Most refreshing of the season’s new situation comedies is The Donna Reed Show, observable Wednesdays on ABC and preserved for us after a threatened cancellation.

In this one, Miss Reed, as the wife of a small-town doctor, is beset with the usual family problems. She is often in the position of a put-upon mother. Since her pediatrician husband (Carl Betz) is frequently busy with patients, Donna is called upon to play father as well as mother to a blossoming daughter, 14, and a robust son, 11.

She takes her husband’s place as scoutmaster to a group of boy campers on an overnight hike, for example, or attempts to give her son a boxing lesson. And, on one of her more hectic evenings, she manages to placate all three members of her family by racing around to the three places is “most needed”: a meeting where her husband is to speak, her son’s basketball game and a club meeting where each girl is to introduce her mother.

Many of the situations in which Miss Reed becomes involved are commonplace enough. Yet, as produced by Tony Owen (her real-life husband) and written by a variety of agile authors, the program usually comes out fresh and disarming.

Much of the credit for the merit of this farce must go to Miss Reed herself. In an era when wise-cracking, brash and brassy blondes infest the air like locusts—Miss Reed—corn-fed and wholesome—is as welcome as a late summer breeze through an Indiana hayfield. And she actually acts like a mother, an impersonation that hasn’t been successfully perpetrated on television since Peggy Wood left.

As Miss Reed’s spouse, Carl Betz comports himself satisfactorily. As their children, Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen are certainly the least obnoxious tads we have seen on the air all year.