This long-running CBS sitcom dealt with the modern problems of a divorced mother and her two teenage daughters. Dysfunction abounded but so did humor and kindness, much like in other series--All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Good Times--produced by Norman Lear.

The heroine of the piece is Ann Romano, who divorced her husband of 17 years and moved with her daughters to an Indianapolis apartment. Ann felt that she had spent most of her life revolving around male authority figures and longed to test her independence. You go, seventies sister. The first step was to get a job as an account executive in an advertising firm and the next step was to court a beau, David.

Julie and Barbara were Ann's two daughters, 17- and 15-years old, played by Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli, respectively. Julie was a wild child and though Barbara was younger, she was often the more mature one. The two girls traversed the tail end of adolescence and all its pitfalls. The series didn't shy away from controversial issues like suicide, sexual harassment and birth control. The relationship between mother and daughters wasn't always smooth and the three women often got into shouting matches. But mom yelled because she cared and the girls eventually realized it too.

Another regular character was Schneider, the building's superintendent, who frequently dropped in to see the girls and fix small things around the apartment. Schneider couldn't imagine why Ann would want to be without a man around the house and usually made clumsy overtures to her in the form of painfully awkward double entendres.

As the two girls grew up, they got married and both of them (and their husbands) lived with Ann off and on. Julie, Mackenzie Phillips's character, had to be written out of the show a couple of time due to the drug problems the actress was experiencing. At the end of the series, Ann gets hitched to daughter Barbara's divorced father-in-law and the new couple moves to London to begin a new life.

The series was tremendously popular, consistently placing in the Top 10 or 20 according to Nielsen ratings. After its cancellation, One Day at a Time aired in reruns for three more years and then moved to syndication. In 2005, the cast reunited for an hour-long TV special to reminisce about the good old days.