That Girl - Season 2
One of the all-time great TV stars, Marlo Thomas--with her false eyelashes, fab flip, and an adorable raspy squeak when she got excited--achieved iconic status withThat Girl, a top-rated and culture-busting show about the comic trials of an aspiring actress/model in 1960s New York City. Thomas (and her on-screen alter ego, Ann Marie) combined the poise and fashion sense of Audrey Hepburn, the bubbly good cheer of Annette Funicello, and the sly smarts of Claudette Colbert into one surprisingly hip small town girl in the big city. Though dozens of great guest-stars (from Bill Bixby to Ethel Merman) pass through the show and the supporting cast (including Bernie Kopell,The Love Boat, as a neighbor, and Lew Parker and Rosemary DeCamp as Ann's parents) is topnotch,That Girlis fundamentally a tennis match between Thomas and the underrated Ted Bessel as Ann's deceptively mild boyfriend, Donald.  Episodes in the second season ranged from loving or satirical portraits of show-biz life (Ann starred in an out-of-town flop; Ann worked as a model for a libidinous British photographer; Ann gets cast in an Italian film that has a nude scene) to keenly observed dustups in Ann and Donald's developing relationship (Donald's mother discovers a pair of his pants in Ann's closet; Ann frets that she doesn't have sex appeal; and, in one oddly surreal show, Ann meets a doctor who's an exact doppleganger for Don).  Though the chaste morals of 1960s television--ridiculously out of step with 1960s real life--kept Ann and Donald from ever consummating their enduring relationship, it's amazing how sophisticated and sexy they could be without ever taking their clothes off. Listening to their repartee, you realize how depressingly dumbed-down most sitcom dialogue is, then and now. Ann and Donald talked like adults: Making allowances for each other's foibles, poking fun at them all the same, and respecting each other's independence. It doesn't undercut the show's significance as a proto-feminist milestone to say that it's a love story at heart. Over the course of Season Two, Ann and Donald's relationship grew increasingly subtle and textured; it genuinely smacked of two people growing to know each other better and liking each other all the more. If you don't think a happy, functional relationship can have a real romantic spark, you haven't watchedThat Girl.--Bret Fetzer