By Dave Riley
Murphy Brown
Channel 9
Many situation comedies are built around one central character who retails the best lines and carries the show. Most of these lucky stars are men.
For women, the central performance in a comedy series usually involves stereotyping — someone's mother, someone's wife, someone's girl. From I Love Lucy to The Brady Bunch, women have been stay-at-homes. Perhaps the one exception to this was The Mary Tyler Moore Show, where not only could Mary exist and succeed in a working world, but the comedy did not trade on her eccentricities.
Enter Murphy Brown. Brown works in television — a high profile interviewer for a network news team. She's all career — a dedicated journalist, highly skilled and used to getting her own way. Her background is front-line assignments and a dedication to the '60s that is both nostalgic and principled. Murphy is of a generation.
There is real appeal there, but Murphy Brown in the hands of Candice Bergen is much more. She is a strong character who lives on her own terms. Single, around 40, living alone, neither divorced nor widowed, she is her own woman. And this woman is real role model stuff.
This, in prime time TV, is a unique characterisation.
Murphy Brown is an issue-oriented series in the tradition of US liberalism (like M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Lou Grant). Good, with some fine punchy political lines and acerbic when it comes to conservatives. Like all sitcoms, maybe the storyline falters occasionally, but the scripts are generally witty and sometimes extremely funny.
The Simpsons
Channel 10
Now I see why they hyped it up! Fred Flintstone, eat your heart out — modern-day families don't have yabberdabberdoo times. They're alienated, at war within themselves and suffer from chronic angst. The poor old Simpsons are victims of the human condition.
It's a bum rap if you're pencilled in and coloured yellow, with death and taxes as the only certainties. But the world of The Simpsons is a lot more real than that of the Cosbys, Ewings or Keatons (of Family Ties). It may look strange — particularly the way this program is drawn and coloured — but Matt Groenig's characters are bred from an all too familiar stable. These people even work for a living and watch television.
It is difficult to suggest equivalents to a program like this. If Woody Allen was forced to script a regular sitcom, maybe the Simpsons could have neighbours.
The series has a neurotic core which is fondly explored and played with. The Simpsons are indulging in fun-therapy (indeed, an early z Pearls, the inventor of Gestalt therapy) — real "I am/You are" stuff, with a chance for a giggle along the way.
So whether you are into family units or not, here's your chance to turn bits of our early primary grouping into a laugh. You may not find the meaning of life, but who cares? The Simpson family is much more fun than Ninja Turtles.