City

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.

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.

I went to a test showing of a new pilot of a different show, and an episode of this was shown afterwards. They said it was canceled, even though it got very good ratings (top 10), because the lead actress wanted a pay raise, but she was thinking of revisiting the show. I had never heard of the show before, so at least the first part rang true. The second part was probably a lie. My guess: This show is used as a "control" to set the audience's overall mood for the new show they are actually testing. I found this show amusing (better than the pilot they were actually testing), and, judging from the audience's reaction, the rest of the test audience did too. So, they used this as a show that they knew usually got a good score (but one almost nobody had ever heard of), just in case they got an audience that was happened to be extra grumpy the day they tested. Judging from the first comment listed for this show, it's clear they have been doing this since at least 1999.

I thought she looked young in this show. I just saw this at a test screening last weekend. Apparently, like other audiences, the majority loved this show. I wrote in my critique that it was reminiscent of other workplace sitcoms such as Night Court, Barney Miller & WKRP (i.e. straightman, or in this case, straightwoman, surrounded by a cast of oddball characters). The episode I saw was about Valerie's character trying to secure funds to fix a mess of a bulldozed cemetery sending coffins down a hillside. A secondary plot was about citizens submitting new "theme songs" for the city. If the TV Preview people were just testing the appeal of Ms. Harper & not necessarily this show, they just need to look at Seinfeld's supporting cast and check out their success post-Seinfeld.

I went to some shady focus group up in Portland, Oregon, sometime between 1998 and 2000. One of the show's allegedly being considered for that upcoming fall TV season line-up was "The City" which was being billed as a "comeback vehicle for Valerie Harper." What I found most perplexing was how terribly dated this showed appeared from hair and makeup to clothing and props (ie., rotary phones, antique fax machines, and Commodore 64 computers. Keep in mind, this show was not billed as a period piece (i.e. 1985). The acting was poor and the set-ups predictable at best. Clearly this show never made it on air because of the poor quality in production let alone a cast of forgettable supporting actors. This show was crappola and it's no wonder it never saw the light of day. Thank you Gods of television for sparing us from this celluloid atrocity.