It’s in the theme song, that she’s gonna make it after all.
But she gets fired in the final episode! From the TV station that is easily the worst in her market! Do you think she can get another job in TV? Her boss can’t, why would she? Who would hire her? Her friends, Rhoda and Phyllis, moved on to bigger and better things. Even Gordy the weatherman got a better job. But Mary didn’t and was ultimately fired.
Mary’s competence at her job is sort of assumed. But maybe she simply wasn’t all that good at it. According to the Mary and Rhoda TV movie, she went back to school for a master’s degree in Journalism. Maybe she should have done that in the first place. And she married a congressman, likely the kind of guy she rejected in the pilot of the MTM show.
I thought the idea was she was going to make it on her own, without a man. And she did. I’m sure she would find another job after the end of the show. Lou did and he probably offered her a job but she had something better lined up.
They all probably got bounced for the same reason the WKRP crew almost got pink slips: the station started making just a tad too much money for tax deduction purposes.
And he ended up in a drama, rather than a comedy. I wonder if he noticed? “Where are all the wacky people? The comedic situations? Billie Newman never does anything as funny as Sue Ann. Ted was amusingly annoying, Joe Rossi is just annoying.”
Mary Richards was experienced, and there was nothing in the show that suggested she was anything less than capable. And the new ownership fired every one BUT kept Ted around. That’s the kind of management judgment that pretty much proved to other TV stations that it’s not the employee’s fault. I’m sure Mary had no problem getting another job.
Yeah, not to hijack, but I always thought that was odd, to have a comedy spinoff turn into a drama with a whole different tone. They should have had MTM make a guest appearance on Lou Grant in a gritty reboot version of her Mary Richards character. Depicting, as per the OP, how she didn’t make it after all, and had to sell herself out to that Congressman she didn’t really love, and who maybe actually repelled her, just to keep solvent. Begging Lou Grant for a job so she could divorce him.
To the OP, I would say that if Mary ended up married to a congressman who burned up all their money, then she didn’t make it after all. I expect Mares to be strong and independent, or at least as much as possible for the 1970s. Marrying a powerful and moneyed husband seems like a betrayal. And popping out a kid seems so…ordinary.
They made two spin-offs in the MTM universe that didn’t really set the world on fire. Rhoda was big initially but faded quickly. Phyllis was a bridge too far. So I can see producers wanting to keep milking the cow but with a different approach.
This. Management can make stupid decisions; spunky employees bounce back and find better jobs. It was the end of the show, not the end of Mary’s career.
MTM Enterprises was a powerhouse of a production comapany in the 70’s and 80’s. Mary Richards made it, she made it big time. MTM just had to kill off the character in a non-life threatening way by putting her on the road to a new life experiance. One which most people experiance and come back stronger from.
As for MTM. Bob Newhart, Phyllis, Rhoda, Lou Grant, Tony Randal, Betty White and numerous others all ended up working for her.
You make a good point, though!
