I Love Lucy season 6

Robert Bianco was the TV critic for USA Today for nearly 20 years. Of series I loved, he was a passionate defender of some (Elementary) and a fanatical detractor of others (Everybody Loves Raymond). He wasn’t shy about doubling down on an unpopular opinion, yet his greatest strength was his willingness to reassess. If he panned a pilot, then saw the show steadily improve over the fall months (Selfie), he’d speak up; if he realized he’d underestimated a star’s potential to anchor a series (Limitless), he’d pen a proper mea culpa. I enjoyed his insights and turns of phrase even when we found ourselves at critical odds.

There’s only one remark of his that struck me as so odd that — as kids today are wont to say — it continues to live rent-free in my head.

Maude season 2

I had occasion to meet producer Norman Lear in the spring of 1978, when I was a freshman in college. He was coming to our university to give a brief lecture, and then a select group of students were joining him at a local restaurant for dinner. I have no memory of how those particular students were chosen, but as a lowly freshman, I was not among them. But this was at a time when my ambition was to write for television, so I was not about to miss the chance to meet Normal Lear — and having been raised on ‘60s sitcoms, I wasn’t going to let anything as trivial as the lack of an invite stop me. In true Lucy Carmichael fashion, I managed to convince the school newspaper that they needed to do a story on Lear’s visit, and even though I had never written for them before, I persuaded them that I was the one to do it. And then I made the case that part of covering his visit meant covering the dinner, so they snagged me an invite.