"Relentlessly mediocre" was my description of the first episode on Twitter last night.
I liked and enjoyed the original run, though I didn't see all of it due to work and school and such, especially in the later years of the run. (For instance, until yesterday, I had no idea that Haley Joel Osment played Avery at the end.) I liked the original cast. I can't say that I was super excited about this the way several friends on Facebook and Twitter were, but I don't get super excited about much of anything anymore.
I didn't laugh until Hillary Clinton's appearance. Not because of Clinton, but because the dialogue was actually witty and
fun.
I thought there was some very dodgy acting from Bergen and Daly. Both were flat, Daly especially so in her one scene. I felt very conscious of watching
actors rather than characters.
The concept was nonsense. What cable network is going to put a hard news show on in the 7-9 slot (competing with
GMA,
Today,
Fox and Friends, and Joe Scarborough) with a bunch of, frankly, relics? Is CNC a start-up or something? Are they hurting for talent? I really thought, based on the commercials with the
60 Minutes people that Murphy's show was going to be on CBS. I felt like Diane English was working backwards from her punchline -- Murphy gets into a real-time Twitter spat with the president -- and thinking, "He watches the morning news shows, so Murphy has to be on in that hour, and we know it's the
cable shows he watches, so Murphy has to be on cable."
Murphy's luddite attitude to technology is silly. I look as Dan Rather's post-CBS career -- investigative journalism on start-up networks, an oft-viral Facebook page, books -- and to see Murphy, sitting in her Georgetown home bored, is a failure of imagination.
Finally, the writing was very retro. I felt like I was watching an old 80s or 90s sitcom, not a 2018 sitcom. I'd rather watch Murphy Brown
for today rather than something that says, "Remember when you were thirty years younger?"
That raises a related point. As I watched the episode, there were point where I thought to myself, "Someone who never watched the original run won't understand this." In some ways, I think that's good -- the show assumes a certain level of awareness from the audience -- but it's also bad, because it was't new-viewer friendly and limits the audience. Either you're already in on
Murphy Brown, or you're not going to be in.
There's a lot of room for improvement here. I'd tweak the cast; dump either Frank or Miles for a 30-something POC character (reporter and producer respectively) that Murphy can bump heads against, because I'm not seeing where the workplace conflict is going to come from with this ensemble.
I'm kind of hoping the show is 13 and done. I don't know how long it can last really, this would get old really fast, more so when the references would be outdated before the show airs.
The dated references are a major reason why the original run isn't available. I've heard that CBS All-Access has a couple of episodes up now, but it's not on DVD (music clearances and poor sales on season 1) and I don't ever recall it being syndicated, despite ten seasons. Who wants jokes about Dan Quayle today, and who talks about Tip O'Neill anymore?
