It's A Living Season 3

 

It's a Living Season 3 Almost Has it Together

by Kristin Battestella

The 1985-86 twenty-two episode season of It's A Living resets again for the sitcom's first year in syndication – introducing Crystal Bernard (Wings) as transplanted Texas waitress Amy Tompkins alongside Richard Stahl (9 to 5) as Above The Top's new chef Howard Miller. However, the first half of the season is somewhat unfocused, ingratiating the new characters whilst also going for broke for the syndication revival in a busy, trying to do it all hit or miss. Character personalities are enough to sustain the crisis, but the restaurant taken hostage seriousness in “Desperate Hours” jars with out of place humor and the cat having kittens. There are ambassadors in peril and patrons having heart attacks, but Michael Richards aka Seinfeld's Kramer is the bad guy with a terrible accent. Such laughable in the wrong place takes away from the reflections, regrets, and dreams the fearful staff share. Each lady has a moment to stand up to the villains, and fortunately, the courage overcomes the unevenness. Rather than focusing on the whirlwind romance with Richard Kline (Three's Company), “Jan's Engagement” also has a lot happening besides the titular proposal. Thankfully, this recurring arc is important for one of our characters, showing what It's A Living can do when the ensemble is used to full advantage. “The Prom Show” adds balloons and a dance floor at Above the Top as the high-rise waitresses provide the entertainment and problems ensue. Once again, the lead plot is thin while a more important story takes second place – this time showing the series' best with strong characters and musical numbers while illuminating the writing flaws. Likewise “Hail to the Chef” offers insights into our staff's ambitions, personal lives, and histories they'd like to forget even if it's via Secret Service interviews for a stereotypical presidential visit. Anti-war college rallies in the sixties, mooning a cop, worries over spilling chili – ironically, the eponymous pun about Howard's record being a middle initial mistake is the briefest story.

It's A Living is very frustrating when there's no room for A, B, and even C plots in under twenty-two minutes. Deserving secondary stories suffer as nothing burger sitcom retreads take the lead. Some shorting may be due to syndication cuts, but the overcrowded writers room featuring producers Marc Sotkin and Tom Whedon too often falls back on similarities later seen on their beloved The Golden Girls. It's A Living also reuses the same sets and incidental music, as if even then the same audience of both shows wasn't supposed to notice. It's uncomfortable now to see how off the mark “From Russia with Love” is as well with CCCP defections led by Christopher McDonald (Happy Gilmore), and the women chat about their disturbing worst male encounters in “The Jerks.” Late night inventory excuses frame flashback vignettes full of blackmailing and gaslighting assaults played for laughs. “I won't take no for an answer” and chasings around the sofa sped up like silent film slapstick ruin the chance to see the girls after hours. Even in 1985, who thinks “let's do a highlight show of men assaulting our women” is a good idea? Instead of the “Oddest Couple” being about Ann Jillian's displaced waitress Cassie moving in with Marian Mercer's cranky hostess Nancy for an acerbic twofer, Cassie eventually stays with Paul Kreppel's piano player Sonny. This immediately follows “The Jerks,” and though it's the best behaved Sonny has ever been, he still withholds news of another realty opportunity from Cassie. Somehow, it's all turned around for his sympathy – as if It's A Living doesn't know what to do with our strong ladies when the First Season was so progressive. Fortunately “Gender Gap” comes together with excellent topics and wit despite two important issues crammed in one. The man turned down by Amy's hiring files a discrimination lawsuit, so management caves and gives him a job. The ladies object to men taking the subservient, menial jobs usually resigned to women but no one can afford to strike or lose her job. The new guy is a poor waiter, too, a con artist usually settling out of court. This meaty topic shares time with an early but mistaken transgender plot, for Nancy's former flame felt she was in the wrong body and now she's dating Sonny. She doesn't want him to know, but it's not fair for others to demand she be upfront and tell him against her wishes before playing the operation for laughs and again inexplicably making the issue about Sonny.

