SEASON PREMIERE: This documentary series about TV returns tonight with
Funny Ladies, the first of four installments devoted to specific television subjects and dramas. (For a full rundown, and an interview with the documentary’s producers, see Tom Brinkmoeller’s
Raised on MTM.) I have the same polar reaction to this new season as I have in years past: I love the subject matter, but usually end up disappointed or frustrated by the specific inclusions and omissions. It feels like these hours are written backward: booking interviewees first, then crafting the program to fit. How else to explain that Marla Gibbs, a supporting player on
The Jeffersons and spinoff star of
227, gets lots of screen time, while Gertrude Berg, the truly pioneering star
and writer of
The Goldbergs, is dismissed in a sentence or two? It’s valuable, truly, to have Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore on tap, and they’re duly honored, as is Lucille Ball. But if we’re talking pioneers in female TV comedy – and we are – you can’t elevate Phyllis Diller above, say,
Our Miss Brooks star Eve Arden and expect to be taken too seriously.
Check local listings.