Phyllis

The character of Phyllis was not originally designed to be a leading role; rather she was a self-centered, opinionated, overbearing cameo character of sorts to add a zany counter to the tranquil Mary Richards. She was silly, but not really likable. Once the character had to stand on her own, she had to be toned down and made more appealing, thus losing the truly funny quality she added to the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

With the exception of Mother Dexter, her supporting characters did not do the necessary job of balancing the character of Phyllis, and the show often looked strained and weak. The show seemed to mirror the character of Phyllis in that it did not seem to know where it was going or what to do with itself after the pilot episode. The 'wacky' photography studio was dropped for the dull politician's office thereby dooming the show to current political topics and satire - but without the proper characters to pull it off. Nothing felt right and the second season was worse than the first.

I so wish Phyllis had stayed in Minneapolis!

Sure, this series didn't showcase Cloris Leachman's talents to any great extent. Sure, the comedy was more than often silly. Sure, the cast changes at the start of season 2 LOOKED like the desperate attempt that it really was to keep fresh story ideas alive. Sure, Jane Rose's performance was the equivalent of finger-nails on a chalk board. Sure, the character of Phyllis was extremely watered down after the pilot.

But for Mother Dexter alone, I'd have to disagree with the opinion that it's "unwatchable." ...And whatever happened to Lisa Gerritsen anyhow??

This was a funny spin off, not the best ever, but certainly memorable, and enjoyable. (The theme-song sequence is one of the best in TV history.) The show allowed the wonderful Cloris Leachman to really flesh out the Phyllis Lindstrom character. Unfortunately, despite good ratings, the show was canceled just when it was blossoming.

Phylllis was the flip side of Mary Richards. She didn't so much embrace her liberation as slip on it like a banana peel. In many ways her character and this show were precursors of the dysfunctional survivor school of situation comedy. Marge Simpson, Peg Bundy, Malcolm's mom, Lois, and many others owe a little tip of the hat to Cloris Leachman's put-upon Phyllis.

The "Mary Tyler Moore" spinoff, "Phyllis", is often hounded as a failure where spin-offs are concerned. Actually, it is a very funny show and, if it hadn't followed up such an astounding breakthrough show as its predecessor, it would have been quite successful. Though the character of Phyllis, by far the most interesting character on MTM, was changed somewhat in her switch to her own show, it was only to make her character more likable, which worked most of the time and was a very pleasant experience to finally see the softer side of that downstairs bubblehead. The ensemble cast of the first season was wonderful (and would have been even more so if Barbara Colby hadn't have been murdered after the third episode. She was terrific as Phyllis's boss Julie Erskine.) Henry Jones is especially good, as are Jane Ross and Richard Schaal. And, of course, Cloris Leachman is a treasure. The real problem was in the show's second season, when Phyllis changed workplaces to the downtown city building, where the characters were far less interesting and oft times depressing. The ratings show it, too, because in its first season, "Phyllis" was in the Top Ten, higher than "Rhoda" or "MTM". But in its move to the second season, it did very poorly, hence its cancellation. It's a show that tried hard, so give it a chance. You won't be too disappointed!

The sitcom Phyllis had some good moments and some good episodes but I found it odd that on Mary Tyler Moore Show we heard Phyllis joke about her never seen husband Lars and his family being Norwegian immigrants who spoke with heavy accents yet on this spin-off the Lindstroms were not immigrants and had no foreign sounding accents!