"Who could turn the world on with a smile?" Not Rhoda, but her sister Brenda could.

I've been binging on "Rhoda" ever since September and would've been done by now except for a blasted trip to Europe that interrupted it all (lol!). While that's not entirely true it can't be denied that I read an essay online about season 3 and was excited to see it when I got back to Seattle. I was a fan of Rhoda as a kid when I'd watch it in my kitchen after school in my best time of being a latch key kid, along with "The Bob Newhart Show" and "Mary Tyler Moore." Of course, those were the two best in the MTM stable, but "Rhoda" wasn't far behind, though I was too young to ever think of writing an essay about any of these shows. It's hard to know where to begin on a show like "Rhoda" that has its own mechanics but also was so personal that I have a hard time divorcing its aesthetic from my mind, but in an attempt to link my body to my mind I'm going to do my best to sum up my feelings towards this landmark show both personally and critically.

Critically, "Rhoda" is one of those shows that kind of went under the radar once it slipped from the public imagination never to be heard from again. I must've seen it in its first run of reruns while it still may have been on TV, but don't remember watching it during prime time as much as after school when it was one of those hip cool shows telling me about the times but more importantly artistically reflecting adulthood in those times. I didn't mean to compare the MTM shows to the Norman Lear ones ("All in the Family," "Good Times," etc.) but one of the big differences was that the Norman Lear ones were overtly political so they were "with it" in terms of their hip liberal viewpoint but the characters were mouthpieces for these viewpoints rather than subtle creations living within them, and this was a big difference. And don't get me wrong, oh dear reader, the characters were great on those shows too, but they didn't reflect for me a vision of adulthood I saw myself morphing into, replete with an era I was living in. How archetypal that those were my latch key kid years.

"Rhoda" will never be considered a first tier show like "Mary Tyler Moore," or "The Bob Newhart Show," even though I realize that "The Bob Newhart Show" started off as second tier, but outdid expectations and in its own way was as good as "Mary" or a damn close second place, though it was second place. At the time, in my critical mind, I thought that "Mary Tyler Moore" was a consistently better show, but that I liked "Bob Newhart" more, but that would be by very little, since all of these shows were a keyhole to a life I had yet to lead, a person I had yet to become. "Rhoda" is a second tier show, for sure, but it's actually much better than I thought it would be on a second viewing, but why much better, and why were my expectations so low? I loved Brenda (Julie Kavner, who I just learned went on to be the voice of Marge Simpson) as a kid, and Nancy Walker as Rhoda's doting mother, not to mention Carlton the Doorman, a truly memorable and creative minor character, but after this my mind went blank on the show. Instead, it became one of those rather personal memories I had of the TV being more like a friend than an entertainment box.

So, how to understand "Rhoda" critically? It starts with Rhoda Morganstern, Mary Tyler Moore's hall of fame sidekick, and a woman's lib accidental archetype, moving back to New York to jump start her life after a stint in Minneapolis. I don't remember if the "Mary Tyler Moore" show explains why Rhoda felt she had to make this switch but I think it had to do with her meeting Joe Gerard, a love interest that all but came to define "Rhoda" even if he wasn't a great character, and this alone makes the trajectory interesting and weird right off the bat. I mean Rhoda was having a good life in Minneapolis; she had good friends, a groovy job, a groovier apartment, and seemed to be gaining confidence, and then she ups and moves back to a city she had sworn off because her family drove her crazy, and then she ends up living with her family again, albeit in her own apartment, and married to a guy who runs a demolition business. Her sister becomes her, and her mother becomes something she never had to deal with in Minneapolis, so her trajectory is all about Joe. It should be said that the first season of Rhoda was a big national hit and that the episode of her and Joe getting married was the most watched TV show of all time, and will be what "Rhoda" is forever remembered for, in the great scope of TV time. Why America wanted to see Rhoda get married so badly is a question worthy of the Gods, but she was a TV icon and I can only guess that audience wanted to see who this very special woman who came to define a Ms. magazine aesthetic would marry, since one of the many tenets of feminism was that the marriage created a slave owning relationship, and neither she nor Mary ever had regular guys.

This brings us to Joe, the lynchpin of the show, and a weak character. I'm not sure a successful sitcom has ever had such a minor and forgettable character be so significant but that's how the writers/creators of Rhoda made it though there is the sense that they didn't mean to do this but caught up in the wedding, and who wouldn't? I mean NO show save the last episode of "Seinfeld," or something remarkable like this, would ever have an episode be viewed by so many people (my grandparents must've even watched it) and from that moment on Rhoda and Joe would be inseparable. To be fair, they may have been inseparable (insufferable?) even if the show didn't have the one off episode of all time, and that is the striking flaw in Rhoda. Her and Joe really have no chemistry, and it's hard to know who to blame this on, but it gets at the heart of why "Rhoda" is a second tier show that nevertheless made it to the fabled 100 episode mark needed (?) for reruns.

Joe brings nothing good out in Rhoda Morganstern and this couldn't have been the goal but with or without him this is not even remotely the same character that inhabited Mary's apartment in Minneapolis, with the snow falling out the window. There, she and Mary played a contemporary version of the WASP/Jewish comedy team to sexy perfection, and will go down as one of the greatest pairs in TV history. In their set up, Mary was all bright and shiny, while Rhoda was more street smart and wise cracking, but Mary didn't come off as a heavy. She just came off as a perky good spirited slightly funny counterpart to Rhoda's darker biting humor, that also had its fill of good spirits, since these were two young women enjoying their life in the city. If anything, Phyllis comes off as the bitchy "heavy" between Mary and Rhoda, another character so good she got her own spin off that I also watched around this time but not as good as "Rhoda" (a third tier show) that I also saw as a latch key kid making myself a can of Minestrone soup or a bagel and cream cheese.

