Poster: Stuck In The '70's
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Muddling Through aired from July until September 1994 on CBS.
Pistol-Packin' Connie Drego ( Stephanie Hodge) had just been paroled from prison, where she had served 3 years for shooting her cheating husband, Sonny( D. David Morin), in the butt, in this raucous comedy. She had returned home to go back to work at Drego's Oasis, the family's truck-stop diner/motel in rural Michigan. Now divorced, Connie hoped to get her life back to normal, but her family didn't help much. Her older daughter Madeline ( Jennifer Aniston), had married " Trooper Cooper," ( Scott Waara) the dense but straight-arrow cop who had arrested Connie and whose testimony in court had been a major factor in her conviction. Her younger daughter Kerri ( Aimee Brooks), had become a boy-crazy sex-pot with little interest in schoolwork, and , to make things worse, no-good Sonny was still hanging around and living for free in one of the rental cabins behind the diner. Connie's hostility occasionally showed itself-mostly when dealing with Duane , unemployed Sonny, and the customers at Drego's whose kidding about her past sometimes got under her skin. Gidney and Lyle ( Hal Landon, Jr, Hank Underwood) were old time regulars at the diner.
A Review From Entertainment Weekly
Muddling Through
Reviewed by Ken Tucker
It's not difficult to see why muddling through (CBS, July 9, 9-9:30 p.m.) didn't find a spot on CBS' schedule for the next fall season. This sitcom starring Nurses' Stephanie Hodge is set in Drego's Oasis, a dingy little coffee shop owned by Hodge's Connie Drego. In the premiere, Connie is just out of prison for shooting her no-good, two-timin' husband, Sonny (D. David Morin), whom she describes as ''dirt with a driver's license.'' Connie's daughter Madeline (Jennifer Anniston) is running the cafe, while younger daughter Kerri (Aimee Brooks) is busy learning how to be as trampy as possible. This is the kind of sitcom that thinks you'll laugh if it calls a policeman Trooper Cooper (Scott Waara) and tosses in a nightstick-as-penis joke for good measure. In this context, Hodge's crack comic timing and shaded line readings seem touching, and well beyond the call of duty. D
(Posted:07/08/94)
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