Phyllis comes storming into Mary's apartment, asking a favor. She has a woman's club and her guest speaker has canceled at the last minute. She wants Mary to ask Ted Baxter to speak to the ladies. She gets him to agree by sort of ambushing him. Of course, he's so self centered that he sees this as a way to make a big splash in front of some women. The fact is that he cannot do impromptu things. Murray writes a speech for him, but when it's over, it's a disaster. A woman asks him a question and he freezes up. He ends up, catatonic, outside Mary's front door. At one a.m. Lou is called to mediate things, but Ted has lost his "charisma, whatever that is." His news reports are even worse than usual. There are some fantastic lines and Ted Knight is awesome as the inept anchorman.
3 Reviews
Ted is NOT a rousing success.
planktonrules2 February 2024
The show begins with Mary trying to rush to work, as she's late. Despite this, her self-absorbed friend, Phyllis, stops her to talk about a 'small favor'. This favor is to get Ted Baxter to talk to Phyllis' social club...TONIGHT! This is a pretty obnoxious thing to do, giving her such little notice. Still, Mary is easily manipulated and insists on being 'nice' that she agrees...not anticipating the problems this lecture would create. Ted, to put it mildly, is NOT a rousing success and this in turn results in him losing his confidence and being even WORSE at his job...if that's possible! So, it's up to Mary to fix things.
This is a cute episode and is the first to really feature Ted. It works well and is well worth seeing....though I really would have loved to see an episode where Mary shakes or otherwise throttles Phyllis!
This is a cute episode and is the first to really feature Ted. It works well and is well worth seeing....though I really would have loved to see an episode where Mary shakes or otherwise throttles Phyllis!
Minneapolis clock broke.
robbo0714018 July 2019
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