The misunderstandings are better handled in “Jealous Wife” as missing ingredients and the titular accuser have everyone coming and going in the kitchen. It would be fun to see an entire episode just set in kitchen, and the mistaken identities, public confrontations, and truths will out have It's A Living firing on all cylinders as the multiple happenings work together. Bemusing standout Danny Thomas is supposed to operate on Nancy's hernia for “The Doctor Danny Show,” but Sorkin's episodes are often the thinnest derivative “the” and “show” entries rising only on the cast's charm. Nancy both wants sympathy yet doesn't want the staff gossiping about her fears, but the gals are there for her with strength and humor showing what It's A Living can do. Messy friends staying with Barrie Youngfellow's Jan, her taking the kids to a child psychologist, and Amy asking for the sentimental ladies to donate for a church auction are again told for locker room angst rather than seen as a Valley Girl turned princess repeats the hostages and terrorists alongside anti-Asian jokes in “Jewel Heist.” Thankfully, busboy switches, fake hotel doctors, and medication side effects combine for a fun if swift resolution. Likewise “Jump” isn't so much about the rejected actor on the restaurant ledge as it is driving dilemmas, no tip customers, and IRS audits. Everything is strong – underpaid waitresses hassled over $32 owed would be a statement unto itself – but we don't get to the eponymous seriousness via Cyrano until the last eight minutes. A blind date with a goofy cartoonist leads to a relationship played out in the comic strip for “America's Sweetheart.” The medium's dated but a woman not wanting her personal life public is something we struggle with today in what not to share or overshare online. It's another fine nugget not completely explored because It's A Living feels the need to cram everyone in every episode when realistically rotating pairs may have allowed more time. Our waitresses apparently work sixteen hours a day seven days a week when there are count 'em six empty lockers in the lounge!

The season finale “Mann Act” devolves into a clip show wrapped with Sonny's drunken interjections, and it's an infuriating end framing the series as about the wannabe cool piano player not the dynamic waitresses. So many more deserving plots were cut short when It's A Living also knew Ann Jillian was departing the series and could have given her a proper send-off. Jan's family life is also strangely unseen with her daughter only appearing once despite an intriguing hear tell B plot where Ellen shares secrets with babysitter Cassie but not her mother. Barrie Youngfellow is effectively the mom of the group, so her realistic romance and blended family shouldn't be relegated to all talk subplots. Jan's courtship deserved two or three episodes – the whirlwind timing, their not being able to have kids together, her relationship with her stepson, how her still going to college effects the family. However, it's all just there to give Jan something to say in the lounge rather than truly exploring the character changes. Meddling mothers, no judge, and an Above the Top reception gone awry fortunately set off “The Wedding Show” where our Jan finally gets to have it all come together in the kitchen of all places. In “Dinner with Deedee” competitive Jan avoids a former school rival now married to a wealthy executive. Jan insists there's nothing wrong with being a waitress, but she pretends to be a fancy customer and is angry at her embarrassment before realizing she has everything she wants. Such service industry hesitancy, hard working honesty, and character reflections showcase the best of It's A Living. As Cassie Cranston, top billed Ann Jillian can convince any customer to sample the succulent roast beef when they are out of steak. She takes Amy under her wing, donates the men's clothes left in her closet, and secretly volunteers at a senior home – she has to keep her wild dating reputation! A famous billionaire reserves Above The Top – Cassie included – in “Cassie's Cowboy,” and despite her cool facade, Cassie falls easily, happy to make a fool of herself and take a chance. We've seen this plot with her before, but Cassie dislikes becoming a snob and ultimately won't let a man no matter how rich walk all over her. She also accidentally starts dating twins unaware and tells them she has a twin sister and we do not see this plot! I protest.

