If ABC made one mistake with Mork & Mindy, it was moving the show from Thursday to Sunday in season 2 to avoid Buck Rogers in The 25th Century on NBC, figuring the kiddo's would have a war with the parents over the remote, especially if the parents remembered Buck from the comic strips and serials.
So, for the season opener, Mork (Robin Williams) is transported to an alternate dimension where humor has been banned by a doppleganger of Exidor (Robert Donner). While Mindy (Pam Dawber) grows concerned for her spacey roommate, her twin, Mandy (Dawber), leads a resistance in the other dimension that includes analogues for Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, & Danny Thomas.
Tom Poston, fresh from The Bob Newhart Show, was elevated to series regular with this episode. Johnny Haymer (M*A*S*H) & Ronnie Schell (ex-Gomer Pyle, USMC, Good Morning World) guest star.
I honestly think this was where the writers started building the romance between Mork & Mindy, leading to the wedding in season 4. Moving the show to Sunday wasn't really the smartest of moves, and it was eventually reversed. If the programmers had any clues, they could've moved Mork down an hour, so that the sci-fi fans could follow Buck with Mork.
At least the season got off to a good start.
Rating: A-.
I think I read somewhere that they were trying to go up against Battlestar Galactica on NBC as well.
ReplyDeleteI remember watching this first run and it was so strange to me - VERY much out of the typical M&M episode up to that point. I understood the comical dopplegangers but for some reason, it left me cold.
Of course, once M&M got romantic and Mearth came along, I was really feeling...alienated.
For The Record:
ReplyDeleteMork And Mindy and Battlestar Galactica were both ABC shows; both began in 1978.
When Mork was moved to Sunday, its competition on NBC was a weekly series of two-hour specials airing under the title Sunday Big Event.
On ABC, Galactica was on its half-year gap; it returned in January '80, retooled as all get-out, to no avail (and that's another story).
CBS had its sitcom block; Archie Bunker's Place sent Mork back to Thursday.
So There Too.
Mike's right. Galactica had been bounced, and would return as Galactica 1980, airing in the same time slot as the original (7 pm), as memory serves.
ReplyDeleteBack to the episode at hand. I remember seeing this the first time with the folks. Ronnie Schell nailed all the Hope nuances, including the self-invoked nickname of the moment. As I wrote, ABC would've been better served leaving Mork on Thursdays, albeit airing later. But what do network programmers know, anyway?
Didn't they move M&M up against the Waltons on Sunday night initially? Shifting it against Buck Rogers wasn't till Season 3 when they moved it back to Thursday nights.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't agree that this kicked off the romantic aspect of M&M. TBH that was pretty much there from the get go, After all they'd shared two kisses by the time we reached the end of Episode 6 in Season 1 (with more to follow that Season)...it did ratchet it up a definite notch or two though (that last scene is a helluva emotional kicker for a sitcom, and has even more punch after Robin Williams passing).
Absolutely agree with magicdog though, in that the alternate Hope/Thomas & Lewis absolutely left me cold, then and now. I guess not having Conrad Janis and Elizabeth Kerr (and not having as yet intro-ed Gina Hecht and Jay Thomas) meant that had to find other people to help populate the other dimension and it was the real weakpoint of another wise really enjoyable, more expansive two parter.
@LFire:
ReplyDelete1. The Waltons never aired on Sundays.
2. Buck Rogers premiered when Mork was in season 2, hence Mork moving to Sundays pro tempore, and when Mork moved back to Thursdays in season 3, Buck was in season 2.