9.4/10377 votesLoading...#1 - The Last Show
Season 7 Episode 24 - Aired 3/19/1977
WJM-TV has some personnel changes in the executive department (again), and everyone except Ted Baxter is fired. The new station manager wants to see the WJM News the highest-ranked in Minneapolis, and for some reason feels that Ted can help him make it happen. (Seems a little odd, eh?) The gang says goodbye to each other in the form of a long, hard cry. Mary thanks them all for being her surrogate family, and Lou finally sentimentally says, ""I cherish you people."" They bravely march out the office doors singing, ""It's a long, long way to Tipperary."" At the last moment, Mary leans back through through the WJM-TV doors and turns out the light. So long, WJM-TV.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: James L. Brooks, David Lloyd, Allan Burns, Stan Daniels, Bob Ellison, Ed. Weinberger
- 9.3/10541 votesLoading...
#2 - Chuckles Bites the Dust
Season 6 Episode 7 - Aired 10/25/1975
Chuckles the Clown is crushed to death by a rogue elephant in a parade, which leaves all the newsroom staff in hysterics except Mary.
Director: Joan Darling
Writer: David Lloyd
8.9/10298 votesLoading...#3 - Put On a Happy Face
Season 3 Episode 23 - Aired 2/24/1973
Everything goes right for Rhoda and everything goes wrong for Mary on a disastrous day when she is due to go to the Teddies.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: N/A
8.9/10334 votesLoading...#4 - The Lars Affair
Season 4 Episode 1 - Aired 9/15/1973
Phyllis finds out that Lars has been having an affair with Sue Ann Nivens, the star of WJM-TV's The Happy Homemaker show.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: N/A
8.9/10286 votesLoading...#5 - The Dinner Party
Season 4 Episode 10 - Aired 11/17/1973
Mary invites Congresswoman Geddes to a fancy dinner at her home, trying hard to ensure that everything is perfect.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: N/A
8.8/10217 votesLoading...#6 - Will Mary Richards Go to Jail?
Season 5 Episode 1 - Aired 9/14/1974
Mary refuses to reveal a news source for a story she produced and has to spend a night in jail.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: N/A
- 8.8/10213 votesLoading...
#7 - Ted Baxter's Famous Broadcasters' School
Season 5 Episode 23 - Aired 2/22/1975
A con-man tricks Ted into setting up a broadcasters' academy. When he finds out he's been had, he asks Lou, Mary and Murray to be the faculty and give the semester's opening lectures.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: Michael Zinberg
8.7/10197 votesLoading...#8 - Better Late . . . That's a Pun . . . Than Never
Season 4 Episode 20 - Aired 2/2/1974
To relieve her boredom, Mary jokingly writes a humorous obituary of one of the people in the WJM-TV file. Coincidentally, the same person dies the following day and the obituary is read on the air. Lou has no choice but to suspend Mary, but she threatens to quit in response.
Director: N/A
Writer: Treva Silverman
- 8.7/10216 votesLoading...
#9 - A New Sue Ann
Season 5 Episode 7 - Aired 10/26/1974
A young fan, Gloria, persuades Sue Ann to hire her for The Happy Homemaker. Sue Ann is less than pleased when Gloria plays up to the station manager and gets a larger role on the show at the expense of her own.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: David Lloyd
- 8.7/10198 votesLoading...
#10 - Mary Midwife
Season 7 Episode 1 - Aired 9/25/1976
Georgette gives birth at Mary's dinner party. With the hospital and doctor too far away, Lou and Mary help deliver the baby.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: David Lloyd
- 8.6/10184 votesLoading...
#11 - Once I Had a Secret Love
Season 6 Episode 18 - Aired 1/17/1976
Lou has spent the night with Sue Ann, and confides in Mary. Their friendship is almost ruined when Mary is unable to keep the secret.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: N/A
- 8.5/10203 votesLoading...
#12 - Sue Ann's Sister
Season 7 Episode 3 - Aired 10/9/1976
Sue Ann becomes deeply depressed when her sister arrives and gets an offer to do a competing homemaker show in Minneapolis.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: David Lloyd
8.4/10198 votesLoading...#13 - Operation: Lou
Season 3 Episode 13 - Aired 12/9/1972
Lou goes to hospital to have a piece of World War II shrapnel removed and, surprisingly, he and Ted become best friends.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: David Pollock, Elias Davis
8.4/10218 votesLoading...#14 - Lou's First Date
Season 4 Episode 8 - Aired 11/3/1973
Lou gives Mary the task of finding him a date for an awards' ceremony. A name mix-up means that Lou winds up taking out an 80-year-old woman.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: N/A
8.4/10189 votesLoading...#15 - Ted Baxter Meets Walter Cronkite
Season 4 Episode 21 - Aired 2/9/1974
After a heavy self-promotion campaign, Ted wins his first Teddy Award. When Walter Cronkite comes to the newsroom, Ted assumes that he will be hired by the networks.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: N/A
- 8.4/10215 votesLoading...
#16 - Not a Christmas Story
Season 5 Episode 9 - Aired 11/9/1974
The entire newsroom staff is arguing with each other, and when they are trapped at the office due to bad weather, Sue Ann decides to serve her Christmas dinner early.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.4/10177 votesLoading...