Gail Edwards' ditsy Dot is always a bridesmaid with typical “Dot's Puppy” half an episode hi-jinks under-utilizing her failing actress when her outlandish lies should be It's A Living's go-to comic relief. Dot decides she must pretend to be a good waitress to become a better actress, but steals food from the kitchen to feed the homeless and shows up early when she's burned out on making excuses. Dot's visiting mother is exactly like her, and they drive each other crazy because neither tells the truth. Dot wishes Above the Top was a dinner theater, and she puts her skills to good use reenacting the crime in “Eleven Angry Men and Dot.” She teases Nancy with jury duty being the best reason for being absent, but deliberation drags on while the shorthanded staff struggles in one of this season's rare outside of the hotel plots. Crystal Bernard's Amy debuts in the season opener “Harassed” with an anonymous caller who says he's been watching her alongside roses, saucy notes, and piano requests. Amy's fears and the maternal protection from the veteran ladies endear her to viewers immediately. Rather then letting their worries on if the stalker is in the restaurant get to them, the girls take action with a few good trips and copying speeches they saw on Miami Vice. Amy's saving herself for her husband and is a terrible gift giver, but asking Sonny to help her rehearse for the church choir means we get to hear Bernard sing, too. Amy does repeat several ingenue plots from the earlier seasons – her father wants her to return home in “Amy Big Girl Now” and we didn't need this repetitive story as the third episode once she has already been introduced. She wants to stay at Above the Top, but two episodes before she wanted to leave, and the claustrophobic elevator confrontations compete with a mishandled overweight conference story. They're cranky, the waitresses yell at them for wanting more, and the staff both admire their efforts yet mock them. By the next episode, Amy yearns for home again, and her wild Snyder, Texas tales are “Back in St. Olaf” precursors about pigs and ditching work to go to a rodeo with her friend Billy Bob. Most of her characterization comes in fish out of water humor like having to take a California driving test, and each of these could have been their own plots rather than just throwaway moments. Amy learns to be assertive, standing up to Nancy over her not being paid to be bossed around on her own time – a surprisingly relevant moment for our current always accessible lifestyle.

Although It's A Living does Mercer a disservice in these Dynasty 1980s meets 1890s football player looking sleeves, waterbed owning, man-eater Nancy insists it's her nature to be unmerciful. She lauds Dot as a bad actress with the chance to be a successful waitress but insists she'll take true praise to the grave. Nancy won't break bad news just so she can see the staff squirm. She dreams of being the First Lady's social secretary but is overwhelmed when having to wait on tables herself, preferring instead the unpopular responsibilities no one else wants. Chef Howard, on the other hand, objects to any substitutions or food being sent back. He takes unsatisfactory dishes off the menu and sides with the understaffed ladies amid the magic tricks and mail in ordinations up his sleeve if the plot requires. Howard's gruff banter with Nancy is superb, but her behavior is clearly sexual harassment right down to the overnight kit she gifts him complete with a perfume called “Pillage.” Only male writers would think it's funny because the genders are reversed, and It's A Living didn't need to lay the crossing the line come ons so thick when the evenly matched twofers do so well. In re-watching It's A Living, Sonny Mann is also in very poor taste – saying he's tired of men preying on young girls...while trying to get a drugged woman up to his apartment. The staff hates him and the customers clap when he leaves, so Sonny's piano slapstick is purely for the audience. He sings terribly rude songs to the overweight group, grovels in a crisis, and hides behind the bar. I'm glad when people slam the piano lid on his fingers. In “I Write the Songs” Sonny gets a record contract and immediately ditches Above the Top with the titular spectacle before obviously crawling back. If It's A Living must have musical episodes, the ladies could do variety larks a la Dick van Dyke and Maude. Their singing is better, and if we already have Nancy's antagonism, we don't his annoying, inappropriate behavior.

Of course, It's A Living's print remains downright fuzzy like the days of yore when luxury dinners at Above The Top cost $50 plus the $10 tip. The repeated wardrobe is also steeped in short skirts with chunky belts, big perms, bigger shoulder pads, tight jeans with tall boots, one earrings, and colorful but ridiculously baggy pantsuits. There are sport coats with the sleeves rolled up on men and women, too, and a terrible off the shoulder, one-off uniform before a red option similar to the standard black ensemble. Although J.D. Lobue (Soap) would go on to be the series' most prominent director, these twenty-two episodes cram in much too much – both under-utilizing the embarrassment of riches and overflowing every act with crowded stream of conscious plots. Season Three has a bumpy start, great middle, and weak back half with uneven writing even within a fine episode. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth reviewing It's A Living thanks to the lack of streaming options, but modern frustrations and dated obnoxiousness aside, It's A Living is a breezy marathon with moxie.