Murphy Brown: Season 03 (1990)

Season three of Murphy Brown opens with star TV reporter Murphy (Candice Bergen) and her co-workers balking at the "improvements" that executive producer Miles Silverberg (Grant Shaud) has made in the weekly newsmagazine "FYI." In subsequent episodes, a pre-Shield Michael Chiklis is cast as a controversial comic whom Murphy interviews on the air; fearless investigative reporter Frank (Joe Regalbuto) quivers and quakes at the notion of planning his parents' 50th anniversary, just as cool, calm, and collected "FYI" anchorman Jim Dial (Charles Kimbrough) goes into a mammoth panic attack after making his first and only on-air goof; Jim's sometimes replacement, birdbrained pretty boy Miller Redfield (Christopher Rich), once again demonstrates his journalistic ineptitude while covering a strike; and hotshot news personality Jerry Gold (Jay Thomas) briefly joins the "FYI" staff -- but does that mean that he and Murphy will re-stoke the flames of their brief affair? Also, Larry King shows up in the classic episode in which Murphy runs roughshod over the sweet-tempered "environmental terrorists" who have kidnapped her; Jim writes a roman à clef which intimates that he has a crush on Murphy; the marriage between "FYI"'s junior correspondent Corky Sherwood (Faith Ford) and writer Will Forest (Scott Bryce) is already showing signs of erosion; the network is sold to a conglomerate which puts an egotistical and supremely incompetent management consultant (Nancy Youngblut) in charge; Murphy's house painter, Eldin (Robert Pastorelli), has one of his works exhibited in an art gallery, but he's none too happy about the method of presentation; and after being reported killed in a plane crash, a very much alive Murphy and Jim attend their own wake. This is the season that ends with Murphy wondering if she is pregnant -- and if so, who's the father? (Calling Dan Quayle! Calling Dan Quayle!) ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi