An uncompromising career woman, Mary Richards has become a television icon. The face of one of television’s funniest and most beloved sitcoms, the character would have still been immortalized even without the hat-throwing statue that resides today in Minnesota. Even though by its fifth season, the show was starting to run low on material, The Mary Tyler Moore Show still generates lots of laughs, largely because of its ensemble cast of loveable characters.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show takes place in Minneapolis’ WJM-TV newsroom, the worksite of Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) where she starts out as an associate producer. At the station she works with crotchety producer Lou Grant (Ed Asner), proud writer Murray (Gavin MacLeod) and bumbling and clueless news anchor Ted Baxter (Ted Knight).
Most of the season five episodes revolve around various personal and professional issues around the office. Although Mary Richards is the central character, she’s not always the center of attention. In fact, I found season five to be more about exploring the entire cast. It makes sense. More people means more potential storylines. More storylines means more material before the story well runs dry. And when things start to get stale, give Mary a promotion to introduce a new set of possible conflicts.
Each of the primary characters is lovable in their own way – even Ted, but that’s largely because his voice reminds me of Sam the Eagle from The Muppet Show. As the show evolves you get to know the characters better. In season five, some of the biggest laughs come from secondary characters Sue Ann (Betty White), who follows the Martha Stewart template before Martha Stewart and Georgette (Georgia Engel), Ted’s naive wife who has a wonderful heart.
A common problem I had with season five of The Mary Tyler Moore Show was the pacing. Ninety percent of an individual episode’s running time was the build up of the conflict. More often than not, it boils up and up with hilarious results but then all of a sudden everything’s resolved and the credits role. There’s no dénouement to be seen or anything that leads out save for a brief gag as the credits are on standby. The result is jolting and somewhat cheapens the previous 25 minutes you’ve just invested in watching.
Season five of The Mary Tyler Moore Show might not be classic on its own, but it’s still a consistently funny show with loveable characters that provide plenty of fodder to get sucked in by, even if it is somewhat passive by this point.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show: Season Five DVD Review
My first reaction in opening this three-disc set was the packaging. TV shows on DVD have come a long way since they started getting churned out a few years back. Before, they came in these elaborate and wasteful works of art that would often stretch an entire arm’s length. This set is housed in a regular-sized DVD case. Much slimmer and shelf friendly.
The show? Yup, it’s there – all 24 season five episodes. And that’s it. Shown in a solid full screen format with English mono sound, the only options are whether you want English subtitles, Spanish subtitles or no subtitles. The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Complete Fifth Seasons offers no bonus features to speak of.
