Normally there are humorous elements to this series. But not this episode. It was little more than pandering to the left (and Trump haters, or course, of which there are many). Yet, they did a good job of covering up Candace's weight problem.
The series does take a point of view, and that must be respected. However, there will never be the series opposite. Hollywood is incapable of producing a series (or even an episode) that has a conservative point of view.
2 Reviews
Difficult topic
Gsinoz129 April 2021
Just watched this episode again for the first time since 2018 and thought it may be interesting to provide a perspective from a non American viewer (I live in Australia).
Overall, these "new" episodes" of Murphy Brown tended to not quite really work, with a feeling they were just trying too hard. Perhaps not enough genuine humour and a bit too much lecturing going on.
This episode is a little like that too, but to be fair, it was trying to address a topic that really has no humour in it. So whilst there are a few funny moments, it tries to handle the serious side of things as carefully as it can. By and large I would say it succeeds, but it is far from being a TV masterpiece. So in that sense it really doesn't warrant a high score. But for it's attempt to cover an extremely difficult topic, I would give it a couple of extra points.
In particular, for me it did something quite unusual for a Murphy Brown episode - it made me very sad!
It was really interesting to watch this story with the added benefit of hindsight, knowing that the extremist partisan behaviour in the USA really only got worse after this time instead of better.
I expect many US Republican supporters may only see this episode as an anti Trump and anti Republican story. But for me that would be missing the point.
This was trying to touch on the breakdown in US society to the point where people are no longer able to hold opposite points of view without the fear of physical attack. This is not necessarily something unique to just one side of politics or another, and clearly a problem for everyone if mutual respect cannot be restored.
When Murphy asks the question "what if this is the new normal" it is scary to think that in the few years since the episode first aired, that is exactly what seemed to happen in the USA - such behaviour became almost the norm (from an outsiders perspective at least).
So if you ever happen to watch this episode at some time, I would recommend trying to put personal political views to the side and consider the deeper question it perhaps poses - what kind of society do I really want to live in?
Overall, these "new" episodes" of Murphy Brown tended to not quite really work, with a feeling they were just trying too hard. Perhaps not enough genuine humour and a bit too much lecturing going on.
This episode is a little like that too, but to be fair, it was trying to address a topic that really has no humour in it. So whilst there are a few funny moments, it tries to handle the serious side of things as carefully as it can. By and large I would say it succeeds, but it is far from being a TV masterpiece. So in that sense it really doesn't warrant a high score. But for it's attempt to cover an extremely difficult topic, I would give it a couple of extra points.
In particular, for me it did something quite unusual for a Murphy Brown episode - it made me very sad!
It was really interesting to watch this story with the added benefit of hindsight, knowing that the extremist partisan behaviour in the USA really only got worse after this time instead of better.
I expect many US Republican supporters may only see this episode as an anti Trump and anti Republican story. But for me that would be missing the point.
This was trying to touch on the breakdown in US society to the point where people are no longer able to hold opposite points of view without the fear of physical attack. This is not necessarily something unique to just one side of politics or another, and clearly a problem for everyone if mutual respect cannot be restored.
When Murphy asks the question "what if this is the new normal" it is scary to think that in the few years since the episode first aired, that is exactly what seemed to happen in the USA - such behaviour became almost the norm (from an outsiders perspective at least).
So if you ever happen to watch this episode at some time, I would recommend trying to put personal political views to the side and consider the deeper question it perhaps poses - what kind of society do I really want to live in?
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