I believe the SHOCK that began the Mary Tyler Moore pilot is that Mary had GASP!!!!!!! done IT (!!!!) with her fiancé and he had left her. So she had to MOVE CITIES in the horror and shame. So she was a woman who had actually had sex!!!!! Yikes!!!!!! And now was introduced to a whole new cast of characters.
Unbelievable how much mores have changed. Sex was such a hint back then. Like when her boss comes in drunk to her studio flat with her GASP ! BED in the scene, and she was probably in her pajamas.
I’d like to see more of that show now that I am an adult, just for those changes.
Originally, the plan was for her to be moving to Minneapolis after her divorce. The producers nixed that because they didn't want people to think she'd divorced Rob Petrie. The new plot line was that she had been engaged and they had broken up. They were pretty coy about her sexual activities, except for a few asides, like when her mom and dad were visiting and her mom asked her dad if he'd taken his pill and both he and Mary said "yes" at the same time.