On Our Own

Found this page by accident and have a vague memory of the show. - mainly that I watched it a couple of times and couldn't figure out why it was on. Scripts were rehashings, dialogue was cliched; just boring. None of the characters or actors were memorable (never was a fan of Carter- what an overactor!).

It's telling that about half the posters here remember it fondly because they had some attachment to it ( my house.... I saw it filmed....... I was on it...etc. ). Forgotten, as it should be.

The front of my house and even my current apartment were used in the opening credits. One of the characters opens a window and leans out holding a cup of coffee. I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I'd love one episode of this to show my husband and child.

It was filmed very quickly in the mid 1970's. I don't think they were here more than two days, it may have only been one day. I just remember being really excited that our building was going to be on TV.

Because of the house I would faithfully watch it each week. Although as an eleven year old I don't think I was quite the target audience and I found it a bit boring.

This same apartment was in the running to be in Spike Lee's Malcolm X. The key selling point to the apartment at that time was that it has bay windows and you could see the living room from the kitchen--it was supposed to be the Boston girlfriend's apartment. We didn't make that one.

The best thing about this show was Dixie Carter. I couldn't even remember the name of it and found it by clicking around until I saw Bess Armstrong's name and looked through her credits.

Dixie Carter was this alluring mature woman who worked at the advertising company. One of the guys - a young pup would just melt whenever she walked by. She rarely said much.

And then one episode she pulled out her southern drawl and gave a sales pitch for some product that she was working on - I about fell out of my chair. She gave this big souther smile and then switched back to the cool, aloof character she had been playing all along. I loved it!

Like a hazy dream, i am watching on FreeVee and wondering...is this really happening, or rather did this happen in 1978? I guess it did because I am having fun watching. The lead characters are examples of career women being manhandled in a male dominated 70's society, but the humor is maudlin and somewhat excruciating. It was shot in NYC and you can really tell the difference in acting styles, and set design. Exterior shots look like Rhoda's building, but i cant be sure. And sometimes the scripts and pacing feel like a NY stage play, esp since there's quite a bit of cringe in the way the lead girls over act and emote in very silly ways, but it is an incredible unintentional expose on feminism in the 70's. Everyone is sweet natured and people acted kinder. The men in the supporting cast are misfits and all the women are heroes. Dixie Carter is surprisingly bad here and her bad timing is difficult to explain, but Gretchen Wyler is pretty funny and every once in a while a good joke or a comic bit lands well. Bess is the stronger of the two, but her character is often forced to deliver lines all alone onstage, and it is campy. Lynnie is very presentational and indicated a lot and had too many jokes about being Catholic that completely sink with a thud. Her 2 part episode w/Danny Aiello as her love interest is extremely sappy like a Kmart version of Moonstruck. There are workplace ensemble scenes and apartment scenes, and lots of new york extras and actors playing parents and or agency clients. Kay Medford was in ep 3, James Naughton (I Love My Wife) was in ep4. Christopher Hewitt was in ep 5. The wardrobe is from Bloomingdale's and both women have those curled under joan of arc/bowl haircuts from 1978 that look a bit like mushroom caps. The theme song is noisily sung (belty/wail broadway style) and difficult to understand the lyrics until you hear it more than once. It's a sorta cute sitcom but episodes always feel half finished, like a lot of mistakes were included, set walls dont actually look real... as if this were taking place on the new york stage. Still it is fun to discover an ancient, fully -formed sitcom shot in NYC that history and vintage tv networks seem to have forgotten, and i managed to get thru all 19 episodes posted at free vee. Imdb seems to credit both leading ladies with 22 episodes, so maybe there are lost episodes?!

An attempt at creating another "Laverne and Shirley," "On Our Own" also featured the pairing of a cute perky Shirley-type (Julia) and a not-so-cute street-wise Laverne-type (Maria). The best thing about this series was the discovery of Bess Armstrong as Julia. She was very cute in this series which otherwise was a snooze-fest. Not a terrible show, just nothing to distinguish it from any other sitcom.