Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976)

Norman Lear's syndicated oddity took the soap opera's weeknight rhythm and played it almost straight, which is exactly what makes it so unsettling. Louise Lasser's Mary is a housewife in Fernwood, Ohio, who meets mass murder and the waxy yellow buildup on her kitchen floor with the same anxious sincerity. The satire is aimed as much at the promises of advertising as at the soap itself. Choose it if you like parody that sits uncomfortably close to the real thing, and be ready for a 1970s pace.