The Spin Off Thread

[kalbir]

Are you thinking of Medium? Midseason start on NBC in January 2005 and they cancelled it June 2009. CBS picked it up September 2009 and they cancelled it January 2011. 

[soapfan770]

That might be it. I was thinking Early Edition  but it looks like it ran entirely on CBS.

[Khan]

Are you talking about "Women of the House"?  Oh, that show was so painful to watch.  There was absolutely no chemistry among Burke and her co-stars (Teri Garr, Patricia Heaton, Valerie Mahaffey (who had replaced Julie Hagerty, who returned only to quit and be replaced AGAIN by Mahaffey), and that godawful Lisa Rieffel); and the "Women in Film" episode, which featured cameos from a bunch of actresses playing themselves (including, I think, Deidre Hall), was probably Linda Bloodworth-Thomason at her most strident.

It's interesting that CBS picked up ITHOTN, given how Carroll O'Connor swore never to work for the network again after they had cancelled "Archie Bunker's Place" without giving them an opportunity to do a true series finale.

And all I can say about "The Golden Palace" at this point is that NBC was smart not to guarantee a full-season pickup for the show.  Without Bea Arthur as Dorothy, the show just didn't stand a chance.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Khan

[Franko]

Only for the curious, "Women in Film."

 

On a side note, it's interesting -- to me, anyway -- that Teri Garr and Julie Hagerty's paths briefly crossed with "Women of the House." Both ladies flopped in a 1991 sitcom ("Good and Evil" for Teri, "Princesses" for Julie), then Teri played opposite Shelley Long for round two of "Good Advice," then there was "Women" and then Julie did one more sitcom, "Reunited" on UPN. Just thinking about it, it seems like either or both ladies should have tried TV sooner and maybe would have had better luck.

[Khan]

Thanks for posting, @Franko.  I thought Deidre had a cameo appearance in that episode, but I wasn't sure until just now.

It's another one of Linda Bloodworth-Thomason's patented "men vs. women" diatribes that assumes men and women are monolithic, with all men thinking alike, and all women thinking alike as well.  Which is not to say it wasn't annoying on "Designing Women," because it was, but at least you had Dixie Carter's ability to deliver the hell out of Julia Sugarbaker's long-winded speeches to make those scenes worthwhile.

And IDK why, because I don't think any of those things happened to Val on KL, but why do I feel like JVA is subtly speaking about her time on that show, lol?

And WTH are Marilyn McCoo and Carol Burnett doing at a Senate hearing on the exploitation of women in film and television?

Edited April 19, 2022 by Khan

[Franko]

YES!

Is anyone well-versed enough in '90s trash to ID all those clips at the end? It looks like they came from a whole bunch of made for TV movies (most of which aired on USA, apparently). At one point, I thought they were all made for the show, which would have really been expensive/pointless.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Franko

[soapfan770]

@Khan @Franko Thank you! Yep that’s the one I was thinking of. I couldn’t remember what it was called but remember I watched taken aback by how mediocre the show was, especially with Terri Garr, an actress I always admire, being pretty lackluster. 
 

Lisa Rieffel was on it too? Amazing she darkened both GG and DW spin-offs. 

 

[Khan]

I feel like the networks forced LR on producers, saying they had to cast her or else their shows were no-go's.

However, I give Teri Garr a pass for being lackluster, since it was clear by that point that her MS was beginning to affect her performance and overall health.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Khan

[soapfan770]

 

I suppose Rieffel could qualify for the “Stop Trying to Make…Happen!” category thread lol. I knew she later was on King of Queens but they dropped her character halfway through the first season (sound familiar?) and barely ever mentioned her again.

I hadn’t thought about Garr’s health affecting her performance but that unfortunately that does explain a lot. Most of her 90’s work is best left with the 90’s. (Mom & Dad Save the World anyone?)

