Many people believe that Alice jumped the shark (https://web.archive.org/web/20061031125335/http://www.jumptheshark.com/a/alice.htm) when Polly Holliday/Flo left after the fourth season. But do you believe that Season 3 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_(season_3)) was pretty sub-par (to say the least) in its own right? It seemed like the writers (namely Bob Carroll Jr. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Carroll_Jr.) and Madelyn Pugh Davis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madelyn_Pugh)) seemed to enjoy recycling the same tired dialogue, cliches, and situations for Linda Lavin any less than doing it for Lucille Ball. You compare that to other writers of that era like Bob Weiskopf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Weiskopf) and Bob Schiller (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Schiller) who were likely better at writing contemporary material.

You just gave me an idea for a Christmas Gift. I cant answer this question until I watch the series from season 1 to end. So now I am about to order the show on DVD