City

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.

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.

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.

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.