Mary Tyler Moore in Mary (1985)

Not to be confused with the 1978 variety show of the same name (plus an exclamation point) this sitcom marked MTM's return to series television. The premise found Mary Brenner (Moore) looking for work after the magazine she wrote for was closed down. She lands at a seedy Chicago rag as a consumer advocate, where she must deal with a pandering managing editor (James Farentino), a lecherous theater critic (John Astin) and a chain smoking columnist (Katey Sagal).  Her home life isn't much better with her love starved neighbor who is dating a shady underworld character (James Tolkan). There's some clever dialog and funny circumstances to be had, but the overall feeling of the show is somewhat bleak. I remember the theories at the time about why the show failed - Mary Tyler Moore was really America's sweetheart in a way, and we didn't want to see her down on her heels, we wanted to see her make good. They pointed to to Valerie Harper's sitcom at the time, Valerie (before the conflicts which sullied it and led to her character being killed off), which was much more of a hit because the character was in better circumstances than Rhoda was.

The clip above is part one of the pilot, uploaded to YouTube by bensonshow. This series has never made it to DVD, though several episodes are on YouTube.

Obscurity factor: 9 (vaguely remembered, not on DVD, on YouTube)