 

[DRW50]

Wow! I tried watching this show at the time because I wanted Delta Burke to succeed and I always enjoyed Suzanne, but I couldn't make it past the first episode. I couldn't make it to the end of this one either. Naming characters Eric and Lyle for a Menendez brothers joke was bad enough, but the dialogue given to Delta was the last straw...once we got  to "I don't like S&M, I like M&Ms," I stopped.

Patricia Heaton is one of the most unlikeable actresses I've ever seen on television.

I never knew Julie Hagerty and Valerie Mohaffey traded off in a role. I've spent decades thinking how similar they are. 

[Vee]

Oh, now I'm intrigued. I'll give it a shot.

I did read up on the Hagerty/Mahaffey thing and it is extremely bizarre. They originally wanted Hagerty, she wasn't available, so they recast, then brought her back, then dumped her again for the recast??

Edited April 20, 2022 by Vee

[DRW50]

That makes the whole thing even worse. Julie deserved better. 

I did watch the montage at the end and it is very effective (I can see why one might think the scenes were filmed for the show as they have that feel to them). They tie into some of Linda's very valid complaints about the way Les Moonves treated women on CBS.

I forgot to say, as I was skimming through this now to see Carol Burnett and Marilyn McCoo, I saw a part where the women expressed enjoyment at Ned Beatty "crawling around on all fours," "being tied to a tree,"  and "squealing like a pig." His character was raped in that film. When an episode that is meant to be about exploitation of women makes such a point of trivializing a man's rape then it just proves the point of so many MRA types out there who diminish the suffering women go through. A great example of why these shows are so impossible to rewatch, especially without the talented ladies (and  Meshach Taylor) of Designing Women.

[Franko]

Oh, if only Teri had gotten a chance to appear on, say, Murphy Brown in its heyday rather than Women of the House ...

 

That movie was also supposedly responsible for Jon Lovitz not getting to come back to SNL, since at the time, Lorne Michaels didn't let castmembers be gone for outside projects.

 

Not helped by the fact that she was playing the antagonist.

 

I'd love to hear your commentary.

 

Not the first time that the Sugarbakerverse made light of this. They did the same thing in the episode where they had a crappy wilderness vacation and ended up in the Georgia backcountry.

[Khan]

Pretty much.

The Thomasons originally cast Hagerty; however, she dropped out just before the pilot, citing "scheduling conflicts" (which I suspect was just a cover story).  Subsequently, the Thomasons replaced Hagerty with Mahaffey, who played Suzanne's sex-starved secretary, Jennifer Malone, for the first four episodes, before she was replaced with Hagerty, who was suddenly available again. 

HOWEVER, after only TWO episodes, Hagerty quit (she wasn't dumped), so the Thomasons brought back Mahaffey for one more episode before dumping her and the character altogether and replacing her with Rieffel's character, a young Congressional intern working for Suzanne.

My theory: Hagerty actually quit BOTH times.  However, either the Thomasons or CBS (or both) forced her to return after the first departure.  Hagerty stayed long enough to extricate herself from her commitment legally, then bailed again. 

Mahaffey might have been a better fit with the rest of the cast, IMO, but in the end, none of that mattered.  By that point, the Thomasons had decided that the character was a dud.

I certainly think Teri Garr would have made a better replacement as Murphy's EP after Miles than Lily Tomlin.  On the other hand, Kay Carter-Shepley was such a poorly developed character, it's probably not Tomlin's fault that she never clicked with the rest of the MB cast.

God bless Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, but I think she's one of those feminists who thinks that a man (or, at least, a man over a certain age) couldn't possibly be sexually assaulted under any circumstances.  Men, in her opinion, have entirely too much power in the world to be victimized that way.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Khan

[Khan]

Again, this is strictly my theory, but given what Delta Burke had told Barbara Walters years before about how awfully Harry Thomason had treated the "Designing Women" cast on the set, I suspect Hagerty witnessed some of that behavior for herself and decided almost immediately that she wanted out.  However, like I said upthread, she was either contractually forced to return OR she returned with a promise (that might have been quickly broken) that HT would "behave himself" from then on.