Mary, Rhoda Are Dead

That long-awaited (and much-delayed) reunion of Mary Richards and Rhoda Morgenstern just isn’t going happen, ABC Entertainment President Jamie Tarses announced Monday. The network had ordered 13 episodes of a prospective TV series reuniting Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper, the original stars of the beloved 1970-77 “Mary Tyler Moore” sitcom, but the project is now officially dead. “This was one of those cases where the stars didn’t line up correctly,” said Tarses. Originally the show was to have debuted last September, but was shelved pending ABC’s supposed search for better scripts. The show would have depicted Mary and Rhoda as two friends who had lost touch with each other but were reunited as widows, each with a daughter named for their old friend.