Date of airing: November 28, 1988 (CBS)
Nielsen ratings information: 23.6 million viewers, 15.5/22 in Households
written by: Russ Woody
directed by: Barnet Kellman
This episode from 1988 perfectly fits into the "Republican crime spree" narrative of the mid-2010s until now, least alone the notion of covering corrupted American politics. Miles said that they owed the American public to report the truth, and to never hide away from a serious and dangerous story. In 1988, the fictional reporters and journalists of MURPHY BROWN were not scared of the outcome of a particular story, even though Miles was scared pantsless after receiving his first death threat, forcing him to hide in the studio. 35 years later, reporters and journalists were even less scared – they were thriving under the pressure of finding the next greatest scandal that was hopefully attempting to saw off the chair a Republican politician in office was sitting on into dust.
It is interesting to notice how MURPHY BROWN is still a relevant show three and a half decades later, which is probably why I always felt the need to watch the show, even though between the first time I watched half of this season and this time, I fell in love with cable news (you can try and cure me, I would really love to get away from it), and Aaron Sorkin's HBO drama THE NEWSROOM got sour reviews.
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| This is the spot where to hand over incriminating evidence to a journalist, rather than the police. |
This was a solid episode. First of all, I sort of laughed
that Murphy’s secretaries get numbered in the end credits now, with this
episode coming up to #6 and #7 in that regard, although it looks like CBS might have
swapped a few episodes here and there, because I do not think we are
already up there, and we may have missed one or two secretaries. Anyway, the second secretary was absurdly hilarious when she said that she was having conversations with Satan. Plus, the first secretary in this episode was portrayed by Lily
Mariye, and this is of interest to me greatly, because she played the role of Nurse Lily on 15 seasons of ER. Three episodes in, two of Murphy's rotating
secretaries would become nurses on ER later (after Dinah Lenney's appearance in the previous episode). This could only be a coincidence, but every once in a while, when the coincidences are too coincidental, I do not believe that.
Secondly, I did love the idea of giving this episode to Miles, turning the focus away from Murphy for 24 minutes and giving the spotlight to one of the other characters in return. While I would have appreciated that his fear of retribution by a mob boss had been the central story of the episode, I loved that there was an issue of conflict here that actually went deep into the moral of being a reporter, telling the audience what it may have been like for a kind of new journalist facing death threats before reporting a big story. Do you report potentially dangerous news and tell the truth to your audience and risk your life doing so, or do you spare yourself from certain doom and decide that your audience does not need to know the whole truth?
Miles was asking himself that question properly and understandably, as he is new to his business, and, as Murphy has come to figure out, received his very first death threat (from a mob boss no less). Miles had reasons to be scared for
his life, and Murphy had reasons to be doubtful whether or not to air the story, because it turns out that she cares about her colleagues and does not want to see them dead in a ditch someday. MURPHY BROWN removed itself from the sitcom genre and directed itself towards a moral dilemma, filling the episode with beautiful amounts of drama, when Murphy and Miles were having a conversation about airing the story or not. If the series was capable of calming down and getting serious for a couple of minutes, who knows what else the writers were thinking of doing to make this sitcom more special in the pool of late-1980s American sitcoms. There are reasons why MURPHY BROWN was on the air for ten seasons and a revival, and that one moment of drama may have been a dramatic scene featuring Murphy and Miles.
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| This is a serious moment for Miles. |
Finally, there was a funny comment about corrupt and criminal Republicans in this
episode, after Murphy hoped she would get to do her most favorite thing
more often – putting people in jail – and Frank said she is going to
have more chances to do exactly that because Republicans are still in office. That was a
laugh-out-loud scene, and probably even more so in 2023 than in 1988.
Back then, you only had Richard Nixon as a comparison (maybe Ronald Reagan when you get deep into the Iran-Contra affair), but in 2023, you know the history of George W. Bush leading a war under false pretenses, you had Donald Trump living the life of a political mobster and destroyer of the Constitution, and you had their aides, lawyers, and allies committing crimes to help the causes of their criminal presidents. And it is always the Republican presidents who seem to incite criminal activities...
