Painful Pilots: "Dream Wife"

It started with a martian.

The success of "My Favorite Martian," which premiered on CBS in the fall of 1963, kicked off a parade of supernatural sitcoms that only accelerated when "Bewitched" premiered on ABC the following fall and was an immediate hit.

By the next year we had sitcoms with a genie ("I Dream of Jeannie"), a sexy robot ("My Living Doll"), a mother reincarnated as a 1928 Porter ("My Mother the Car") and two monstrous families who frightened their neighbors ("The Addams Family" and "The Munsters"). These shows were aimed, for the most part, at children -- or at those with childlike minds. And several of them were anchored by young, attractive actresses in subservient roles, like Elizabeth Montgomery ("Bewitched"), Barbara Eden ("Jeannie") and Julie Newmar ("Doll").

Shirley Jones had a more notable career than any of them, including winning an Oscar for her work in "Elmer Gantry." But by 1965 she, too, attempted to join the parade of paranormal pulchritude as Lisa Michaels, a housewife with ESP, in an MGM-TV production called "Dream Wife" that never made it beyond the pilot stage.

We're going to blow the premise of our title a bit by admitting that "Dream Wife" isn't so horrible as to be actually painful -- if you saw this in a timeslot following "Bewitched" on Thursday nights it wouldn't seem out of place. It's just kind of blah, with all the usual sixties sitcom elements -- canned laughter, suburban setting, the kind of theme song that rhymes "laughter" with "happily ever after."

But as with "Bewitched" and "Jeannie," the concept hints at something slightly darker -- not just that Lisa has ESP, but that virtually everyone in the world knows about it except hapless husband Paul (Donald May, at right). Not only does he not know about it, but we're told in the pilot that virtually every turn of events that has resulted in Paul becoming a partner in his law firm was orchestrated by Lisa. Without her, one supposes Paul would be living underneath an overpass somewhere.

Lisa cloaks her superpower by being incredibly sexy and submissive. When Paul wonders where his pipe is, Lisa brings it to him. When he thinks about a martini, Lisa immediately promises him one "so dry that the olive is panting." He doesn't even have to open his mouth!

On "Bewitched," husband Darrin (Dick York) at least had some self-respect -- he'd achieved most of what he'd accomplished professionally, as had astronaut Tony Nelson (Larry Hagman), the male lead on "I Dream of Jeannie." Not Paul! In the pilot, Lisa maneuvers him outwit a greedy landowner (Barton MacLane) in grabbing a prize parcel for a children's center at a bargain price. Paul thus also outwits his co-worker/frenemy, played by Ted Bessell (at left), on the cusp of landing another sitcom role as Don Hollinger on "That Girl."

Despite the obnoxiousness of his character (Has anything dated more rancidly than the character of the mid-'60s wolf?), Bessell gives the show a spark that makes you wonder how "Dream Wife" could have ended up with him being cast as Paul. His performance would at least match the polish of Jones, who by this point was a veteran of several movies and handles her role with style.

Also, if the concept seems familiar, you might be recalling "The Girl with Something Extra," a 1973 NBC sitcom with Sally Field as the woman who can read minds, including that of her fiancee (John Davidson) who, unlike the husband in "Dream Wife," is at least aware of it -- and doesn't like it one little bit!

Here's "Dream Wife":