I asked how well these pilots introduce the characters. I feel like we have a fairly good idea of the MatH trio, Robin and Chrissy more so than Jo, the Ropers pretty well. We don't yet know what the girls do for a living, but we at least have an idea what their personalities are like. We get more of a back story on the other two sets of girls but I don't know that we know them any better, other than that Sam seems close to her family. David, with his tendency to make speeches and his intellectualism (or is it pseudo-intellectualism?) is sketched in, although it feels less natural than the casual way we learn about Robin being from Southhampton and liking pub signs on his underwear. The Ropers we learn are unhappily married, he more sexually repressed than she.
I also asked if we care if and how things work out for the characters. I've got to say that although the 3'sC1A trio seems nice enough, the attempt to give them, especially David, a '60s drifting quality doesn't exactly make me feel like they're going to last out a year, let alone the 7 years Jack and Janet manage together. If David keeps jobs for only 2 weeks, and we don't know how long he's in film school, then there's no need to for him, or us, to stick around. At least in Jack's case, we know he'll graduate in 1980. (The show will go on, but no one could've predicted that at the beginning.) Sam and Jenny seem to just be a pleasant chapter in David's life. Robin seems to fit right in on MatH, and the three of them seem to like each other. As for Jack, I was surprised in watching the pilot again how arrogant he comes across. Yes, Robin boasts a bit, but he also seems rather down to earth. Even David is, as Jenny says, nice, but I don't get the impression that Janet particularly wants to live with Jack.
The other thing to note is that I already know that there's an undercurrent of Robin/Chrissy throughout MatH, although there's not much hint of it in the pilot. Jenny seems pretty smitten with David, although that might be partly due to Valerie Curtin's slightly loopy line readings. (I've seen her in a lot of other things, it's just her style.) Jack, as noted, lusts after Chrissy, who has a low melting point. Ironically, even though the situation of this sitcom involves "a certain matter of sex," there's more talk about sex, especially kinky sex in 3'sC1A, than actual sex. Then again, that's the way things went on the shows overall. But, oh, how they love to tease us!
Would I have watched these programs if I just saw the pilots? Well, I was 5 and living thousands of miles away when MatH debuted, but if it had been one of those Britcoms I saw as a teen in the '80s, like Solo, then yeah, I guess I'd have kept watching. Obviously I did in the case of 3'sC, although as I said, I can't swear to it that I started right in with the pilot. If I'd seen 3'sC1A in '76, when I was 8, no, I don't think I'd have kept going. All the cultural references would've flown over my head, and it would've lacked the goofiness that drew me into the revamped show. (The script is by Larry Gelbart, best known for M*A*S*H*.) Watching the pilots now, I don't know. It's hard to step back that much. But it is interesting to see what changes were made from pilot to pilot, how lines got rephrased, reassigned, or dropped. Notice that it wasn't a matter of Brit-Chrissy = Amer-Chrissy, but neither are all the blondes equivalent, or all the brunettes. It'll be interesting to trace how this plays out over the course of the show.
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