The teleplay by Dick Clair and Jenna McMahon has many funny lines. Burnett has a strong rapport with her youngest son David (David Hollander), and intones `skews' amusingly to parody Jim's repeated use of the word.
We also see her opening her mouth but not saying anything to an insult from Jim, smiling in the face of his depressive persona, noisely swallowing coffee at the accusation of her having an affair, and throwing Jim's gardening utensils and dirt off her work desk. (The manure and dog scenes are the only time that the vaudevillean music score of Peter Matz is appropriate). Burnett is hysterical in the clown way she reacts to having gardening manure thrown on her, screaming and jumping in fear of a rebellious garbage disposal system, her forced smile of gratitude for being volunteered as a girl scouts cookie chairwoman, and reacting to a dog that is brought home and jumps on her- `What is it? It's a lion!'. However, the material also allows Dorothy to be funny, which Friendly Fire doesn't. Although the following year's Friendly Fire is thought of as Burnett's dramatic debut, her Dorothy allows her to present a housewife's frustration, dis-empowerment, and contemplation of infidelity, all which she performs with subtlety and restraint. Based on the novel by Erma Bombeck, the premise allows for the Bensen's to find their new environment just as hostile as their previous one, with Dorothy's role as `hired hand' a worse form of drudgery than she seemed to have in the city.
Produced by her husband Joe Hamilton who had also produced her variety series, Carol Burnett is Dorothy Benson, wife of advertising worker Jim (Charles Grodin), mother of three and would-be murder mystery writer, who instigates the family move from living in New York City to suburban Darkhaven Manners.
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