The beginning of "Rhoda" may have said it all when it shows her happily walking in Times Square like Mary taking over Minneapolis in her opening montage, but when Rhoda throws her hat up in the air in a moment of triumph/exhilaration/freedom in homage to Mary it doesn't take off and falls right on the sidewalk. It's played for laughs, of course, and is kind of funny with a really silly "La la la la la la la" song playing behind her that became the theme and has dated badly, if indeed it ever was good, and one of those strikes against Rhoda. I'm not sure what the writers intended from this show, but right off the bat she's failing in New York, the big apple, and to make this clear the first season has a voice over of Rhoda talking about her life, and how New York has one more chance to appreciate her brilliance, but she's stumbling right off the bat, unable to get her hat in the air, nor does the show ever change direction with her. Rhoda literally fails at everything she tries, but her biggest failure, and what the show will be remembered for aside from the comic genius of Brenda, a great character, and that "wedding" episode that all of America watched, was her and Joe's subsequent divorce. Again, I don't know what the writers were thinking and there is a James Brooks special called "Remembering Rhoda" on disc 2 that I didn't watch and really wish I did for my own entertainment not to mention this essay, but I doubt they wed Joe and Rhoda to ultimately divorce them in season 3.

I could probably write an essay or two on Joe and Rhoda but I'm going to try to turn it into a paragraph or two, and get on with this scintillating essay (lol). Valerie Harper and David Groh just had no chemistry as actors, so the casting was terrible. Given this, and that there was so much expectation from Joe and Rhoda due to their fairytale TV wedding seen by more viewers than any show in history, there was a lot of pressure for them to have chemistry. Most of the problem, I guess, is in David Groh's performance, an actor who just wan't up for the task. He's not bad, but he's not good, and he had to be good to not be bad, so he was bad. As for Valerie Harper, she was a much better actress than David Groh but had all but been recast in "Rhoda" as an entirely different character than what we had known in "Mary Tyler Moore" the show Rhoda Morganstern as a character will be remembered for, because whatever good exists in Rhoda isn't became of her character becoming more fascinating in and of herself. I think the writers wanted to make Joe and Rhoda a modern day marriage that had its blemishes and flaws. Add to this, the divorce era was coming into view, and the "relationship" films of Woody Allen, Paul Mazursky, etc., were all the rage, so the writers of "Rhoda" tried to make a TV version of a tragic comic relationship movie. In the process, Rhoda was diminished from a fun loving single to a very worried woman in a marriage not working, and a career that can't get off the ground.

It's ironic that Rhoda Morganstern won't be remembered as the character from her signature show that ran for nearly five years but the TV Gods have a funny way of putting us mortals in our place. Rhoda was made the straight woman like Mary was on "Mary Tyler Moore" but without any of Mary's charm and is basically a neurotic mess with nothing going right in her life, nor does she find this funny. Not only is she getting divorced from a man she moved back to New York to be with, but her up and coming window dressing business disappears after season 2 (?) when she decides to freelance, but clearly is not very successful. In fact, one of the biggest gigs she gets as a freelancer turns out to be a sting operation where a cop thinks she's a prostitute. As for her dating life post Joe, it's a mess, but worse than that Rhoda takes a kind of haughty view towards the entire swingin' '70's, and becomes an old maid by the time she's 30 who sees herself as superior to all of the pick up lines and come on's, while her younger sister Brenda is more open to the times she's living in. Rhoda doesn't exactly judge Brenda for her choice in men, but she makes it clear that she's a hot number who has risen above the sleazy singles scene played for laughs all around her, most notably through a neighbor (Gary, played by Ron Silver, in a lightly good turn), and Johnny Venture, a Vegas guy they tried playing for big laughs, but there were none there.

The miracle of "Rhoda" is that it works in spite of taking all of the charm, life, love, and meaning out of its main character, but how? Well, you'd have to start with Julie Kavner's star turn as Brenda Morganstern, an absolutely great character that has nearly as much screen time as Rhoda, and who all but dominates the show. It should be said that Valerie Harper and Julie Kavner had the kind of chemistry we needed from Rhoda and Joe, so that Valerie Harper was a good counterpoint to Brenda, and in this her seriousness worked. We're also allowed as viewers to watch Rhoda age with us and go down perhaps the dark slippery side of the '70's, that most of us care to forget when we romanticize the past. "Rhoda" in some ways simulated the movies of the era searching for reality in a sad screwed up world, with lovely little Rhoda Morganstern on the seas of isolation. It doesn't hurt that the writers of "Rhoda" obviously loved the show very much and there are so many comic turns and twists that like a reviewer said, "It's best episodes are as good as "Mary Tyler Moore,"" and I'd agree with that. The show is "comfy" and a fascinating look into what really was going on in the '70's between family and a single life, so this may be what the writers wanted, though it would be hard to imagine they wanted Rhoda to be a bitch, but this is how she comes off most of the time, even if one with an ethical backbone, and a love of family. She's not the worst bitch of all time but she's a bummer, and this was why we'll never think of Rhoda as having her own show, and why she'll forever be Mary's "Hardy," or Chong's "Cheech."