Barney Miller was always trying out new Detectives. For instance Ron Harris played by Ron Glass was an early one that stuck. (1st season). He basically beat out Rod Perry as Sgt. Wilson. Later Steve Landesberg as Dietrich and Ron Carey as Levitt won full time jobs.
So Wentworth had pretty much won the job as a regular when Linda Lavin got offered Alice instead. Clearly she chose wisely for herself, but a shame for Barney Miller.
If you notice the final episode of Barney Miller Wentworth is the only short run character to be mentioned. (Chano doesn’t count as a trial run.)
This being Cafe Society, I don’t want to start a Great Debate but what led to the OP was a conversation about women and couples waiting later in life to start families or even foregoing having kids. One theory we had was that there are more independent women role models on TV than there used to be. So while I was originally thinking of fictional characters, your example would fit the bill as well.
That is an interesting subject in itself. I’d say TV is more of a trailing indicator of societal mores, but certainly is good at reinforcing them. I also think it’s interesting to see how many actresses play women who don’t have children yet have them in real life, often now covering up their real life pregnancies on their shows.
Marlo Thomas wanted to show that a woman could be independent and have a career. She had a boyfriend, but the show deliberately avoided having them marry (they got engaged toward the end) to avoid the message that a woman needs a man to be complete.
What about Moonlighting and Remington Steele? Both of those shows were built around female characters who had the audacity to attempt to succeed in a male-dominated industry. However, I can see where that strong quality could be blunted by the fact that both women sought out men to complete their PI practices.
Mrs Muir (Hope Lange) in the TV series The Ghost And Mrs Muir (1968 - 1970), a single mother raising two kids and she always stood up to the Captain and Claymore Gregg
One of my all time favorites was Stephanie Cole in “Waiting For God.” That woman was feisty AF and I wanted to be her when I grew up. And Brett Butler in “Grace Under Fire” just misses the 30 year cutoff by a smidgen but satisfies the spirit of the OP if not the actual letter.
OP is very wrong about Mary Tyler Moore. A single woman moving to a new city, living alone, and holding her own with the men while producing a TV news show was a very big deal in the 1970s. Lou Grant was a supporting character … the old school newsman whose respect for Mary’s talent overcomes his initial reluctance to let a woman into the club.
I’ll add Maj. Margaret Houlihan (M A S H). She started off as a shrill harridan, but grew through the series to become an integral part of the team … a skilled nurse and an intelligent, effective manager of the nursing corps and the operating theater in general.
Been awhile since I saw the TV show, but the radio series was anything but independent. Brooks was sardonic and sharp-tongued, but she spent many episodes mooning over Phil Boynton.
You may very well be right. I haven’t seen the show in a long time but most of my memories of it are Grant barking orders at Mary and her meekly replying “Yes Mr. Grant.”