Television: Once in Love with Mary

First, You Cry, Nov. 8, CBS, 9p.m. E.S.T.

Few TV performers are as durable or as justly adored as Mary Tyler Moore. During the past 15 years she has become an unpretentious symbol of sophistication in a medium where that quality is usually considered a punishable offense. As Laura Petrie, the slightly daft heroine of the classic Dick Van Dyke Show, Moore demonstrated that sitcom suburban housewives did not have to be domestic ninnies chained to a kitchen sink. With her easy wit and sturdy intelligence, almost single-handed she brought TV out of the Lucille Ball-Donna Reed era.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show...

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