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Too often what passes for wit is merely the insertion of brand names or pop- culture references designed to get a rise out of the baby-boomer audience. "For a guy who knows all the words to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, you're starting to sound an awful lot like Pat Boone," says Murphy. Or: "I've been carrying this kid for longer than Bonanza was on the air." At Phil's, the wateringhole where Washington's movers and shakers supposedly mingle, the running gags about famous patrons ("I keep telling Koppel to stop bringing in that garbage") amount to little more than idle name dropping.
The show's habit of mingling real-life references (and occasional guest appearances) with its fictional TV news crew is carried to a new level in the baby-shower episode. The visiting TV newswomen do surprisingly well in their cameo appearances, delivering quips about such things as balancing career and motherhood. (Says Williams: "I once asked Garrick Utley if he had to make a boom-boom.") But the encounter simply lends a bogus aura of credibility to a show that seems phony at its soul. And why do all the guests at the shower come from the soft-news world of morning TV? Apparently, the hard-news reporters whom Murphy is really modeled after -- Diane Sawyer, Lesley Stahl -- were too busy doing real work.
Murphy's single motherhood is being hailed as a milestone for prime-time TV, but the plot twist smacks of gimmickery. The trouble is that the show tries to have it both ways: Murphy, the unsentimental career woman, has spent most of the season making cynical jokes about motherhood ("Oh, right, the unforgettable thrill of passing a bowling ball"). Yet when the baby finally arrives, there's our new mother, misty-eyed, crooning (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman to the newborn. For a gal who knows the words to In-A-Gadda- Da-Vida, she's starting to sound an awful lot like Debby Boone.