I haven't seen it in years but I heard that One Day at a Time hasn't held up well over the decades, which isn't a strike against it. It was topical, as much drama as comedy. Being recorded on tape in front of a live audience didn't help.
The episodes that stand out in my mind are the one where the feminist Ann Romano (Franklin) realizes that she's been sexually harassing her underling. Her victim finally complains to her boss, John Hillerman. "I really need this job!" he says. And there was the corporal punishment episode. Alex has been cutting class at school to play video games. The vice principal is going to paddle him. Ann Romano goes to the school and talks him out of it. At home Alex reveals the depth of his emotional troubles--his father killed by a drunk driver and his mother leaving him to be raised by his father's girlfriend---and Ann makes the bizarre parenting choice of spanking him with a bread board even though he was fifteen.
I never understood Mackenzie Phillip's appeal, but I was surprised that they kicked her off the show. You'd think the cast and crew of a topical sit-com would be more understanding, but they really didn't have much choice. The poor girl had a serious drug problem, and she recently revealed that drugs were the least of it. Strangely, back when the show began, agents for Phillips and Franklin fought over who should get top billing.
It wasn't until fairly recently that someone pointed out that the show was about a single mother who allows a lecherous building superintendent to let himself into her apartment and hang out with her teenage daughters.
Franklin worked mostly on TV, but she had an uncredited role as a child in Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man.
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