THE NBC PRESS department has been touting the network`s latest mid-season replacement, ”Sara,” as ”the new (and presumably improved) Mary Tyler Moore Show,” an unfortunate allusion that leads not only to unfair comparisons, but also makes the new sitcom, which will premiere at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday on Channel 5, sound like a detergent commercial. Whatever ”Sara” ultimately may prove to be in the ratings, it is neither a clone of things past nor a generator of prime-time suds.
Like the character played by Mary Tyler Moore a decade ago, Sara McKenna, portrayed with winsome naivete by Geena Davis, a regular on the defunct
”Buffalo Bill” show, is an unmarried young urban professional struggling to climb the long ladder of success, but similarities stop there. Sara is one of four Yuppies loosely affiliated in a fledgling San Francisco law firm of their own creation, but she is a long way from being the recipient of courtroom laurels, not to mention huge fees.
Instead, she ends up defending clients such as an illegal alien who has been caught stealing a package of lunch meat in a supermarket. Her life is complicated by an old lover who, forgetting that it was her devotion to career that drove him away in the first place, keeps coming back, and by her partners in the law firm, none of whom exactly flaunts Ivy League colors.
WITH THE ACTION set in San Francisco, where a large proportion of the male population is homosexual, ”Sara,” in its premiere at least, finds plenty of fodder for gay one-liners, a predilection that could surround the production with pickets if the topic strays from good taste.
At one point, a friend, worried that Sara is spending too much time alone in her apartment with her nose in a law book, urges her to go to a party.
”Why don`t you come with me?” she says. ”There`ll be heterosexual men there. We`re having them flown in from the Midwest.”
”Sara,” which is bright, perky and promising, goes into the prime-time schedule as a replacement for ”It`s Your Move,” which NBC Entertainment president Brandon Tartikoff said will return this spring in an earlier time period.
NBC, which has emerged this season from a decade and a half in the ratings cellar, needs little fixing at midseason. Tartikoff, calling the Peacock`s situation ”an embarrassment of riches,” said he has 13 comedies but only 12 time periods in which to slot them. ”Sara,” the brainchild of Ruth Bennett and Gary David Goldberg, who produces ”Family Ties,” is an excellent choice from the Peacock`s baker`s dozen.
