Lou Grant: The Complete First Season

The beloved sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show ended in the spring of 1977 with the newsroom staff being fired by new management. That fall, Ed Asner was back in character as the titular acerbic, irascible veteran in the newspaper drama Lou Grant. Lou interviews for a job on the (fictional) Los Angeles Tribune with his old friend Charlie Hume (Mason Adams) and is hired as the new city editor. Lou Grant is an old-school newspaper series that uses the investigative format to take on dramatic issues (from neo-Nazis to political muckraking) while also exploring journalistic ethics. And it feels surprisingly relevant today, in an age when newspapers are being supplanted by more reckless forms of web journalism. The great cast of supporting characters include Robert Walden as reporter Joe Rossi, a serious, streetwise character who isn't quite as good or as savvy as he thinks he is, and Linda Kelsey as Billie Newman, who joins the show in the fourth episode. The pair provide energy as investigative journalists with a friendly rivalry, while Hume and the paper's blue-blood publisher Mrs. Pynchon (Nancy Marchand) represent a more conservative approach to journalism. Lou is often in the middle, pushing the young reporters to get past their own assumptions and urging the editors to take on more controversial stories. Compiling all 22 episodes from the 1977-78 debut season, extras include a new interview with Asner. Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)