Emily Hampshire, the deadpan no-nonsense desk clerk of “Schitt’s Creek,” recently came out as pansexual. We love that for her and the community. But will it inform her next role, the vintage bewildered housewife Mary Hartman? Only the people rebooting “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” for TBS know for sure. But let’s back up for a moment, and teach the children about “MH, MH,” a sexually brazen, tonally wild, and sometimes flat-out weird Norman Lear-created sitcom soap opera of the 1970s that made actress Louise Lasser a star and scandalized unsuspecting audiences across the country. So legendary was the freak out that many stations airing the soap quickly removed it from their afternoon lineups and plopped it down into very late night slots, away from the eyes of children and their furious parents.
This new version will be co-written by Hampshire and gay “Letterkenny” co-creator Jacob Tierney, so there’ll be at least some sort of queer (and proudly Canadian) content for sure. But will it jolt us like it did 50 years ago? We’re ready to find out.
