Over the course of its lifetime, Lifetime Television (begun in 1984) has worked hard to sort of define itself as a channel. Yes, they are “television for women” but what, exactly, does that mean? Currently, Lifetime loves its made-for-TV movies usually having to do with murder, mayhem and the worst husbands ever! But, over the years, they’ve branched into various primetime series including dramas (“Any Day Now”), detective shows (“Angela’s Eyes”) and sitcoms.
One of their comedies deserved a longer life than the two seasons they gave it. While the show did not break the mold or innovate the TV comedy genre, it certainly brought to the air a level of charm and likability too often absent from the “cringe-coms” of today.
“Rita Rocks” aired on Lifetime from 2008 to 2009 which, in the abbreviated world of cable TV “seasons,” counts as two seasons. The channel aired 40 episodes.
“Rita” had a great cast but it was clearly intended as a showcase for actress Nicole Sullivan.
Sullivan earned her cred in the six years she was on Fox’s late comedy show “MadTV.” On it, she played such reoccurring characters as the rude “Vancome Lady” and the dimwitted Antonia, among others. Since then, she’s appeared on “King of Queens,” “Black-ish,” and, recently, hilariously, on an episode the Kate Hudson Netflix series, “Running Point.”
For “Rita Rocks,” Sullivan played the titular Rita. She was married, had a husband, two kids and had a part-time job at a Bed, Bath & Beyond-type store. She wasn’t unhappy but was fighting a bit of middle-aged malaise. In the show’s first episode, Rita begins to think back to when she last felt completely fulfilled. Doing some laundry later in the day in the garage, she comes across her old guitar and she realizes how happy she was when she was in college and was rocking out every weekend as part of her own Bangles cover band.
Plucking on her ax that day as she waits for the wash cycle to end, Rita attracts the attention of her friend and neighborhood mail carrier, Patty Mannix (played by Tisha Campbell). Patty turns about to be not only equally bored but also a fantastic and soulful singer.
Soon a band is born. Joining Rita and Patty are next door unemployed dad Owen, played by Ian Gomez and, on drums, Kip, the boyfriend of Rita’s daughter, Hallie, who has a lot of enthusiasm but not a lot of common sense. (Kip was played by Raviv Ullman.)
The series explored the Rita’s daily juggling act between being a mom, a working mom and trying to do something for herself, namely be a rock and roller!
Thankfully, Rita’s husband, Jay (played by Richard Ruccolo), was supportive of his wife’s return to rock. He had actually first fallen in love with her when he saw her on stage back in college. Along for the ride were Rita’s two daughters--a teenager, Hallie, played by Natalie Dreyfuss, and a nine year-old, Shannon, played by Kelly Gould.
While most of the series was comedy and featured various prerequisite sitcom plots, most episodes—ala “The Monkees” or “The Partridge Family”—had contained short musical interludes. Sometimes, the performed songs were show “originals,” other were well-known hits. Sometimes they were also quite well done and expertly inserted into the plots of that week’s episode. A case in point: at the start of season two (spoiler), Rita learns she’s pregnant. Just before the closing credits on the episode where that news is revealed, Sullivan and Campbell duet on a really lovely rendition of Beyonce’s “If I Were a Boy.”
At its debut on October 20, 2008, “Rita” didn’t rock the critics. Though the “LA Times” sang the praises of Sullivan and Campbell, they called the series “underachieving.” The “Boston Globe,” in its review of the series, was pretty similar. They loved Sullivan but found the rest of the series—especially those episodes set more in the family/domestic than rock sphere—to be too standard sitcom-y.
Which may be true. But the series, created by “Golden Girls” vets James Berg and Stan Zimmerman and starring a first-class ensemble of TV talents (Ruccolo had previously been in “Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place”; Campbell on “Martin” and Gomez on “Drew Carey,” among others), achieved a level of warm and…humor. No character was unlikable and unlike a lot of more recent comedies, you could actually imagine yourself wanting to spend time with these folks.
Despite the show’s so-so reviews, “Rita” did well for Lifetime in its initial season and the channel brought it back for a second. Unfortunately, it suffered the famous second season slump so common to sitcoms. At the end of the second set of 20 episodes, “Rita Rocks” was cancelled by Lifetime due to low ratings. Season one would later find a release on DVD and many episodes are on Youtube. Via any platform or venue, the beguiling charm of the series remains.
