Love it or loathe it, "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" is the nation's latest pop-culture craze—a sort of video Rorschach test for the mass audience. Norman Lear's comedy soap opera is the most talked-about new TV series since America was assaulted by his Archie Bunker. (p. 54)

Thematically, the serial is something of a mishmash, and even the show's creators seem at a loss to define exactly what they are trying to do…. Lear originally envisioned "MH2" as a kind of split-level soap. On one level, it would be a reductio ad absurdum of every soap-opera convention, including the inane commercials. But the show would also be human enough to make viewers care for its characters—just as they feel for the folks on "As the World Turns."

It was an audacious game plan, but one probably destined to miss as often as hit. At its best, "Mary Hartman...