Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Foley Square: Margaret Colin

Foley Square aired from December 1985 until July 1986 on CBS.

Foley Square was the location of the Manhattan District Attorney's office, the setting for this short-lived legal comedy. Jesse ( Hector Elizondo) was an old-timer , a career public servent who had seen it all and was now in charge of a bureau with three assistant D.A.'s. They were: Alex ( Margaret Colin), who was perky, dedicated and single; Carter ( Sanford Jensen), ambitious and overbearing; and Molly ( Cathy Silvers), the neophyte just out of law school. Helping out was Denise ( Vernee Watson-Johnson), Alex's secretary; Angel ( Israel Juarbe), a young office messinger who was an ex-con; and-in the first several episodes -Mole ( Jon Lovitz), an investigator for the D.A.'s office. Mr. Papadopolis ( Richard C. Serafian) ran the neighborhood coffeeshop where they all hung out.

On the personal side, Peter ( Michael Lembeck) was a schoolteacher who lived in Alex's Upper West Side apartment building , and was her good friend. Although many of the episodes delt with criminal cases at the office, nearly as much time was spent on Alex's uneven social life.

Coincidentally, series regulars Cathy Silver and Michael Lembeck were the second generation of their respective families to costar in a sitcom; their fathers, Phil Silvers and Harvey Lembeck, appeared together in the classic fifties comedy The Phil Silvers Show. Foley Square was created by Diane English, who sought to have the show represent the " women's viewpoint."

A Review from The New York Times

TV REVIEW

By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: December 11, 1985

Immediately following ''Mary,'' CBS is offering another new series in an effort to shore up its Wednesday ratings. ''Foley Square,'' at 8:30 P.M., features Margaret Colin as Alex Harrigan, a single young woman out of the Middle West who is working as a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's office. Alex is the type who goes to work in the morning wearing sneakers and a radio headphone. At the office, she banters with her protective bureau-chief boss, Jesse Steinberg (Hector Elizondo), her sassy secretary (Vernee Watson-Johnson), and her competitive co-workers (Cathy Silvers and Sanford Jensen). At home on the Upper West Side, her neighbor and best friend is an affable schoolteacher named Peter (Michael Lembeck).

The first episode finds Alex, tired of barstools on the Third Avenue singles scene, taking out an ad in a ''personals'' publication and then coping with the assorted respondents. The routine, written by Saul Turteltaub and Bernie Orenstein, the executive producers, is pleasant enough. The actors, directed by Peter Bonerz, are engaging. But the concept, created and produced by Diane English, still lacks a defined personality, and the show is as slight as dozens of others that have appeared briefly before passing into oblivion. The biggest note of interest so far: The fathers of Mr. Lembeck and Miss Silvers are Harvey Lembeck and Phil Silvers, long co-stars on the Sergeant Bilko series.

For a Webpage dedicated to Margaret Colin go to http://www.geocities.com/margaretcolinfan/