Last week four weary, bleary men sat at Art's Deli, resting from their rewrites of Rhoda. James Brooks turned to his fellow writer-producers, Allan Burns, David Davis and Lorenzo Mu sic. "Why open with the fruit salad?" he asked, blue-penciling the menu. "Let's get to the zinger — we move the pastrami up, segue to the coleslaw, go for the laugh with the knockwurst."
His colleagues saw nothing unusual about the revisions; they had simply forgotten to turn off their brains. It is an occupational disease of the group. Ever since the creation of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, they have been...