TV Guide's Review of One Day at a Time, Feb 21-27, 1976

[TVFactFan]

Don't Look now, but there's another woman out there all alone in the great big cruel world. She is in Indianapolis-a refreshing change from Los Angeles or New York-and she's not really all alone: She has two children and a boy friend. Actually, she has a host of men, including the building superintendent, who is also divorced, and is super-intent on upstairs attentions.

One Day at a Time is another Norman Lear job, and if you wonder how he keeps track of all his shows, our theory is that he doesn't. He hires someone to keep a list, and it must be a very long list indeed. One of Lear's trademarks is interesting characters, and this show has them. Start with our heroine, Ann Romano(Bonnie Franklin). She is good, and good fun; she can be funny without stretching it and even desperate without ruining the comedy. In one episode, she won't let her daughter go camping with the boys, so the girl decides to go back with Daddy. "The first 17 years of my life," Ann says, "my father made the decisions. The next 17 years of my life, my husband made the decisions. The first time I make a decision, i blow it."

In another episode, she meets her husband's girl friend, Candy Cruthers(Cara Borelli)-a model who not only does sparkplug commercials ("HI there, Want to know what makes my motor run?") but strikes sparks by flirting with the easy role of permissive step-parent. "Well, i havent been out of high school so long that I've forgotten how you feel," she tells the children -within Ann's hearing. Finally, Ann has had it. "I want to be Candy Cruthers," she tells her lawyer friend, David, "but I can't. I have to be Ann Romano, the drudge, the villain, the harpy, the shrew." "Put them all together," says David, "they spell Mother."

Davd is perhaps the best example of the kind of character that makes this show interesting. He is excellently acted by Richard Masur, whom you have to have liked in Hot L Baltimore, even if you didn't like the show. David is an old 26 to Ann's young 34, and his love life is not an easy one. In another show, an employer wants her for more than a job. "Just play him along," David advises. "Smile, double-talk, stall him. Do what you've been doing to me since we met." Daughters Julie( Mackenzie Phillips) and Barbara(Valerie Bertinelli) are rarities-teenage characters with character. Julie, for example, fearing she'll lose her boy friend to a number called Trish the Dish, decides to fight. She overstuffs her bra and overmakes her makeup-only to hear her boy friend describe the Dish as "cherry lipstick, strawberry shampoo and lemon deodorant. It's like going out with a fruit salad." As for the superintendent(Pat Harrington), believe him or not, he's funny. "Listen cub scout," he says to David at one point. "What do you know about life? You haven't lived. You haven't had my disadvantages." That's Vintage LEAR.


Cleveland Amory, 1976