In my opinion, what kills the LUCY SHOW in reruns is the number of mediocre episodes after the Vivian Vance years. Lucy is still funny, but without her best friend and children, her character has no outlet to express warmth. Mr.Mooney was no Ricky Ricardo! He was a threat to Lucy, but there was little outwardly expressed affection there.

I would repackaged the LUCY SHOW the following way.

I would re-run all the episodes from Season One.

Most of the episodes in Season Two.

I would cut out 4 of the 6 non-Vivian shows in Season Three. I'd save the Countess' first visit to establish her character, and My Fair Lucy (Lucy is the scrub woman we seen in the opening kalediscope shot)

Then I would add a "fourth" season consisting of the best of the final three years..maybe 12 episodes....

Lucy at Marineland (to establish her in her new locale)

Lucy Has a Horse Guest (Bill Frawley!)

Lucy and Danny Thomas (the first episode she plays Mr.Mooney's secretary)

Lucy is Untouchable (superb performance by Lucille in this one)

Viv Visits Lucy (out of order...to get Viv back on earlier)

Lucy and George Burns

Lucy and Carol Burnett I and II

Lucy and the Lost Star (out of order again)

Lucy and Milton Berle

Lucy and Jack Benny

Lucy and Viv Reminisce (this should be the last episode of the series...Lucy and Viv back together again..it is a flashback show, too)

Then, in a bold move, I would add 12 HERE'S LUCY's to the package....

Mod, Mod Lucy (the first Heres Lucy show)

Lucy and Jack Benny (Jackie Gleason has a cameo)

Lucy is Matchmaker (with Viv)

Lucy Rides The Rapids

Lucy and Viv and Lawrence Welk

Lucy and Viv in Tiauna

Lucy Meets The Burtons

Lucy Goes Hawaiian Part I and II

Lucy and Flip Wilson

Kim Cuts Lucys Apron Strings

With Viv as an Enemy, Who Needs Friends.
(this would be the final episode)


This would make a total of about 100 episodes, and in my opinion would be some of the best of Lucille's post I LOVE LUCY work.


Steve

I disagree. I think The Lucy Show should have two ways of showing the episodes:

a) Air all 156 episodes in order
b) Cut out the mediocre ones by doing poll where the fans choose. Like always, the majority of the vote wins.


Also, I don't think any one episode of Here's Lucy should be added to The Lucy Show package. That doesn't help any, but further confuse people of which Lucy show is which. Understand? It's bad enough some of that is going on already, we don't want to add more fuel to the fire.