Foley Square (TV series)

Foley Square is an American sitcom starring Margaret Colin which centers on an assistant district attorney in New York City. Original episodes aired from December 11, 1985, until April 8, 1986.

Cast

 * Margaret Colin as Alex Harrigan
 * Héctor Elizondo as Jesse Steinberg
 * Vernee Watson-Johnson as Denise Willums
 * Michael Lembeck as Peter Newman
 * Cathy Silvers as Molly Dobbs
 * Sanford Jensen as Carter DeVries
 * Israel Juarbe as Angel Gomez
 * Jon Lovitz as Mole
 * Richard C. Sarafian as Spiro Papadopolis

Synopsis
Alex Harrigan is a perky, dedicated, unmarried assistant district attorney who works in a District Attorney's office located in New York City on Foley Square in Manhattan. Her boss, District Attorney Jesse Steinberg, is a veteran prosecutor who has seen it all and who she feels overlooks her when assigning the office's important cases to its staff of prosecutors. She also works with Assistant District Attorney Carter DeVries, who is overbearing and ambitious, and young Assistant District Attorney Molly Dobbs, who has just graduated from law school. Alex's secretary is Denise Willums, and the office's messenger is Angel Gomez, a young ex-convict. Mole is the office's investigator. When on break and after work, the co-workers gather across the street from the office at a coffee shop owned and operated by Spiro Papadopolis.

Alex lives in an apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Peter Newman, a schoolteacher, is her neighbor in the building and a good friend. Alex's social life is prone to ups and downs.

Production
Creator and producer Diane English intended Foley Square and its scripts to reflect what she considered to be the "women's viewpoint."

Cast members Cathy Silvers and Michael Lembeck held the unusual distinction of being the second generation of their respective families to appear together in a television show: Their fathers, Phil Silvers and Harvey Lembeck, had acted together in The Phil Silvers Show from 1955 to 1959.

Writers involved in Foley Square were Dennis Danziger, Diane English, Karyl Geld Miller, Bernie Orenstein, Ellen Sandler, Korby Siamis, and Saul Turteltaub. Episode directors were Peter Baldwin, Peter Bonerz, and Ellen Gittelsohn.

Broadcast history and cancellation
Foley Square aired on Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m., paired with Mary Tyler Moore's sitcom Mary at 8:00 p.m. Both shows premiered on December 11, 1985, and languished near the bottom of the Nielsen ratings in the weeks that followed. After the tenth episode of Mary was broadcast on February 19, 1986, Mary went into hiatus as did Foley Square after its eleventh episode aired a week later on February 26, 1986. CBS rescheduled the shows to appear on Tuesdays, with Mary at 9:00 p.m. and Foley Square at 9:30 p.m., hoping that this change would improve their ratings, and telecasts of the two shows resumed on March 25, 1986. Despite the change of day and time, ratings remained low, and both shows were cancelled after only three-episode runs in their new times, with Foley Squares fourteenth and last episode airing on April 8, 1986, right after Marys thirteenth and last episode.

During the summer of 1986, CBS aired prime-time reruns of Foley Square at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesdays from June 11 to July 23.