Liz Torres

A fascinating case study in how to destroy a successful situation comedy. In its first season The John Larroquette Show was a daring dark comedy and a hit. Set in a St. Louis long distance bus terminal, with a recovering alcoholic protagonist adrift in a sea of losers, hookers, and street people, black and white, gay and straight, this was unlike anything seen in a sitcom since Hot'l Baltimore a generation before, a comedy that addressed issues on the dark side of the American dream: race, class, gender, abuse of authority, substance addiction, etc. In the second and third season NBC carefully removed each and every element that had made the show interesting, making nonsense of a premise and bland stereotypes of its hard-edged/bizarre characters, then cancelled the show abruptly once everyone had deserted its ridiculously bland fourth season; a great shame.

After five years playing Mary Richards' neighbor, friend, and landlady on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cloris Leachman began her own spin-off series. Phyllis Lindstrom returned home to her hometown of San Francisco following the death of her husband Lars. In her mid-40s, and with a teenage daughter to support, Phyllis moved in with Lars' scatter-brained mother, Audrey, and Audrey's second husband, Judge Jonathan Dexter. Phyllis found a job working as an assistant to Julie Erskine at Erskine's Commercial Photography Studio.