City

With a stale plot and over-worked jokes, it is amazing that in 1999, someone in Hollywood is trying to revive this unimaginative sitcom for today's audience. Although it would be nice to see Valerie Harper on TV once again, this is not the vehicle for her.

Valerie plays a middle aged city employee with a teen aged daughter and a dysfunctional relationship with her father who once again appears in her life. In the first episode, the father appears, disappoints, and disappears (just like that) and we are left without any additional insights to the main characters.

Liz Torres turned in a solid comedic performance, but I can't help wonder if I haven't seen it before.

To the people who are re-testing this idea for a new incarnation of this series, DON'T! Revive some other show. Does anyone remember "Partners"?

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 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.

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.

The City was Valerie Harper's follow-up after she left her own show on NBC called The Hogan Family (previously called Valerie, then Valerie's Family, in hope she'd return, when she didn't, she was replaced with Sandy Duncan).

The City was put on the air directly opposite The Hogan Family as if to see which one people preferred, or that we 'sided' with, Valerie or her old show.

The City actually did beat The Hogan Family in the ratings, and Harper seemed to take that as some indication that she was the victor.

Funnier still, it seems she had a daughter on The City who was the real-life sister of one of the guys who played a son on the NBC show.

With the Valerie-Hogan Family currently in reruns, I wondered what become of her 'victory' show, all but forgotten and came here to these very odd reviews about it being seen in a group screening for commercial products.

I have no idea what all that is about.

Of the two, I watched the Hogan show more, but wouldn't mind seeing this show again also.