When I was growing up, my parents would only let me watch unsupervised television if it was a kids show on Nickelodeon or a re-run Nick at Nite. So even though I was born a year after it went off the air, I grew up with The Mary Tyler Moore Show. (Also with Donna Reed, My Three Sons, The Patty Duke Show, Mr. Ed…) When I watch television, it’s almost always for enjoyment and escape. I’m not typically trying to place the show in the context of television history. Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong has given me a new perspective on many of the old Tv shows I used to watch.This book didn’t change my memory of The Mary Tyler Moore Show as a sweet sitcom / drama. It did add more depth. Now I appreciate it for the strides it made towards showing women in the workplace. Women being single in their thirties. Discussing birth control on television. And so much more.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong did a great job in pulling together this book. It reads a little more “history book” than I was expecting and took my a while to really get into, but the amount of information she relays is impressive and the fun facts she scatters throughout the book are ones I will wow my friends with for sure.

A few weeks ago I was out of town for work and eating alone at a restaurant, reading this book. The waiter, being nice, asked what I was reading. “Ohmigod! When I’m with my friends we’re always accusing each other of being a Mary or a Rhoda! My friend is turning 50 and what do you get a fifty-year-old who doesn’t need anything? Please write down the name of that book so I can get it for him.”

Thirty-five years off the air and still relevant.

I received this book as part of the Goodreads First Reads program.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.