Who's the Boss?: Charmed Lives

Who's the Boss?: Charmed Lives
ABC
May 13, 1986
Sitcom
DVD
C-

Angela flies out to San Francisco to meet with the client Frank Vionelli (John Randolph, no more Italian than he was as Emily Hartley's father).  Although she has some influence in the course of the show, it's primarily about the conflict between photographer Lauren Sullivan (Donna Dixon doing an unidentifiable accent) and model Joyce Columbus (Fran Drescher being very Fran Drescher).  Dixon and Drescher were good friends in real life (having met on the set of Dr. Detroit) and I can kind of see how this might've worked as a series, but only with much better writing.  According to IMDB, Charmed Lives ran for three episodes in the Fall, although I doubt it's been seen since, other than this back-door pilot.  One of the three writers here was Peter Marc Jacobson, Drescher's then husband, and having read Drescher's autobiography, I can see how they incorporated things like her learning to somewhat lose her accent and definitely losing her adolescent fat.  The Dixon character is more poorly served; accent aside, there just doesn't seem to be a clear view of who Lauren is, in the way that Sonny on Bosom Buddies had a personality and back story.

This hardly counts as a WtB episode, beyond in name only.  Mona and Tony are only in the first scene, the kids not at all.  It would've made more sense to end the season with "The Anniversary Show," not only because it's so much stronger as entertainment, but because the events here are even more peripheral to the main characters than the "shoe" story.  But this is a mistake that WtB would repeat again, sometimes, as in the first season, ending with the right episode, and other times trickling off like this, with more attempted spin-offs yet to come.

Who's the Boss? in its second season ranges from C- to A-.  The writing, especially in that middle third, isn't as sharp, focused, and witty as the first season, but overall the second season averages out to a high B-, still perfectly fine.  The cast is definitely settling in and the show at its best focuses on the main five, sometimes with outsiders who mesh  well and sometimes with just the blended family.  There are some missteps with Sam's character but overall the characterization and interactions remain solid.  The third season would bring changes for everyone, particularly Angela....