after Jack’s New Image, but will instead be the next episode I’ll watch.
The airdates have piqued my interest since the second half appears to have been shown quite sporadically, with a gap of four months between the ninth and tenth episodes. I can only guess that the new Saturday evening slot meant there were more occasional special events which interrupted regular programming, but… four months? It raises so many questions: Was Rhoda in trouble and pulled after the ninth, with the remaining episodes burning off after its mid-season replacement had run? Or was it always planned for some to be transmitted with a gap for some inexplicable reason?
With just three episodes remaining, I’m curious to see how Rhoda wraps, even if I have a feeling the ending is going to be more Phyllis than Mary Tyler Moore.
Yes. The changing tones can almost be summed up by the wildly different variations of the opening titles and the theme tune arrangement over just five seasons. Right up to the end, it feels they were still looking for the right fit.
Rhoda's the series that could have got away with this. Compared with MTM and Phyllis, it just feels more drab and kitchen sink to me (probably in large part due to the apartment sets leaning into murk a little more). New York is (probably) more naturally gritty than Minneapolis or San Francisco, as well, so it's a natural fit.
Season Five
Martin Doesn’t Live Here Anymore / In Search Of Martin / Rhoda vs. Ida / Brenda Gets Engaged / Meet The Goodwins / Ida’s Roommate / Martin Comes Home / Jack’s New Image / Martin Swallows His Heart / The Date In The Iron Mask
As predicted, the short season count goes in its favour. Season Five is a definite step up from the previous one in terms of watchability anyway and I suspect the season’s brevity is a factor in this as there’s less room for filler.
Because of this, the changes for Season Five feel mostly like improvements. I really like the jazzy new arrangement of the theme with its abundant sax (with my only reservation being that it’s spliced onto the opening bars of the Season Four theme, which means the key changes slightly right after Valerie’s credit). The tone of the season overall is good enough. Ida’s increased presence means more of an emphasis on the family which is no bad thing, and Martin’s absence has become a plot point this year with him running off to Florida (and Ida telling her neighbours he’s in prison to avoid the disgrace of them knowing he’d willingly gone without her).
There’s no sight or mention of Johnny Venture this year, which is a gift in itself. Gary hasn’t been missed as much as I’d feared and, while I’d have preferred the apparently-forgotten Ramone to be floating about the costume hire shop instead of silly one-joke Tina, at least her character has remained somewhat in check and without too much screen time. Even Valerie Harper’s tight perm is an improvement over the distractingly unflattering aesthetics of Season Four.
Once again it seems the playlist doesn’t have the episodes in strict air order. The Total Brenda should have come after Jack’s New Image, but will instead be the next episode I’ll watch.
The airdates have piqued my interest since the second half appears to have been shown quite sporadically, with a gap of four months between the ninth and tenth episodes. I can only guess that the new Saturday evening slot meant there were more occasional special events which interrupted regular programming, but… four months? It raises so many questions: Was Rhoda in trouble and pulled after the ninth, with the remaining episodes burning off after its mid-season replacement had run? Or was it always planned for some to be transmitted with a gap for some inexplicable reason?
With just three episodes remaining, I’m curious to see how Rhoda wraps, even if I have a feeling the ending is going to be more Phyllis than Mary Tyler Moore.
Yes. The changing tones can almost be summed up by the wildly different variations of the opening titles and the theme tune arrangement over just five seasons. Right up to the end, it feels they were still looking for the right fit.
Rhoda's the series that could have got away with this. Compared with MTM and Phyllis, it just feels more drab and kitchen sink to me (probably in large part due to the apartment sets leaning into murk a little more). New York is (probably) more naturally gritty than Minneapolis or San Francisco, as well, so it's a natural fit.
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I'd say it was in trouble. The ratings were in freefall and back then Nielsen only tracked their seasons through March. So pulling it by December and then airing the remaining episodes in May meant they weren't counted for the season average (which helps determine ad rates). There's also the point that episode 13 are usually written / filmed by December, so they would've needed to decide if they were to give Rhoda the "back-nine" for the season or not.
I guess interestingly, MTM still managed to produce a pilot for Carlton: Your Doorman, a proposed animated spin-off for Carlton:
Carlton Your Doorman - Wikipedia
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Aha. Suddenly the reason for the strange scheduling becomes crystal clear. Thanks for confirming this.
I guess this means they didn't know the last episode filmed would be the last episode ever, so I'll keep my expectations low when it comes to getting a proper ending.
