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What’s the Story?

Reviewed by Melissa Camacho

After her husband dies, Alice Hyatt (Linda Lavin) decides to hit the road in pursuit of a singing career -- along with 12-year-old son Tommy (Philip McNichols), she sets out on a cross-country drive to Los Angeles in search of a new life. But her plans to make it big are sidetracked when their station wagon breaks down in Phoenix, Ariz. With no car and little money, Alice takes a waitress job at Mel's Diner, a local truck stop owned by insult-hurling (but big-hearted) cook Mel Sharples (Vic Tayback), where she works alongside saucy Texan waitress Florence "Flo" Jean Castleberry (Polly Holliday), and polite-but-rather-ditzy Vera Gorman (Beth Howland). As the series progresses, Belle Dupree (Diane Ladd), Jolene Hunnicutt (Celia Weston), and Elliott Novack (Charles Levin) join the gang.

Is It Any Good?

3

Based on the classic 1974 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, the just-as-classic ALICE shows us that the road of life can be full of laughs, even if we end up off course. The long days serving customers are never dull -- and over time, the folks at the diner become part of Alice and Tommy's extended family, developing a bond so strong that even Mel's constant threats of firing everyone doesn't keep them from being there for each other during the good times and the bad.

The series reflects the changes that were taking place in America in the mid-1970s, as more single mothers entered the work force to support their children and pursue their own goals. It's also an example of how television introduced the workplace as a replacement for the idealized notion of what a traditional family should look like. Alice originally ran from 1976-1985 and currently airs in syndication (select episodes are available on DVD). The series had a short-lived spin-off, Flo.

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