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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Or when Julie confides to Barbara that she's thinking of giving in to her boyfriend, who's pressuring her to have sex with him, and Barbara promises not to tell. "Cross my heart and hope to die," she says, to which Julie responds, "You don't have to hope. If you tell, you will die."
Fifteen episodes (it was a mid-season replacement show that first aired in December 1975) are included on two single-sided discs, housed in two slim plastic keep-cases with a cardboard slip-case. Here's the rundown:
1) "Ann's Decision"-Ann moves to Indianapolis with her teenaged daughters and gets her first "or I'll move back with Dad" ultimatum when Julie wants to go on a backpacking trip . . . with boys.
2) "Chicago Rendezvous"-Double standards rear their ugly head when Ann wants to go to Chicago with a pilot she barely met. Hey, as the girls say, everybody knows that "divorcees are hot to trot."
3) "Jealousy"-Ann's ex-husband (Joseph Campanella) has a new girlfriend, and it makes Ann insanely jealous that everyone seems to like her a lot. Even David and Schneider.
4) "How to Succeed Without Trying"-David gets Ann a job interview with a PR firm, but her would-be employer is also a would-be sexual harasser.
5) "David Loves Ann"-When younger David proposes to Ann, she turns to her daughters and SCHNEIDER for advice.
6) "Julie's Best Friend"-Ann gets her toes stepped on when David offers to pay for the expensive private school Julie wants to attend in order to impress a friend.
7) "Super Blues"-Schneider thinks he's going to Ann's party, when really she's asked him over to fix the garbage disposal.
8) "All the Way"-Julie's boyfriend wants to do it, and she's not sure.
9) "Fighting City Hall"-In one of the best episodes, Ann gets a visit from the secret service after she writes a complaining letter to the president about a phone company rip-off.
10) "David Plus Two"-When she catches David in bed with an upstairs neighbor, Ann finds herself unexpectedly jealous.
11) "Julie's Job"-Schneider gets Julie a job as a waitress at a sleazy truck stop.
12) "The College Man"-In this Mrs. Robinson episode, Julie's blind date falls for her mom instead.
13) "Father David"-David agrees to chaperone Barbara and Julie's party, but quickly lives to regret it.
14-15) "Dad Comes Back" Parts 1-2-Ann gets a job at a PR firm, her ex- announces he's remarrying, David gets jealous, and Barbara fantasizes that her parents are getting back together again.
Look for Robby Benson and Suzanne Somers in guest spots.
Video:
Lear must have used the cheapest film stock available for all of his sitcoms. The opening title shot is as shoddy as I've seen on DVD, but thankfully the picture quality improves for the episodes themselves. It's better than "All in the Family" or "Good Times," which fans and collectors will appreciate. There's graininess, sure, but not nearly as much, and the picture doesn't have that fuzzy quality that makes you wonder if they just copied a VHS tape onto digital media. The colors are bright enough too.
Audio:
Likewise, the audio was never anything special, just a Dolby Digital Mono, as it is here. There's a slight hollowness to it and the sound at times seems filtered through a thin membrane. But it's not horrible.
Extras:
There's a nifty reunion special included that shows us what Phillips and Bertinelli are like as grown-up single moms of teenaged children, as the two of them sit in comfy chairs and reminisce with Franklin (and Harrington, who joins in later). "Did I ever not scream?" Phillips asks, watching some of the clips. It's telling, because her reaction now is our reaction now. A little screaming goes a long way. Harrington says, too, of his own character, "He's such an ignoramus, and such an egomaniac." Yep. We agree with that one too. "Ladies man" and "Buffoon" are not synonyms. But it's an engaging trip that these folks take down memory lane. Though there's not as much discussion of Lear as one might have expected, it's still enjoyable to listen to them and see how well they all turned out. And Bertinelli in her forties doesn't look any different than she did as a teenager. Eerie.
Bottom Line:
"One Day at a Time" was better than "Good Times" but inferior to "All in the Family." To be fair, none of Lear's successes ever matched Archie Bunker and Co. for laughs and solid scripts. It may not have fared well with critics, but "One Day at a Time" was a popular hit, finishing in the Nielsen Top-20 all but one of its nine seasons. 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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