Oh, I'd read about this in passing, but I hadn't clocked that it was animated. It's available to watch. I just took a peek at a few seconds and it looks terrible so naturally, I'm in.
I'll watch it right after Rhoda, then I can purge its memory with some of the MTM bonus material.
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I don't recall the storyline at all; what was the context here, that Martin actually left Ida? If so, I don't like it. I get that writers sometimes had to get creative to explain the absence of an actor but I hate when they use character assassination as the explanation. Curiously, THE GOLDEN GIRLS also did some very weird things to his character to explain Harold Gould not always being available.
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Actually, looking at it, I'm unsure if CBS actually aired all episodes in the original run. The only source I can find for those final four episodes airing is on Wikipedia, which isn't reliable. The dates would indicate that those would've aired on Fridays, but I can find none such listings indicating that.
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Martin did leave Ida to go to Florida, but it was framed as a kind of "I need to find myself" mid-life crisis. I don't know if you remember an earlier episode where Martin was depressed over his perceived lack of accomplishment and it was discovered he'd been sneaking away to play piano in a bar so he felt he was doing something interesting? The Florida business felt like it revisited that territory.
In the season opener, Rhoda and Brenda visit the Morganstern home only for Ida to reveal that Martin had left some months earlier and she'd been keeping it from them. The following episode saw Brenda and Rhoda track him down where he explained his reasons. Then he returned home by the middle of the season.
In execution, I didn't hate it, but I did find it a strange choice in a way since Harold Gould appeared in three of the Season Five episodes (almost 25%), whereas he'd only been in two episodes the previous full season and nothing was made of it. If anything it felt as though it was written in to give Gould and Nancy Walker something to do.
One satisfying thing is that the reset button was hit as soon as he returned. Ida insisted on him wooing her to win her over again (though Martin's initial response that it would feel strange to date again after 40+ years of marriage didn't hold much water with this viewer, all things considered).
Oh my. It seems we may have stumbled upon a mystery.
Another discovery from looking at the airdates on IMDB: Rhoda aired on British TV in 1981. It went completely under my radar, and I have no memory of it ever being shown or repeated here (unlike Valerie).
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Execution can make just about any plot work, so I'm glad it didn't sour the character for you. In concept, I still hate it. Martin was shown as a solid guy and loving family man; I find it hard to believe that man would abandon his family even due to a mid-life crisis. I have no idea why Gould appeared so infrequently. He was a busy actor in the 70s, but didn't seem to have any ongoing conflicts that would have prevented regular appearances on RHODA. In this case, I agree that it may have been easy to just not refer to the character since it was well established already that he didn't often appear; no convoluted excuse was needed. So maybe it was an intentional plot choice and not driven by working around Gould's availability.
Interesting to see Gould turned up on LOU GRANT, although obviously not as Mr. Morgenstern. MTM Productions really loved to recycle actors.
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Yes, I can understand that.
In viewing, think the biggest help was actually Harold Gould's continued presence as the story played out. He's so naturally likeable that I would find it difficult to be angry at the character. It helped sell me on the plot even though objectively I shouldn't like it for all the reasons you've stated.
I'd wondered about this too and had just decided he was in demand elsewhere. If there were no conflicts that puts a different spin on things.
It crossed my mind that he wanted to maintain a degree of esteem by not committing to a sitcom while doing films... but in his Seventies filmography, his television appearances are very extensive indeed, so who knows. Perhaps he was just one of those actors who didn't enjoy feeling tied to an ongoing project. The Feather And Father Gang (something I hadn't heard of) seems to be the only series he did on a weekly basis during this era.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that Jane Rose showed up for an episode of Rhoda as one of Martin's acquaintances in Florida.
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He might just have been the Cloris Leachman (MTM-era) of RHODA -- a respected, very busy actor who occasionally made himself available for the show.
Either way, Gould was one of my favorite character actors; I always liked seeing him turn up in any project.
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Gould's turn as Barney Gerber (Jodie's hospital roommate in S1 of Soap) is a favorite of mine. This multi-episode arc (where Jodie landed in the hospital after attempting suicide) featured Barney providing wise advice and occasional zingers--a "normal" character in a sea of wackiness. Barney was the one allowed to point out that Jodie, a suicidal homosexual who wanted to have a sex change operation, was nonetheless the sanest person in his family. This aired in the spring of 1977, so HG filmed it while also being attached to Rhoda.
Most people will likely recall him more as Miles, Rose's multi-season boyfriend on The Golden Girls.
Most people will likely recall him more as Miles, Rose's multi-season boyfriend on The Golden Girls.