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.

Leave a Comment: (No HTML, 1000 chars max)

Name (required)

Email (required) (will not be published)


Type in the verification word shown on the image.

New From TVWW

PBS, 8:00 p.m. ET

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up

The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation

Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'

Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver

'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy

1957: Julie Andrews Stars in 'Cinderella'

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action

How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth

In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self

Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption