Shark Bytes

I have to say Designing Women is one of my favorite all time shows. I can watch this show over and over again and never get sick of it.

But I agree. It did jump when Delta Burke and Jean Smart left, and Julia Duffy and Jan Hooks joined. Julia was just a poor excuse of a fill in, and all her character was, was a Sugarbaker version of Stephanie (from Newhart Fame). I'm glad they got rid of her after one season.

As far as Jan Hooks. I think she's funny, and has talent. But. She just didn't fit into the mix of Designing Women. It appears that the writers tried to make Jan's character "Carlene" just a little bit dumber and more naive person of Jean Smart's Character "Charlene". And for the sheer fact that when all of Charlene's family comes and visits in a 1987 episode, there is NO REFERENCE to a sister named "Carlene"! (So they pulled this one out of thin air). The other thing that annoyed me about Jan Hooks, is that, uh.. she seemed to be re-hashing MUCH of her material from Saturday Night Live. (bad songs, over the top acting). Not that I didn't like "Carlene", but it could have been done better, or a better person could have been selected for the role.

And now I move on to BJ Poteet. If the producers of that show went from Delta departing, to having Judith Ivey join the cast (skipping Duffy altogether), I'm sure the the series would have survived a bit longer than 1993. The show lost MANY viewers when Duffy joined, and just couldn't win them back after Ivey joined. BJ added a new, and very funny dynamic to the show. But by the time Ivey joined, it just had lost most of its steam. (That and CBS's moving Designing Women to the Friday Night Death Slot, knowingly it would have killed any decent ratings for that show).

Someone here compared this to the Golden Girls. Yes I agree, 4 strong women in the 1980s, but that's about where it stopped. Designing Women was far more political (which I liked), but Golden Girls was just plain funny all the time. The other point I want to make is, if you're gonna call Designing Women the poor man's Golden Girls, just remember, even though Golden Girls was just darn funny all the time. Designing Women had far better writing, particularly when it came to continuum with characters. I can't count how many times I've caught mistakes on Golden Girls in continuum, but on Designing Women, its hard to find them (except for the Charlene/Carlene bit).

Cute show, but the political posturing got to be a bit too much to take.

The show jumped when Suzanne left. Alison played by Julia Duffy COULD'VE been great. But instead of making Julia strong character they made her a fake. Judith Ivey who replaced Duffy was a match for Julia and that was the character Duffy should've been played. Ironically DW hit it's highest year end rating with Duffy.

Julia's character was alwasy on the soapbox from day one so that didn't matter much.

When Dixie Carter became the speechifying voice of All That Is Good. That and all that Dixie-loves-Delta, Dixie-hates-Delta, Dixie-loves-Delta-again buttfruit. And I stopped watching Alien Nation for this?

Chuck, you are so so right about that late-era, aren't-we-all-having-so-much-fun
with-our-good-friend-Ray-Charles opening.

Jan Hooks in particular does this awful gesture where she s-l-o-w-l-y raises her chin as she "laughs" with a big toothy fake smile, her eyes frozen and unsmiling and staring straight into the camera. I swear to God, it looked like one of her nuttier SNL characters. Looked like an over-the-top parody, but we were supposed to be charmed!

Utterly horrifying.

TV Land is current running the ones with the opening credits with Ray Charles singing Georgia on My Mind(is this the final season?) while all the cast members sit on - or around - the piano while he's singing. Worst opening credits ever. Really forced. Every cast member looks uncomfortable. Really stupid.

Poteet !

I agree that Designing Women jumped with all of Julia's speeches. The dumbest was the last show I watched. The first 20 minutes of the show had her griping because tax dollars are paid for the Boy Scout organization but not the Girl Scouts. Apperently the writers had spent quite a lot of time on the episode so when it was discovered that neither Scout organization receives any tax dollars, Julia's anger continued with something like, "well Congress is made up mostly of men so they are obviously supporting the Boy Scouts somehow".

Jumped when half of the women left the show (one of them being the funniest), and were replaced with filler. Also, as many have mentioned, using Julia as a vehicle to preach liberal feminist viewpoints while the recipient just sits there blankly because there's "no way they could argue against that!".

A funny show when sitcom wackiness was ensuing, eye-rolling when it turned into a soapbox.

Designing Woman was nothing more than a tool for the self rightious creators to voice their agendas and force their views under the guise of a sitcom. As a liberal I am ashamed of their blatent political soap boxing on the show.

Day One. Nothing but a poor man's Golden Girls. Not half as funny or a quarter as endearing. Just bitchin' and moanin' for half an hour every week. And don't get me started on Meshach Taylor- others have already made excellent points, anyway. I can't believe this mediocre tripe lasted so long. Then again, ALICE stayed for nine years.

This show definitely JTS when Delta and Jean left!!! Until then, EVERY episode was great, I can't think of one that I didn't like. After the departure of Suzanne and Charlene, I can think of maybe 2 or 3 episodes that weren't too bad. The rest stunk to high heaven. I hated the way the producers tried to replace Suzanne and Charlene's characters with Allison, BJ and Carlene. The show should have ended when Suzanne and Charlene left.

This is now on TVLand What is going on with that network? It seems to be filling up with agenda driven sitcoms. I like sitcoms for humor not for what I would call agenda driven diatribes hidden in a so called comedy.

If you think season 7 was bad, it could have been far, far worse: the role of BJ was initially offered to Bonnie Hunt.

I always liked Designing Women even after Delta and Jean left, but the last episode which was two parts was terrible.
I know the show was set in Atlanta and Gone with the Wind was mentioned several times through the years but was that the best the writers could do?