Rhoda
Season Four
One Is A Number / Ida Works Out / Rhoda Likes Mike / The Weekend / Home Movies / Johnny’s Solo Flight / Blind Date / Ida Alone
I’ve just noticed that an episode named
Who’s Shy? is missing from the playlist, so I’ll have to catch this one tonight. They synopsis says that Brenda sees a therapist to cure her shyness, but I’m not seeing much sign of it this year. In fact, I’d say current
Rhoda ties in with Crimson's observation:
the inherent risk of a sitcom's characters and relationships evolving and eventually no longer being the very show audiences liked in the first place.
As you can tell, I’m watching the episodes at quite a rate. Unfortunately, my mentality around it is less “I can’t stop watching” and more “let’s get this over with”. I fear if I drag this season out I’ll lose the will to live, or at the very least the will to continue.
Some episodes and scenes are watchable enough, while far too many are a bit tedious.
Valerie Harper’s weight loss continues to be more distracting than it should be, more so because the wardrobe seems chosen to draw attention to the new look, and it feels a little that this is at the expense of story. When she’s in a fuller dress and has her hair styled well it looks OK. But when she’s in a shoulder-less gown, or a tank top, and has her hair scraped back from her head, she just looks angular and long and drawn. A couple of episodes have commented upon the weight loss, which is natural, but I thought the episode with the short, bald date was in bad taste. His commenting upon her being too skinny was framed as rude (which it was, the character having been written obnoxiously enough to justify her eventual outburst) while her calling him short, bald and ugly was acceptable, overlooking the obvious fact that he had no say in or control over any of these factors.
Johnny Venture is probably the worst thing to happen to this series. How ironic that he was only tolerable when he was depressed. I loathe the way the series and the audience treat him as a breakout kind of character, applauding when he swaggers in or utters one line. This is everything that’s stereotypically bad about American sitcoms and of course immediately draws parallels with Fonzie in
Happy Days (possibly deliberately). The Maryverse has been mostly free of this, so it’s particularly jarring here. He's a cardboard cutout and brings absolutely no value to the show.
Even more mind-boggling than Rhoda taking a job at a penny-ante costume shop is… Ida taking a job at the same penny-ante costume shop.
On the plus side, there’s been the return of Martin to the series. The
Home Movies episode felt as though it had quite a lot of filler with the time spent watching said movies, but it was entertaining (even if, again, there was arguably the vanity trip of having Valerie and Julie dressing up in fat suits for them to draw attention to their weight loss in the current episodes). It may not have been much of a story, but it was still a good one, with Rhoda and Brenda’s visits done out of filial duty and clearly a chore for them, not knowing that Ida and Martin would prefer time to themselves anyway. The episode’s resolution, with them all ultimately enjoying spending time together, remembering happy times, was as warm and lovely as it was cheesy. It really captured that feeling of family, and is my favourite episode of the season so far (which is perhaps a backhanded compliment).
That episode had snowfall, and a number of other episodes have had heavy rain going on outside the windows which is nice to see and makes for good atmosphere.
I just intensely dislike Joe.
