After Alice

By Gerald Clarke

FLO

March 24, CBS, 9:30p.m. E.S.T.

The TV schedule often reads like the Book of Genesis--or the Daily Racing Form. Happy Days begat Laverne & Shirley; Dallas begat Knot's Landing; Soap begat Benson. Now Alice has begat Flo. Polly Holliday has left Mel's Diner in Phoenix to open up her own bar, Flo's Yellow Rose, in her old home town, Cowtown, Texas.

As Holliday plays her, Flo is television's Mae West: sex is the one thing she has on her mind, but, as she talks about it, in her barbecued accent, it is funny as well as fun. Rarely have a wiggle and a leer seemed so innocent. In this, her opening show, she returns to what must be the pokiest spot in the prairies, where the chief attraction is an indoor mall with an outdoor escalator. The local bar, where she spent the happiest days of her merrily misguided youth, is on the verge of bankruptcy, and Flo, who is on her way to Houston, is persuaded to buy it. Her tight-lipped mamma (Sudie Bond) and Flo's girlhood friend (Joyce Bulifant) pitch in to help make the place presentable, and we are introduced to what gives some promise of being an amusing cast of characters.

Coming just after M*A*S*H, which was No. 2 in the ratings last week, Flo has everything going for it but a knock down script. The best line is a leftover from Alice, "Kiss mah grits!" The writ ing is not bad, by sitcom standards, but it is not nearly as good as Polly Holliday deserves. She is one of TV's truly funny women, and she needs a script as frothy as the stuff coming out of the cooler at the Yellow Rose.

--Gerard Clarke

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