#17 - Ted's Wedding
Season 6 Episode 9 - Aired 11/8/1975
Out of pity for Ted, Mary invites him & Georgette over for brunch. While he as an onion ring in his mouth, he proposes to Georgette...again. When, for the first time, Georgette says no, she & Ted have a talk and decide they want to get married now. They invite all their friends: Lou, Murray (with mud on his sweatshirt from his son's football game), and Sue Ann (who, in a spectacularily comedic enterance, brings a veil, flowers, and rice, among several other things). Ted's mom can't make it (she's washing her hair), but the incompetent minister comes straight from his tennis match. Best man Lou helps Ted calm his wedding day jitters. When the minister asks Ted if he takes Georgette to be his lawfully wedded wife, he pauses for a moment. Finally, with a smile on his face, he says, ""I do."" When they are pronounced husband & wife, Sue Ann sings the wedding march...very poorly, of course. Once the wedding ends and Lou, Murray, & Sue Ann leave, Ted asks, as if nothing had happened,
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: David Lloyd
- 8.4/10173 votesLoading...
#18 - Mary's Insomnia
Season 7 Episode 11 - Aired 12/4/1976
Mary is having trouble sleeping and resorts to pills, which has Lou concerned that she's become addicted to them.
Director: James Burrows
Writer: David Lloyd
- 8.4/10178 votesLoading...
#19 - Sue Ann Gets the Ax
Season 7 Episode 17 - Aired 1/29/1977
Sue Ann's Happy Homemaker show is canceled but she is determined to stay at WJM and asks Mary to give her a job in the newsroom.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: N/A
8.3/10534 votesLoading...#20 - Love is All Around
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 9/19/1970
The classic series begins its classic 7-year run in Mary's apartment. Mary Richards, a 30-year-old single woman, has left her long-time boyfriend, Bill, to be with her old friend, Phyllis Lindstrom, in Minneapolis. (Mary originally lived in Roseburg, MN.) Why did Mary leave Bill? After promising to her that he would marry her right after his internship at the hospital, he said, ""Why rush into things???"" Meanwhile, she's already having troubles with her new apartment--a bitter upstairs neightbor, Rhoda Morgenstern, insists that she owns Mary's apartment!
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: James L. Brooks
8.3/10226 votesLoading...#21 - Rhoda the Beautiful
Season 3 Episode 6 - Aired 10/21/1972
After losing 20 pounds, Rhoda enters a beauty contest at work, but continues to put herself down.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: Treva Silverman
8.3/10209 votesLoading...#22 - Farmer Ted and the News
Season 3 Episode 9 - Aired 11/11/1972
Ted refuses to sign his contract renewal until Lou agrees to let him pursue other ventures, a decision he soon regrets when Ted begins appearing in commercials.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: N/A
8.3/10230 votesLoading...#23 - My Brother's Keeper
Season 3 Episode 17 - Aired 1/13/1973
Phyllis wants to set up her visiting brother with Mary, but instead he hits it off with Rhoda and begins spending time with her to Phyllis's disapproval.
Director: Jay Sandrich
Writer: Dick Clair
8.3/10177 votesLoading...#24 - Happy Birthday, Lou!
Season 4 Episode 15 - Aired 12/22/1973
Lou is closing in on fifty and today is his birthday. Mary can't stand the thought of the now-separated Lou celebrating his birthday all alone, so she arranges a surprise party for him. That evening, she invites Lou over for a drink and the doorbell rings just as he tells her how much he appreciated her not throwing an office party for him that afternoon. Gordy is at the door with an envelope...full of hats. Others are out in the hallway, too. Lou is furious and tries to get out using the back door...but there is no back door. Mary asks Lou's permission to invite Murray in. He enters, miffed at Lou's actions. Next Rhoda, and finally Ted, get to come in. Lou admits that he hates displays of affection...then reluctantly agrees to let the remainder of the guests in. While they all file in, he files out and down to MacKluskey's bar where....they throw a surprise party for him. Later he returns to Mary's place to apologize...evidently the guests opened his gifts (at Ted's urging) and they a
Director: George Tyne
Writer: David Lloyd
8.3/10188 votesLoading...#25 - Two Wrongs Don't Make a Writer
Season 4 Episode 23 - Aired 2/23/1974
Ted joins Mary at a night-school class in creative writing, and winds up plagiarizing her assignment.
Director: Nancy Walker
Writer: David Lloyd
The Best Episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Every episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show!
30-year-old single Mary Richards moves to Minneapolis to start a new life after a romantic break-up. There she reacquaints with Phyllis who rents her a...
Genre:Comedy
Network:CBS
Best Episodes Summary
"The Last Show" is the best rated episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". It scored 9.4/10 based on 377 votes. Directed by Jay Sandrich and written by James L. Brooks, David Lloyd, Allan Burns, Stan Daniels, Bob Ellison, Ed. Weinberger, it aired on 3/19/1977. This episode scored 0.1 points higher than the second highest rated, "Chuckles Bites the Dust".