The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd

Before Seinfeld, before Friends, before Sex and the City, before all those shows in the 1990s and today about single people in NYC, there was this, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, the best of them all.

It was about a chronically underemployed woman in late 1980's New York who has a crazy family, flaky friends, and, eventually, a baby out of wedlock.

The great, GREAT Blair Brown played Molly Dodd, an absolutely believable, recognizable, and dimensional character. Throughout the course of the show you meet her crazy ex-husband, her impossible mother, her two very different boyfriends (a shlubby bookstore owner and a black police officer) and her unlikely best friend, the friendly old elevator operator in her building.

At first you might think this was a "chick" show but it really wasn't. It was a show about a woman and her problems yet, ironically enough, most of the other characters on the show were men and the problems she faced felt universal and understandable, even to a then teenage boy.

Molly Dodd was brilliantly written and beautifully acted. It first aired on NBC in 1987, then moved over to Lifetime until 1991. As a single camera dramedy about a single urban woman, it was way, way ahead of its time. Darren Starr, one of the producers of Sex and the City, said he owed a big debt to Molly Dodd's influence.

Here's the intro. It perfectly capture the feeling of last 1980s New York.