The season finale to the “Murphy Brown” reboot no one asked for features two guest stars: MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell.
Between the two guests, the best that the show’s writers could come up with was a joke about O’Donnell being a skinflint and reference to the time the once-popular sitcom went to war with former Vice President Dan Quayle, who once stated that, no, single motherhood is not desirable. Because nothing screams winner quite like a 71-year-old star of a revived sitcom taking a victory lap over an incident that took place 26 years ago.
The show’s star, Candace Bergen, is aided in her trip down memory lane by Mitchell, whose day job is playing the role of serious, straight-news reporter.
“[Y]ou came here the night you broke the news that Dan Quayle was going to be Bush’s running mate,” Bergen’s character says to Mitchell, referring to the late former President George H. W. Bush.
Mitchell responds stiffly, “I broke the news. You broke the man.”
Seriously, Mitchell should know better than to appear on a partisan television show. She should know better than to be the one to deliver the line about breaking Quayle. Credibility is a scarce commodity in media these days, and appearing on a show that refers to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, as a “boil on the ass of humanity” does a journalist’s credibility no favors.
Video: On @MurphyBrownCBS series finale Thursday night, Andrea @MitchellReports gloated she “broke the news” of Dan Quayle as VP choice, then hailed #MurphyBrown for taking him down: “I broke the news, you broke the man.” Laughs all around. pic.twitter.com/akuctz67JZ
— Brent Baker (@BrentHBaker) December 21, 2018
Also, for a show about a fictional newswoman, one would think that its big season finale would have fresher material than this. Speaking of fresh, in case your memory is hazy, this is what happened: On May 19, 1992, during a family-values speech, Quayle singled out the character “Murphy Brown” for glamorizing single motherhood.
“It doesn’t help matters when prime-time TV has Murphy Brown – a character who supposedly epitomizes today’s intelligent, highly paid, professional woman – mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another ‘lifestyle choice,’” he told an audience at the Commonwealth Club of California.
He added, “I know it is not fashionable to talk about moral values, but we need to do it. Even though our cultural leaders in Hollywood; network TV, the national newspapers routinely jeer at them, I think that most of us in this room know that some things are good, and other things are wrong. Now it’s time to make the discussion public.”
The show responded in kind at the time, with Bergen’s character saying, “Perhaps it’s time for the vice president to expand his definition and recognize that, whether by choice or circumstance, families come in all shapes and sizes.”
New Jersey Democrat Bruce Springsteen sings, “[T]ime slips away and leaves you with nothing … but boring stories of glory days.”
The season finale this week to the “Murphy Brown” reboot no one asked for reminds me a lot of that awful song. The only difference is the lack of self-awareness.
