Viewpoint: Soap, Betty & Rafferty

By Frank Rich

Mary Hartman without heart

Although the premiere is not until Sept. 13 (9:30 p.m. E.D.T.), Soap is already assured of its place in television history. This ABC sitcom, a bubble-headed parody of daytime soap operas, will always be remembered as the show that broke the TV sex barrier by spilling uninhibited promiscuity into the allegedly sacrosanct hours of prime time. Other prime-time shows trade in sex, of course, but Soap is the first to flaunt its carnal knowledge directly for the viewer. Even without the enfilade fire that has preceded its arrival, this series would still be the one sure hit of the new TV season.

The noisy debate over Soap has largely been fueled by religious groups, whose strenuous letter-writing campaigns have now driven 15 ABC affiliates (out of 195) and some sponsors to drop the series. Soap's detractors seem to feel the show will sully the innocent minds of children in the TV audience, but a young TV viewer's mind really does not stay unclouded for long. Any child who regularly watches leering sitcoms like Three's Company, action series like Charlie's Angels or even daytime soap operas has already been exposed to more sex than can possibly be packed into a half-hour of Soap. Indeed, double-entendre gags are standard fare on almost every TV show aired after 8 p.m. Since Soap contains neither nudity nor four-letter words nor heavy petting, it is no more salacious than most other series--but it has committed the sin of being open about its preoccupations. Soap doesn't disguise itself as a crime adventure or family comedy. Perhaps that is why the show has become the tardy symbol of a TV sexual revolution that has long since been accomplished.

It is possible--though unlikely--that public pressure could yet squelch Soap, but even if that happens, the networks are not now going to go clean. It can also be argued that sex, like any other reality, deserves a role in TV entertainments that purport to portray contemporary life. The real trouble with Soap, a series in which characters exchange sexual partners almost as often as they do wisecracks, is that sex is used only for cheap gags. Television, which routinely trivializes so much of experience, should not be permitted to take the fun out of intimacy.

Soap aspires to be a network Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and one only wishes that it were. Susan Harris, Soap's creator, producer and writer, centers the action on two related Connecticut families, the rich Tates and working-class Campbells, whose flaky members collectively include philandering and impotent husbands, bored and batty housewives, nymphomaniac children, a senile grandfather--and so on. Most of these types have counterparts in Mary Hartman's Fernwood, Ohio, but Soap's characters are flimsy replicas of the originals.

The blame belongs to Harris, not the show's talented cast. For all the trouble this writer has taken to reproduce Mary Hartman's formula, she has left out its essential ingredient--compassion. Mary Hartman presented its admittedly loony characters with such affection that audiences cared about them and even identified with their failings. Soap contemptuously presents its people as either stupid or conniving or cruel or some hybrid thereof. With so many unpleasant cartoon figures on the screen, Soap's potentially affecting sexual shenanigans devolve into mean-spirited locker-room jokes. It is not Soap's desire to lather on the sex that lands the series in hot water but its insistence on isolating sex from humanity that makes it look dirty.

If Soap had other comic concerns besides sex, its nastiness wouldn't be so pervasive. Unfortunately, Harris has none of Norman Lear's redeeming flair for witty social satire--unless one counts the tired reverse-racist jokes she lavishes on the character of a sassy black butler (Robert Guillaume). The flatness of the conventional comic scenes can be painful; when two characters engage in a lengthy and unfunny food fight, a third appears to suggest lamely that "this is like having breakfast with the Marx brothers." Good jokes never announce themselves.

Even so, Soap is not without its virtues. Jimmy Baio, as an oversexed 14-year-old, and Billy Crystal, as an out-of-the-closet (but preoperative) transsexual, are sharp young comedians. The series' hellzapoppin plot, whose chaos recalls the '30s farces of Kaufman and Hart, exerts a strong narrative pull. With care, these elements could yet form the basis for entertainment that is both notorious and decent. Soap will surely make enough money to buy itself a heart.

Two other prime-time contenders:

The Betty White Show (premiere: Sept. 12, 9 p.m. E.D.T. on CBS). One of the major inspirations of the Mary Tyler Moore Show was to cast sweet, motherly Betty White against type--as a two-faced bitch. In this promising new sitcom from MTM Enterprises, White is as bitchy as ever and on-screen almost all the time. It might be too much of a good thing.

The series is set in the Hollywood television industry--a milieu that could prove to be as durable as the Minneapolis TV newsroom of MTM. White plays Joyce Whitman, a veteran TV actress who stars in a fictional network cop show called Undercover Woman. Joyce's ex-husband, a self-described "cold fish" played with slimy charm by John Hillerman, is also her director, and for much of the first episode, the two ex-spouses rekindle their marital acrimony by trading insults on the Undercover Woman set. Occasionally--and gratuitously--Joyce's roommate (Georgia Engel, another MTM refugee) pops up to referee.

White and Hillerman are superb foils for each other, but a little insult humor, however dryly delivered, goes a long way. Phyllis, another MTM effort, failed precisely because Cloris Leachman's strident putdowns tuckered out the audience. The Betty White Show can avoid Phyllis' fate if its creators capitalize on the satirical possibilities of their TV industry setting. Betty White, not to mention her viewers, simply must have more room to breathe.

Rafferty (premiere: Sept. 5, 10 p.m. E.D.T. on CBS). In this expendable doctor series, Patrick McGoohan stars as an ex-Army medic with a gruff exterior and a heart as big as an ambulance. Surrounding him are cliches culled from most other doctor series of recent vintage. Though Dr. Rafferty's patients all survive to the final credits, the show itself is dead on arrival.

-- Frank Rich

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