I remembered to tune in last night.
The episode was well-structured. The
Mornings team has a big scoop that they're trying to keep secret, meanwhile Frank's found a soulmate, and when the Wolf Network steals their scoop suspicion turns to Frank's new paramour, and there's a final reveal of the team's leaker. It was mechanical in its precision, and it worked, even the misdirection with Avery and "the Pee Tape" (which produced some genuine humor).
Taking the focus off of Murphy for an episode brought into focus something that I felt with the first two episodes, that Bergen is the weak link the central ensemble. I felt like I was watching Frank Fontana, Corky Sherwood, and Miles Whatever, but only occasionally like I was watching Murphy Brown the character instead of Candace Bergen the actress, especially in scenes with Avery at home and with the Techkid at the office. The problem may be that Frank, Cork, and Miles are basically the same characters we left twenty years ago, but Murphy, outside of the office, is a very different character than we remember and her characterization in those situations isn't as well defined yet.
And the scene with the bartender at Phil's -- he's talking on the phone in Spanish, he's berated by a customer for not speaking English, and then he launches into a discussion of
Hamilton -- was painfully unfunny. Not because
a similar incident not far outside DC has been in the news recently recently, but because it wasn't well written, it wasn't well acted, and the punchline ("This place is too brown," says the patron as Murphy walks in the door) was awful. I guess it was meant to be a moment of social commentary, but its tone was all wrong.
Overall,
Murphy Brown remains a somewhat mediocre and not especially funny sitcom, imho.
