‘Designing Women’ relive sugar and spice
The programmers at cable’s Lifetime channel had their expectations in check when they decided to gather the key players of “Designing Women” for a reunion special. It was a landmark show of the late 1980s and early ‘90s, after all, but it had long since become largely a distant memory from a time when smart sitcoms ruled TV.
And then “The Golden Girls” held their own reunion. Last month’s Lifetime Television retrospective “The Golden Girls: Their Greatest Memories” was the highest-rated special in the network’s 19-year history. Suddenly, hopes are high that Nielsen lightning will strike twice, with the “Designing Women” reunion airing tonight.
Set in Atlanta, the show about the women of the interior decorating firm Sugarbaker and Associates aired seven seasons on CBS, from 1986 to 1993, and has been rerunning on Lifetime since the fall of 1994. The 90-minute “Designing Women Reunion Special” marks the first time in 12 years that cast mates Delta Burke (Suzanne Sugarbaker), Dixie Carter (Julia Sugarbaker), Annie Potts (Mary Jo Shively) and Jean Smart (Charlene Frazier-Stillfield) have all been together, Burke and Smart having departed the series in 1991.
“Thinking we were all going to be together was, for me, highly emotional,” says Carter, whose pages-long eloquent tirades as Julia are among the series’ most memorable moments. “We hoped the alchemy would happen again. It did, so each moment was revelatory. We had a magical experience.”
Adds Potts: “It was a waterfall, everyone remembering everything simultaneously. It was really fun in the makeup room -- everybody was lined up, telling dirty jokes. It was great.”
Meshach Taylor, who played handyman Anthony Bouvier, hosts the reminiscences, with appearances by creator Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and actress Alice Ghostley, the women’s dimwitted friend Bernice. There are also taped interviews with Gerald McRaney, Hal Holbrook and Richard Gilliland, the real-life spouses of Burke, Carter and Smart, respectively, who had recurring roles. An array of clips captures the series’ distinctive Southern feminist point of view.
The special was planned long before anyone knew how “The Golden Girls” reunion would turn out. “We committed to both last year, when we were doing program strategy,” says Bill Brand, Lifetime’s senior vice president of reality programming. “We were considering how to celebrate some of the great programs on Lifetime, that viewers had tuned in to for years. We asked: What can we do to be fresh?”
Like the series, the special pulls no punches, from spotlighting the real-life romances of Burke and --McRaney, and Smart and Gilliland, to turning teary for a frank discussion of Burke’s battle with depression and panic attacks.
Burke’s emotional problems led to much-publicized behind-the-scenes dissension, including tabloid reports that Burke and Bloodworth-Thomason were at odds over the actress’ weight gain and a rift between screen siblings Burke and Carter.
None of that is evident here: On the show’s verandah set, Burke and Carter clasp hands at times and indeed, Carter says later, their relationship began healing several years ago.
Post-reunion, Smart wants to keep in touch with her series family. “I’m a bit of a hermit. I don’t see anybody. I want to see these people socially,” she says. “And I’ve started rereading Dixie’s book, [the 1996 memoir] ‘Trying to Get to Heaven.’ ”
As for the viewers, Potts thinks they’ll tune in “because they’ll be happy to see us again, and some will want to see how well we’ve held up. There’s always that morbid curiosity.”
While waiting to see whether the “Designing Women” special draws as big an audience as “The Golden Girls,” Brand says Lifetime is considering other reunions, perhaps even for shows not on the network. And Bloodworth-Thomason would like to do “Designing Women” scripted specials.
“I think it would be fun to come out four times a year,” she says with a chuckle, “and make fun of everything we want to make fun of.”
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‘The Designing Women Reunion’
Where: Lifetime
When: Tonight, 8 p.m.
What else: An “Intimate Portrait” of Delta Burke airs at 7 p.m. and the “Designing Women” pilot airs at 9:30 p.m.
Delta Burke...Suzanne Sugarbaker
Dixie Carter...Julia Sugarbaker
Jean Smart...Charlene Frazier-Stillfield
Annie Potts...Mary Jo Shively
Meshach Taylor...Anthony Bouvier
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