Married People aired from September 1990 until September 1991 on ABC.
Three couples, at three stages of marriage, populated a New York brownstone in this easygoing comedy. On the ground floor were landlords Nick and Olivia ( Ray Aranha, Barbara Montgomery), a sixtyish black couple who had raised their 2 children in the house and now found it possible to rent out the upper 2 floors as their Harlem neighborhood gentrified. Nick was a little cranky and Olivia very sensible, but both were traditionalists. On the second floor were the decidedly non-traditional Meyerses; Russell ( Jay Thomas), a sensitive freelance writer who worked at home , and Elizabeth ( Bess Armstrong), an ambitious attorney for a midtown law firm, angling to become a partner. " Why doesn't he get out and work?" harrumphed Nick. In the third floor attic apartment were The Campbells, cute teenage newlyweds just arrived in New York and oh-so-much in love. Gosh-golly Allen ( Chris Young) was a freshman at Columbia University, while his perky sweetness, Cindy ( Megan Gallivan), a midwestern cheerleader, supported them both as a waitress. " That's the whitest boy I've ever seen!" grumped Nick. " Even for a white boy, he's just too white."
Early in the season overachiever Elizabeth had her first child, Baby Max ( Jonathan and Matthew Lester), turning Russell into a complete house-husband.
A Review from USA TODAY
TV PREVIEW/BY MATT ROUSH
'Married' is headed for divorce court
What network heads have joined together, let discriminating viewers put asunder. Forget the seven-year itch. ABC's Married People will be lucky to reach a seven-week stretch.
Here's the formula, such as it is. You take a three-level Harlem brownstone, and populate it thus: crusty but cuddly older couple ( Ray Aranha, Barbara Montgomery) who've rented their upper floors to kiwi-eating , child-expecting yuppies and a pair of frisky, native newlywed teens.
For this ABC put Anything but Love on hiatus? And this is what ABC intends to use on Wednesdays to bridge Steven Bochco's adventurous Doogie Howser M.D. and Cop Rock?
Married People is regressive, pointless, weightless. Through its trite fog shines only one semi-bright light: Bess Armstrong as the yuppie wife, an ambitious lawyer who fears her pregnancy will interfere with promotion. Married to a boorish work-at-home journalist ( Jay Thomas), she whines about looking like a cow.
Not so. How now , wow cow. Armstrong brings some pep, and a little bite to her role. Much worse off are Chris Young and Megan Gallivan as a dopey Indiana couple in a constant state of dewey-eyed kissy-face. Asked why these youngsters didn't just move in together, Gallivan chirps, " Oh no! We wanted to have sex!"
Indiana gave us Jane Pauley and David Letterman ( and yours truly), and no one's that vacant. But Married People is.
As long as it lasts, the laugh track will be required to love, honor and obey these guys, til cancellation do they part.
Shouldn't take long.
A Review From Entertainment Weekly
TV Review
TELEVISION
By Ken Tucker
MARRIED PEOPLE ABC, WED., OCT. 3, 9:30-10 P.M.
Married People borrows just enough from real life to make its sunny sitcom premise interesting. A middle-aged couple living in a big house in Harlem (Ray Aranha, Barbara Montgomery) rent out the two upper floors. They are black, and their renters-two married couples-are white. ''Why do white people want to live in Harlem?'' Aranha asks in the pilot. Gentrification, his wife answers: ''Call Harlem 'Central Park North' and white people will come running.'' Already, this is racial politics a little closer to the edge than, say, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The whites are obvious cliches: Jay Thomas (as a free-lance writer) and Bess Armstrong (a lawyer expecting a baby) are aging baby-boomers who yearn for fresh kiwi fruit; Chris Young and Megan Gallivan play youthful newlyweds who must be supported by their parents. The black couple is a less obvious cliche: He's a cranky old man obliged to complain constantly about those kooky kids upstairs; she is an unceasing fount of earthy common sense and homespun wisdom. When Bess Armstrong says she doesn't intend her baby to change her * life in any way, Montgomery laughs heartily and says, ''With babies, you change their diapers, and they change your life''-a nugget of pseudo-truth that Armstrong accepts as a profound insight. Still, the acting here is uniformly good. Gallivan brings a beguilingly fresh approach to her potentially annoying sweet-young-girl role, and the byplay between Armstrong and Thomas is especially sharp. This may also be the first show that gets some of the details of free-lance writing down accurately; in the pilot, Thomas tries to pass himself off to his neighbors as an investigative reporter at work on an Important Article. When Armstrong reveals that he's working on a profile for TV Guide, he's mortified. TV Guide as a punch line on TV? Pretty cool B+
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