Given the current political climate, I don’t think anyone was surprised that CBS decided to bring back “Murphy Brown” after a 20 year hiatus. The show ran for 10 years from 1988-1998. Candace Bergen stars as the title character who is an anchor of a TV news magazine show. At the beginning of the original series she was trying to put her life back together after doing a stint in the Betty Ford Center as a recovering alcoholic.
In the opening episode of this reboot we find Murphy is retired but is restless about the current state of politics and journalism. She decides to put the old gang back together and to rejoin TV. Her son who was born amidst a bit of controversy during the original run of the series is now a grown man and a journalist himself. He ends up getting a TV show in her timeslot on a rival network called “Wolf” network (obviously a humorous nod to “Fox” network).
The original series became a topic of public debate when VP Dan Quayle criticized the show as detrimental to family values because Murphy was raising her son as a single mother. After his comments, the show did a special episode in response. Details can be found in this section of the Wikipedia article about the show.
Much of the original cast has returned. Faith Ford returns as perky reporter and former Miss America Corky Sherwood. Joe Regalbuto is fellow reporter Frank Fontana. Grant Shaud returns as their neurotic producer Miles Silverberg. With a couple of exceptions none of the cast has been seen very much except for an occasional guest star running a variety of and comedies and dramas. Bergen had several successful seasons opposite William Shatner and James Spader on Boston Legal, Also faith Ford did have her own sitcom “Hope & Faith” with Kelly Ripa that ran for for 3 from 2003-2006 seasons but was unremarkable.
Missing from the original cast are Pat Corley who played Phil the owner of a diner where the gang would hang out. He passed away in 2006. He has been replaced by Tyne Daly who plays a character called Phyllis who is the sister of Phil and has taken over the diner. Also missing is the very funny Robert Pastorelli as Eldin Bernecky who Murphy hired to paint her home but it took him several seasons to complete the job. She eventually hired him as a male nanny to care for her son Avery. Pastorelli passed away in 2004.
New to the cast are Jake McDorman as her son Avery. He was recently seen in the TV series “Limitless” about a guy who takes a pill that makes him super smart. Also we have Nik Dodani recently seen in a Netflix series “Atypical“. His character Pat Patel is a young tech savvy media consultant who is trying to teach Murphy and the gang how to capitalize on social media. In the opening episode he encourages Murphy to join twitter and she ends up in a twitter war with Pres. Trump. She also reveals that at one point Murphy Brown once dated Donald Trump. This is based on the true story that Candace Bergen herself once went on a date with Donald Trump when she was 18 years old. Here is a YouTube video of her appearance on Stephen Colbert discussing the date with Trump.
One of the running jokes of the original series was that Murphy could not keep a secretary employed. She would have to interview and hire a new person every week. Keeping with that tradition she interviewed a new potential secretary that was played by guest star Hillary Clinton. She wasn’t playing the “real” Hillary Clinton. She was a character named Hilary with one “L”. But there were lots of Hillary jokes thrown in.
Having Clinton guest star continues another tradition of the series having real-life politicians and other TV journalists appear on the show as themselves. We can expect that tradition to continue as well.
The plot of the first episode explored the struggle between being a serious journalist and making compelling high rated TV shows. It’s a little bit difficult to get a feel for the tone of the new series because much of the episode was about getting the old gang back together and introducing the new characters.
I was a big fan of the original series. This revival didn’t immediately impress me in the same way that the revivals of “Will & Grace” or “Roseanne” did. Those other two shows seem to hit their stride immediately as if they had never been off the air. Still there is enough of the old chemistry and ample opportunity for storytelling in the current political climate that this should be a fine ride once it gets going.
I’m giving it a solid rating of “I Am Watching It” and if you are politically center or left and like political humor I highly recommend it.