Since Michaei is a comic figure, we see his frenetic being, his entitlement, his pathetic outbursts as funny. My problem is that I take it too realistically. I can't help but realize what a terrible bind he is in. Stephanie, who is rich beyond belief, expects him to continue to shower her with gifts, and he is so desperate to let this venomous woman take him to the cleaners that it is almost sick. Of course, it is outrageous and beyond belief, but he is so pathetic and incapable of rational thought. One wonders how someone like him would ever be put in a position of authority. How did he last so long at the TV station. I watched this show at its inception and I don't remember what ultimately happens to him.
2 Reviews
Worth Watching for Scolari
aramis-112-80488011 November 2017
Warning: Spoilers
NEWHART's seventh season contained some of its best episodes, a few that showed the series was getting tired, and, best of all, detailed the fall of Michael Harris (Peter Scolari).
A self-centered local-TV producer from season two, Harris has hit the skids.
SPOILERS BELOW Fired from his producing job in episode nine, "Shoe Business is My Life," here Michael also loses his discount ("DISCOUNT!") Shoe Carnival job after a near-psychotic episode with his shrink, lovely Melanie Chartoff (from "Fridays" the show that also "discovered" Michael Richards).
Though out of work, Harris continues a spiral of debt for his high-maintenance girlfriend, Stephanie, heiress/maid at the Stratford Inn.
Despite an amusing subplot where Jim and Chester have a falling out over allegations of cheating at cards, this show is Scolari's. His Michael Harris is a man on the verge of sanity, and Scolari is able to be at once heart-breaking and extremely funny. Though he's gone about as low as he can go, in a hole of his own making where he sees no way out (the definition of Shakespearean tragedy), Scolari is able to find the right intonation to make you laugh at his hysterical outbursts.
At the end of the episode he and Stephanie, like Jim and Chester, have a falling out. His ritual disrobing of Stephanie from her new mink coat is symbolic, and Julia Duffy (Stephanie) is also able to squeeze a giggle or two from her character's humiliation (both in the restaurant and being stripped of her mink).
Though you may know NEWHART's characters, it's still best to watch this episode within the seventh season's Decline-and-Fall-of-Michael story arc. While it's one of the best of the series because of the emotions involved, it's impossible to appreciate out of context.
Highlights: The ritual destruction of Michael's credit card in the restaurant, Michael's breakdown before Dr. Kaiser, his second breakdown after delivering the mink. Too bad Scolari was never given a chance to hit such comic peaks again (certainly not in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids")
A self-centered local-TV producer from season two, Harris has hit the skids.
SPOILERS BELOW Fired from his producing job in episode nine, "Shoe Business is My Life," here Michael also loses his discount ("DISCOUNT!") Shoe Carnival job after a near-psychotic episode with his shrink, lovely Melanie Chartoff (from "Fridays" the show that also "discovered" Michael Richards).
Though out of work, Harris continues a spiral of debt for his high-maintenance girlfriend, Stephanie, heiress/maid at the Stratford Inn.
Despite an amusing subplot where Jim and Chester have a falling out over allegations of cheating at cards, this show is Scolari's. His Michael Harris is a man on the verge of sanity, and Scolari is able to be at once heart-breaking and extremely funny. Though he's gone about as low as he can go, in a hole of his own making where he sees no way out (the definition of Shakespearean tragedy), Scolari is able to find the right intonation to make you laugh at his hysterical outbursts.
At the end of the episode he and Stephanie, like Jim and Chester, have a falling out. His ritual disrobing of Stephanie from her new mink coat is symbolic, and Julia Duffy (Stephanie) is also able to squeeze a giggle or two from her character's humiliation (both in the restaurant and being stripped of her mink).
Though you may know NEWHART's characters, it's still best to watch this episode within the seventh season's Decline-and-Fall-of-Michael story arc. While it's one of the best of the series because of the emotions involved, it's impossible to appreciate out of context.
Highlights: The ritual destruction of Michael's credit card in the restaurant, Michael's breakdown before Dr. Kaiser, his second breakdown after delivering the mink. Too bad Scolari was never given a chance to hit such comic peaks again (certainly not in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids")
See also
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