Alice: The Complete Seventh Season [DVD]

Alice moved from its familiar Sunday night slot to a Wednesday night berth for its seventh season, then shifted to Mondays in February of 1983. Whatever the night, the series' fans faithfully flocked around the tube to watch the latest shenanigans at Mel's Diner, and the misadventures of waitresses Alice (Linda Lavin, Vera (Beth Howland) and Jolene (Celia Weston), short-fused proprietor Mel (Vic Tayback), and Alice's now 18-year-old son Tommy (Philip McKeon). Halfway through the season, Martha Raye, hitherto confined to sporadic appearances in the role of Mel's meddlesome mother Carrie Sharples, becomes a regular when Carrie moved in with Mel after divorcing her most recent husband. Not surprisingly, she is soon driving everyone at the diner crazy with her overbearing personality, but the regular patrons--including newcomer Artie (Tony Long)--simply love the old broad! The season opener features Debbie Reynolds as a famously promiscuous actress who includes Mel in her tell-all autobiography--or at least that's what Mel thinks. Later on, Jerry Stiller appears as Mel's longtime rival, who shows up at the diner with his young trophy bride. A two-part episode features Joel Grey as himself, headlining a musical revue featuring Alice and financed by Mel--whose ineptitude nearly sinks the project before it can even open. Doris Roberts makes a return appearance as Alice's insufferable mother Mona, this time wreaking havoc at Thanksgiving dinner. Prolific character actor Guich Koock drops in to play Jolene's black-sheep brother Jonas. Cassandra Peterson, better known as buxom horror-movie hostress Elvira, has a flashy role in the episode "Mel's Dream Car." Richard Deacon of Dick Van Dyke Show fame guests as the snobbish owner of a catering firm for whom Mel briefly goes to work; Harlem Globetrotters star Meadowlark Lemon) stops over to give Tommy a few basketball pointers; and series star Linda Lavin essays a dual role, as both Alice and Vera's elderly, obnoxious landlady Debbie Walden, in "Vera the Torch." One of the Season Seven episodes, "The Secret of Mel's Diner", was actually filmed for Season Six, but held back due to a writer's strike.~Hal Erickson