City

Years ago, my mom and I went to see a screening of "potential" pilots and when this show came on I knew right away we were scammed. They didn't say Valerie Harper was planning on coming back. They said they were pilots of shows that could air soon. The second show didn't even have her in it. I knew these shows were decades old and didn't have a chance to air. It was very obvious that we were there just for the commercials, which were very boring. They weren't even clever commercials like we see today. Also, there were far more questions about the commercials than the shows and they gave away a basket of household items with popular brands.

But, in all retrospect, I would like to see Valerie Harper make it on TV again. It's a shame they use her pilot to hawk products to people and give us hope she might be back on the air.

If you saw this (especially if you saw it with SOULMATES), you were being tested for the products in the commercials. You likely filled out a survey on several products, then were shown the TV shows under the lie that your reviews would be used in the production of the shows or future shows. They told you that you would see commercials so the experience would be the same as it was when you watch the shows at home. After the shows were finished, you had a second survey of the products. This was to see if the ads had any effect and if you changed your results.

NOTHING about this has ANYTHING to do with these TV shows. It's a marketing scam to get you to watch the ads and test their effectiveness.

DON'T waste your time on this nonsense.

BTW, SOULMATES (a drama) was funnier than THE CITY.

From what I've read, most of the people who have seen this show have seen it at some kind of audience testing session...which is where I saw it tonight. We were told it was shot 12 years ago and they wanted to know what we thought of Valerie Harper, because perhaps they'd come up with another show for her. However, all the questions on the audience survey were about how we liked the characters and the show itself. I can only imagine they're using this old show to weed out audiences for future surveys.

As for the show itself, it had a strong supporting cast, but conceptually,"Spin City" has been there already. As for Valarie Harper, she's fine. A sitcom perenial. Whatever the case, she'll be back in something.

This was the funniest sitcom Valerie Harper has done (except of course for the Mary Tyler Moore Show). The city manager's office that provided the setting is the perfect locale for the parade of crazies that give comedic impetus to this type of show (sane, regular put-upon star surrounded by weird/interesting/funny supporting cast--Bob Newhart is the patron saint of these). The funniest was James Lorinz as the security guard (in one episode, he was convinced that white-out was being stolen to aid illegal immigration; to prove his point, he painted his entire body with it). One of the Mysteries of the Universe is why this failed while "The Hogan Family," a profoundly mediocre show, lasted several years.

I saw an episode of this show at a TV focus-group screening recently. Apparently someone wants to bring back Valerie Harper and wants to know if Americans are ready for it. At any rate, it was absolutely hilarious, the dialog was snappy and original and the characters were a great mix of cynical government functionaries. Even interaction between the single mother (Valerie Harper) and her daughter, which could have easily been saccharine, was smart and effective. Probably one of the funniest sitcom episodes I have ever seen. It had an intelligence that is rare today and was almost unheard of in comedy series of the era. The fact that this series got canceled in its infancy while "Full House" ran from 87-95 is simply an atrocity.