Fernwood Follies

"I want to be a plant," drones a glassy-eyed Mary Hartman from the Fernwood Receiving Hospital's mental ward. Who could blame her? As a pig-tailed Fernwood housewife on television's most talked-about series last season, Mary's doorstep had been darkened by adultery, impotence, venereal disease and an ax murderer, not to mention waxy buildup on her kitchen floor. No wonder Mary went bonkers on the show's closing episode. So what is next for poor Mary and her loopy friends in the new season that premiered last week?* It does not sound therapeutic.

As the world turns on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman this season, the eight-year-old Rev. Jimmy Joe Jeeter, boy evangelist, comes to a sorry end when a television set rigged up over his bathtub falls in and electrocutes him. "He died for the 6:30 news, Lord. For the sins of the 6:30 news," wails Mary's friend Loretta Haggers, who happened to be out of the room at the crucial moment, hunting for the reverend's rubber duck. Meanwhile, Loretta's oversexed husband Charlie--shot in the groin in a tussle with Jimmy Joe's dad, Merle Jeeter--prepares stoically for television's first testicle transplant. As for good ole Merle, he becomes a "born-again" politician. Also tripping into view will be a Miss Tippytoes, a glamorous CB radio freak who Mary thinks has a handle on her husband Tom. Then there is Gore Vidal, who visits Fernwood to see if there is a book in the larger meaning of Mary's breakdown. Says Norman Lear, executive producer of MH2. "My bent as a mature human is to entertain with the material that life affords." Oh.

* This season 125 stations are carrying the syndicated show, up from 80 last season.

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