"Pretty clever, eh? It takes most people a month to grow a mustache like this. But with this, I can look like this right away. Then in a month, I'll have a real one underneath that looks just like this. And when I take this off, I'll have all that and then it'll look just like this!" - Ted Baxter (Ted Knight) on why he's wearing a false mustache
The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Complete Second Season DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
It looks like Mary's going to make it after all. Legend has it that when the pilot episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show was performed in front of an audience for the first time, it was a complete disaster. The actors and the material just didn't connect with the audience. The show's creative team was devastated, but after a few minor tweaks, the next day's filming went perfectly. Twenty-two years later, history seemed to be repeating itself when the series' first season was released on DVD in September 2002. An insert promised that season two would follow in spring 2003, but low sales of season one scuttled those plans. MTM fans worried that the series would join the ever-growing list of shows whose DVDs are abandoned after the first season is released. Happily, after a rejiggering of its price and packaging, The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Complete Second Season has arrived on DVD two-and-a-half years behind schedule.
It was worth the wait. In a list of the greatest sitcoms of all time, The Mary Tyler Moore Show would surely be near the top. MTM is one of the first "modern" sitcoms. The series doesn't center on traditional family life that we are either born or marry into. Instead, the emphasis is on the families we choose - our substitute family of co-workers and friends. Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) is a thirtysomething single woman living in Minneapolis where she works as an associate producer on the low-rated 6 o'clock news at WJM. Her irascible boss, Lou Grant (Ed Asner), can be gruff and sexist, but he's also a father figure to Mary. News writer Murray Slaughter (The Love Boat's Gavin MacLeod) is happily married to Marie (Joyce Bulifant), but he can't help being a little infatuated with Mary. Ted Baxter (Too Close for Comfort's Ted Knight) is the station's cheap, vain, and slightly brainless anchorman.
Workplace comedies had been done before (including Moore's own The Dick Van Dyke Show), but Mary Richard's personal life makes MTM unique. Mary is single - happily so. She fills her home life with friends rather than a husband and kids. Her best friend is Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper), a man-crazy transplanted New Yorker who lives in the apartment above Mary's. Snobbish Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman), a pal from Mary's college days, lives in the apartment below. Rhoda at least pretends to desperately want a husband, and Phyllis constantly boasts about her perfect family, including her perfect husband, Lars, and her perfect daughter, Bess (Lisa Gerritsen). Mary, however, is both unapologetic and unworried about her marital status.
In later seasons, Rhoda and Phyllis got their own spin-offs, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show emphasized Mary's work life. In season two, focus is satisfyingly split between work and home, with home usually getting the most airtime, including episodes where pushy Phyllis convinces Mary to talk to Bess about sex ("The Birds...and...umm...Bees"), Mary and Rhoda plan a trip to Mexico ("He's No Heavy...He's My Brother"), Phyllis enlists Mary's help to get Bess' school essay published ("The Care and Feeding of Parents"), and Rhoda temporarily moves in with Mary when her apartment catches fire ("Where There's Smoke, There's Rhoda").
Mary might not be married, but she's no old maid. She dates a variety of men in season two, even if some of them turn out to be a little less than perfect. Mary enrolls in a journalism class to improve her writing skills ("Room 223"). She ends up improving her love life instead when she starts dating the teacher, Dan Whitfield (Michael Tolan). In "The Five-Minute Dress," Mary has a date with the assistant to Minnesota's governor. The guy is charming, smart, and handsome. He's also so busy fulfilling his job duties that he constant has to cancel his dates with Mary. In a highly imaginative move, the aide is so busy the even we don't get to see him!
