Shark Bytes

The whole trouble with Rhoda can be summed up with this:

Valerie Harper wanted to play the Mary Tyler Moore role.

Rhoda is my favorite TV character of all time. This spin-off isn't nearly as good as Mary Tyler Moore, but it did produce quite a few classic episodes. I wasn't a fan of Joe, but the writing in Seasons 1 & 2 was consistently very high, and I loved the interplay between Rhoda, Brenda and Ida. Season 3, for me, was the big disaster. Watching Rhoda and Joe split up was painful, as others have said, but the bigger problem was that the writing took a nose dive as well. I hated this season. The new characters -- Sally, Gary, Benny and Johnny Bravo -- were lame and uninteresting, pale imitations of stock characters from other sitcoms. The fact that Ida was away all year (during Nancy Walker's failed attempt at her own show) just made things worse. HOWEVER, in my opinion there was an unexpected redemption during Season 4, thanks in no small part to Nancy Walker's return. For me the show regained a lot of its charm during this season, despite the lame Lou Grant imitation in Rhoda's new boss, Jack. Episodes like "One Is a Number," "Home Movies" and "Ida Alone" were for me some of the best of the entire series. By Season 5, unfortunately, this second wind had petered out.

The character of Joe was NOT a good long term potential match for Rhoda from day one and having them marry was a really bad idea. They just didn't look good together. Watching them interact, in love or not, was painful.

"Rodent" jumped the shark on day one. A terrible spinoff idea. Should've been cancelled long before it was.

I think the show definitely jumped the shark when the divorce was finalized... if for no other reason than that it was very, very, very depressing.

David Groh, who played Joe, passed away the other day at age 68.

I've got a great idea for a sitcom. The lead character will be a woman who's got low self-esteem, has a terrible relationship with her parents, and is increasingly desperate to get married now that she's pushing 35. And she has a younger sister with all the same emotional problems and is about 20 pounds overweight, to boot.

Now, in the first episode we introduce this character, see...a real macho-man, Marlboro-smoking, curly-haired, open-shirted ethnic - but not TOO ethnic - type. He's recently divorced, and he and the lead character start dating. A few episodes in, they get married - that oughta be great for ratings, right? A regular Nielsen bonanza!

Then the rest of the show is about their marriage deteriorating until it finally ends in divorce.

So whaddya think? Should be good for some laughs, huh?

I agree with those who say they should have kept Rhoda and Joe in love, then married them at the end. Rhoda seemed in love with the new experience of just having a serious suitor--not in love with Joe at all. Harper's charm, however, made the early episodes as funny-romantic as the sweetest of Doris Day earlier or Meg Ryan later. The writers should have either kept the show in that vein, delayed the wedding, or conceived a "limited-run series" (like The Brady Brides).

Before the heartbreak of divorce, Rhoda seemed to be just using Joe to prove she could beat Mary and Sue Ann to the altar now that she had lost twenty pounds. The fact that Rhoda was divorced again, while Mary was a widow, in the TV-movie shows the determined effort to keep Rhoda a little dirtier and less likable than Mary.

Bernard Grebanier, in his book Playwriting: How to Write for the Theater, expounds on the difference between the success of Carson McCullers' novel The Member of the Wedding and the failure (as he sees it) of the resulting play: "The play that Mrs. McCullers undertook to write raised the question: Will Frankie succeed in becoming a member of the wedding or not? Once that question was answered, the plot had reached its end, and the play should have been over soon thereafter."

Rhoda's whole history on TMTMS raised the question: Will Rhoda ever find a man who loves her (other than the "tree freak" Armand Linton); and, if she does, will she love in return or simply use him as a prize?

A series with love-affirming answers to these questions--whether a limited-run series or one that saved the happy ending for years--would have been unforgettable.

But then, the Rhoda we thought we saw blossoming into the rose her name stands for wouldn't have married a divorcé any more than her friend Mary Richards would have been a divorcée.

The divorce - JTS = Instead of seeing Rhoda really regain her independence, we saw a great deal of sadness and pain in her character. I didn't like Joe either, but they probably should have left well enough alone and let her stay single. The whole marriage didn't work for Rhoda, and certainly did not work for the show. David Groh was too grumpy, too.

Oh I just LOVE the theme music to this show!

When Rhoda and Joe got divorced is when JTS. It was sad that Rhoda got married at an older age, and it didn't last. It would have been nice to see them move to the burbs, have a couple of bratty kids and live H.E.E.

When Rhoda and Joe got divorced is when JTS. It was sad that Rhoda got married at an older age, and it didn't last. It would have been nice to see them move to the burbs, have a couple of bratty kids and live H.E.E.

Although the actor who played her husband wasn't a good actor, that's never been a sin on TV before or has since. Contrary to what those producers thought, Rhoda married was indeed funny. Seeing her cry and moan in the 3rd season then fighting off Johnny Venture in the 4th then having difficulty finding a guy afterward was not funny.

Rhoda was the only reason I watched the MTM show, and when she left so did I to watch Rhoda. It is true that Rhoda and Joe's marriage was rushed and they should have dated longer, but the show recovered from the early marriage. The early struggles of marriage were funny and heartfelt, but Joe became a boring jerk and the writers tossed him, causing Rhoda and other heart-felt women much pain. Joe dominated her during her separation, with the strong independent Rhoda looking helpless to his whims. It was better to endure the jerks pain and watch Rhoda move on to be being single and independent again. Rhoda had lost her independent flair and regained it after the divorce. We got to enjoy men exploring Rhoda all over again and her repeated rejection of every man that could not offer her anything solid. The show was hilarious with Rhoda's strong willed mother and her shy but hilarious sister, who's dreams are nothing short of simplistic. Gary had his quirks, and Benny was boring, but I was never so glad as when Nick "Bozo" was out of the picture. Gary grew some on the show, but we got use to him being Brenda and Rhoda's friend and then he just vanished. Usually the departure of friends is a little more prominent. Johnny Venture still makes me laugh, and we see that for a moment Rhoda enjoys the moments of flash he brings, but remains determined in her search for a solid relationship. This showed jumped with the career change. It seems the writes just couldn't be satisfied with Rhoda making it on her own and felt the need to make her a tiny bit dependent on a man and a boring fat grump at that. With the arrival of Jack we see the lameness of Rhoda getting drunk to Rhoda cheating and Jack bailing her out. The constant appearance of costumes took a serious but zany women's life and show to a weak boring comedy, that was down right painful at times. We watch the humour and pain of Rhoda growing and learning from the mistakes of rushing into a marriage and having to regain her independence to being downright boring with her costume career. While the marriage was rushed and Rhoda was dominated by Joe in the separation, we watched Rhoda's successful struggle to independence be demolished when the writers drug her into the dumpy costume shop. It was wonderful to watch Rhoda grow and regain her independence and then frustrating to watch it fad away to a boring job in a costume shop. We saw the same lameness in the Mary and Rhoda reunion. It was so dull, I recorded it but never watched it again.

Rhoda's bus ride to her own wedding, wearing her white wedding dress and veil was pathos, not comedy. Blaming the marriage for a subsequent ratings drop and dumping Joe ruined the show. Also, Rhoda's weight loss, heavy makeup, and bizarre scarves destroyed a likeable character.