TV Series

Series Name:	Paul Sand In Friends & Lovers (Friends & Lovers)
Format:	TV Series
IMDB:	IMDB Page
Years:	1974 - 1975
Country:	USA
Language:	English
Genre:	Comedy
Rating:	2.0 Rate
Collection:	Seen It Wishlist
Community:	1 Wishlist
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Selected Cast	Paul Sand as Robert Dreyfuss
	Michael Pataki as Charlie Dreyfuss
	Penny Marshall as Janice Dreyfuss
	Steve Landesberg as Fred Meyerbach
	Dick Wesson as Jack Riordan
	Craig Richard Nelson as Mason Woodruff

Notes

At the time upcoming comedian, Paul Sand, was given his own show after a very memorable appearance in The Mary Tyler Moore Show episode 1040 or Fight. Paul plays Robert Dreyfuss, a young bachelor who is a double-bass player at The Boston Symphony Orchestra after living in Colorado for three years. He is a romantic who falls in love easily but he has little luck with them because he is shy and very nervous at time. This is sharp contrast, to his very confident older brother Charlie. Charlie is protective of Robert, along with his wife Janice (played by the first starring role for Penny Marshall). In the orchestra, Robert friends at work are the Vietnamese violinist, Fred Meyerbach, a sarcastic, and overweight conductor, Mason Woodruff, and the antagonistic orchestra manager, Jack Riordan.

The series was created by Jim Brooks and Allan Burns who also created The Mary Tyler Moore show. Burns noted with trying to balance Mary’s show and another new show that season, Rhoda, the show didn’t get all the attention it needed. Despite this, early reviews guessed this would be the biggest new series of the season. The show aired Saturday nights at 8:30 PM on CBS starting September 14, 1974. The first episode ranked the 14th most watched TV show that week. The show would have good ratings throughout it’s run but not good enough. Friends & Lovers couldn’t compete with its lead-in, All In The Family and was bringing down the ratings to the lead-out, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. An example of this is shown with an early ratings report from the October 10th issue of The Wall Street Journal. The report showed Paul Sans with a 36 share which although good fails in comparison to All In The Family’s 51 share and The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s 39 share. Friends and Lovers was canceled after 15 episodes and its final episode aired on January 4, 1975. The series would end as the 25th most watched show that year (tieing with Tony Orlando and Dawn) with a year and share 20.7.

Comments and Reviews


moax429 4th Nov 2021		Another MTM snoozefest, much like the two Newhart "comedies." The humor was extremely dumb, and after about the first 10 or so minutes I wanted to doze off. (How could my folks stand this show? There was also Emergency on NBC in the interim after All in the Family and before Mary Tyler Moore (I don't remember what ABC had on Saturday nights at that time, but I'm sure it would have been far superior to Friends and Lovers). I guess my mom and dad were too lazy to get up and change the channel.) Since Disney/ABC - which bought out 20th Century Fox in 2018, which in turn bought out MTM Enterprises 20 years before - is now stuck with the dubious honor of owning Friends and Lovers, I can only hope Disney either loses the film elements or - better yet - burns them. Then this exercise in ennui would be lost forever. (20th Century Fox Television is now 20th Television under Disney's aegis.)



Joyful Jukebox ● 31st Oct 2021		I've only seen one episode of this show, the 11th episode to air "Maid in the Snow". That episode was very funny with all the early MTM charm I can't get enough of. The show final nail in the coffin was the program that replaced it, The Jeffersons, ran for 11 years. I hope more from the series is released but for now here's a clip from the 1974 preview show in very poor quality. And here's the opening credits with a very underrated theme song in beautiful quality.

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