Mary even fields two marriage proposals in the second season. In "Didn't You Used to Be.Wait.Don't Tell Me," Mary attends her class reunion at Leif Erickson High. There, she runs into Howard Arnell (Richard Schaal), her goofball ex-boyfriend (last seen in season one's "Today I am a Ma'am" and "Howard's Girl"). Mary does her best to avoid Howard, but this proves difficult when he proposes to her over the gymnasium's P.A. system. In "You Certainly are a Big Boy," Mary's latest boyfriend is the famous Minneapolis architect Matt Bryan (Bradford Dillman). Mary knows that Matt is a little older than she is, but she is surprised to learn that Matt Jr. (Crazy Like a Fox's John Rubinstein) is almost her age. Things get even more complicated when Matt Sr. first avoids Mary and then impulsively proposes to her.
Even though Mary's home life takes center stage in season two, the WJM gang also gets a chance to shine. Marie thinks that Murray is having an affair with Mary when she catches him lying about a second job ("The Slaughter Affair"). Mr. Grant catches his son-in-law in a compromising position ("The Six-and-a-Half-Year Itch") and hires Rhoda to redecorate his living room ("The Square-Shaped Room"). Even Ted develops into a more three dimensional character this season, exposing the insecure man beneath his doltish exterior. He engages in a goofy game of one-upmanship with his equally vapid younger brother, Hal (Jack Cassidy), a professional model ("Cover Boy"). We also learn that Ted hasn't taken a vacation in years because he is afraid that he'll be replaced ("And Now, Sitting in for Ted Baxter"). Ted even falls in love with Betty Bowerchuck (Arelene Golonka), Chuckles the Clown's daughter ("Ted Over Heels").
In the 1970s, sitcoms like All in the Family and Good Times began discussing social issues with an explicitness that was rarely seen even on dramatic shows. Although MTM did implicitly touch on topics like sexism and equal rights, it rarely tackled these issues head on. Season two does contain one of the series' rare forays into social commentary: "Some of My Best Friends are Rhoda." In this memorable episode, Mary's car is rear-ended by another driver, Joanne Forbes (Newhart's Mary Frann). Realizing that they have much in common, the two become friends. As Mary spends more time with Joanne, her friendship with Rhoda suffers. Mary tries to solve the problem by having Rhoda join her regular tennis date with Joanne. She soon learns, however, that worldly, friendly Joanne is actually anti-Semitic. This episode tackles bigotry with a subtle, even-keeled tone that is the series' hallmark.
In the priceless episode "A Girl's Best Mother is Not Her Friend," Nancy Walker makes another appearance as Rhoda's mother, Ida Morgenstern. Ida decides that being Rhoda's mother simply isn't enough - she also wants to be her best friend. As for Rhoda, she begins to appreciate the old overprotective version of Ida when faced with a "best friend" whose idea of fun is dressing up in matching outfits.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show doesn't rely on slapstick or nonstop putdowns for its laughs. Instead, its humor derives from the characters and their relationships with each other. Each episode may not contain a large number of belly laughs, but this is definitely a group of friends you'll want to revisit over and over again.
Notable guests in season two include Michael Constantine (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), Val Bisoglio (Quincy, M.E.), Florida Friebus (The Bob Newhart Show), Jack Riley (The Bob Newhart Show), Jed Allan (Days of Our Lives), Lawrence Pressman (Doogie Howser, M.D.), Barbara Sharma (Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In), Isabel Sanford (The Jeffersons), and Bill Daily (The Bob Newhart Show).
The twenty-four episodes that make up season two are divided onto three discs. The third disc is double sided. Each disc is housed in a slim, black keepcase. The front of each case features the same publicity photo of Moore, Harper, and Asner. The back of each case features a listing of episode titles, airdates, brief synopses, and writing/directing credits. The cases slide into a cardboard outer sleeve which features the same photo of Moore, Harper, and Asner.
The menu design is similar to that of the first season. From the main menu, each episode on the DVD is numbered in airdate order. Clicking on a title brings up that episode's individual menu screen. From here, the episode options (chapter stops, subtitles, audio/language, commentary when applicable) can be chosen and the episode can be played. Each episode is divided into chapters.
