tek's rating: ½

Who's the Boss?, on ABC
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Tony Danza played Tony Micelli, a former baseball player, who takes a job as a live-in housekeeper for a divorced advertising executive named Angela Bower (Judith Light). Tony was a widowed father, with a daughter named Samantha (Alyssa Milano). He wanted a better life for her than they had in Brooklyn, which is why he took a job in Connecticut. Sam was a tomboy at the start of the series, when she was about 12 years old. But the show lasted eight seasons, over which she grew up and inspired countless crushes among young male viewers such as myself. Yeah, she was definitely pretty cute and cool and sarcastic and funny. And... Angela had a son about the same age as Sam, named Jonathan. And we saw a great deal of Angela's mother, Mona (Katherine Helmond). In fact I believe it was Mona who first met Tony and suggested he work for Angela.

I don't remember much in the way of specific episodes, and I kind of thought of the show as... just sort of okay. I mean, it could be kind of ridiculous at times, but basically the characters were likable enough and the show was funny enough. Eventually Tony and Angela develop a romantic relationship, but it's a long time before that happens. Meanwhile, they had fairly different personalities (Tony's more casual and jokey, while Angela's more uptight and professional), which could lead to differences of opinion about various things... such as how to raise their respective kids, I guess. Still, they came to respect and care about each other and value each other's opinions. Um... I dunno what else to say, except that the show's title comes from the role reversal of a woman being in charge and a man staying home to do the cooking and cleaning and whatnot. Though that's not something that ever really seemed unusual to me (having a working mother, myself). And the whole premise seems kind of antiquated, now, because... seriously, is there still anyone clinging to gender roles from the 1950s? Even when the show aired in the 80s, I feel like such ideas were outdated. But whatever, it was still a decent show.


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