One Day at a Time: Season 1 (DVD)
APPROX. 380 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 1975 - MPA RATING: NR
" There are enough nice moments to make the show enjoyable, still, despite some paisley lines that date it as surely as a Nehru jacket.
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In retrospect, it's easy to tell that "One Day at a Time" was the brainchild of Norman Lear, because it bears all of Lear's trademarks: the staged theatricality, the long pauses and lingering reaction shots following a joke, the formula for family dysfunction that includes insults and shouting, and the blending of standard sitcom gags with a melodramatic treatment of social issues.
"All in the Family" gave us a WASP family with a typical bigot as its head and a hysterical shouting son-in-law and daughter. "Sanford and Son" gave us a sitcom with no women in it, just father and son junkmen with a hysterical shouting son. "Maude" put a face on the middle-class white liberal that we kept reading about in the news in a show were people took turns ranting hysterically. "Good Times" gave us a glimpse of life in the projects with a black family and plenty of sibling shouting. "The Jeffersons" showed us an upwardly mobile black family. And with "One Day at a Time," Lear capitalized on the latest family trend to emerge in the Seventies: the suddenly-single, one-parent household--an all-female family to balance out the all-male one he gave TV viewers with the Sanfords.
From the title sequence, where Ann Romano (Bonnie Franklin) kicks up her heels as she leaves her marriage behind with the kind of glee we saw as Mary Tyler Moore tossed her beret, we're led to believe that this is also Lear's second foray into feminism, following on the heels of the abrasive Maude. But film historians who watch this show will see a faux feminism instead. Ann wears her insecurity and indecisiveness on her sleeve, chooses her course of action based on "gut feelings," and, despite her stated goal of wanting to live on her own and make her own decisions for the first time in her life, keeps talking about how good it is to have a man around the house. But Ms. Romano was a good role model for single parents. She tried to see things from her daughters' point of view, maintained good communication with them, set firm rules and boundaries, advised them and then let them make their own decisions, refused to be manipulated, and apologized when she was wrong. Franklin also brought a believable warmth to the role, and that made all the difference in the world.
The best Lear comedies have actors who can soften the formula and tweak their characters so they make it less dinner-theater obvious. Here, though, there's the built-in limitation of having two-thirds of the spotlight fall on teen actors who are handed stereotypes to work with. Julie (Mackenzie Phillips, who in later seasons would be written out because of a much-publicized drug problem) was a whiny, self-centered 16 year old who shouted all the time and called her younger sister names in virtually every exchange. That can get a little old. Meanwhile, Barbara (Valerie Bertinelli) is the clichéd "good girl" who always studies, plays sports, and goes to her room at least once every episode at Mom's request so the bad girl can get another talking-to. Even as the two girls grow into their roles in later seasons, you can still feel the limitations of character that they're working with.
Lear also loved the gimmick character who can make an entrance or spout a catch-phrase. With "All in the Family" it was George Jefferson and a revolving door of shocking neighbors. With "Sanford and Son" it was the Bible-thumping Aunt Esther. With "Good Times" it was actor Jimmie Walker and his "Dy-no-MITE!" comic relief. With "Maude" and "The Jeffersons," it was the maid. But Lear also had a fondness for building supers, using them in "The Jeffersons" and "Good Times," and here the Super serves that broader comic function as well. Pat Harrington, Jr. plays Schneider, a single woman's worst nightmare: a smarmy, lecherous man with a pass key who can, and does, enter her apartment any time he wishes. Even more unlikely than Romano's passive acceptance and tolerance of his antics is the developing storyline that has Schneider and her divorce lawyer/romantic interest David (Richard Masur) emerging as her and the girls' go-to guys for advice. How liberated is that?
Aside from Franklin's charisma, the show benefits from the writing. There are enough snappy exchanges and zinger lines to compensate for some really topical and dated elements, like "I dig his vibes," which, swear to God, Ann says in all seriousness about a man she starts dating.
In one of the better examples of writing, when secret service men show up on her doorstep because of a threatening letter she wrote to the President, David is off-camera, using her facilities.
Ann: "Shouldn't I have a lawyer?"
Secret Service Man: "Do you have one?"
Ann: "In the bathroom."
