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Long-Running Sitcom Designing Women To Get Reboot
Adding to the list of 80s and 90s sitcoms making their way into the 21st century, CBS's Designing Women will get a fresh reboot for today's viewers. This follows CBS's prior decision to order a 13-episode reboot of fellow 90s favorite Murphy Brown.
Perhaps TV stations have exhausted every possible plot line in existence, and it's causing this pattern of re-packaging previously released content. Whatever is causing it, fans of shows like Queer Eye, Full House, and Twin Peaks aren't complaining, as more and more beloved characters and format make their long-awaited return to the small screen. The same mindset applies to fans of Designing Women. The original show, created by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, aired from 1986 to 1993, ran for 163 episodes, and centered around the employees of an Atlanta design firm - Sugarbaker & Associates. The show originally starred Dixie Carter, Delta Burke, Annie Potts, Jean Smart, and Meshach Taylor. Towards the end of the series, Julia Duffy and Saturday Night Live's Jan Hooks would replace Burke and Smart.
TV Line broke the news of Designing Women's reboot this afternoon. Fans will no doubt hope the new series includes at least cameos from some of the original cast members, though Carter, Taylor and Hooks have all unfortunately passed away. At least fans can rest assured that creator Bloodworth-Thomason will be the show's driving creative force once again. The project will be shopped around to networks soon, with CBS seeming like an obvious candidate to offer it a home, especially if the revived Murphy Brown proves successful.
Designing Women originally aired to decent ratings on Monday nights, but was moved around to a few other time slots - where the ratings fell considerably - before finding its footing back on Mondays. Still, the show was never able to really take on unofficial rival The Golden Girls. In 1992, the show suffered a slow and painful death, moving to a Friday night slot and experiencing a significant loss of ratings. That inevitably led to its cancellation the following May. In spite of its anticlimactic ending, the show has remained a fond favorite of fans, and its postmortem popularity helped warrant a reboot.
The democratic-leaning show's creator, Bloodworth-Thomason, openly supported both Bill and Hillary Clinton. It's therefore unsurprising that Designing Women has found footing in the current time period, following both the #MeToo movement and recent Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Undoubtedly, the sitcom, focused on a group of independent, working women, will touch on themes pertinent to current political movements. Many reboots thus far have made an effort to include social commentary on the troubles facing America today. From Queer Eye to Roseanne, they've run the gamut when it comes to political opinions. Although the market may be flooded with reboots, there's always space for the opinions of a strong group of women.
