Four Southern women (Delta Burke, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts, Jean Smart) and their delivery man (Meshach Taylor) run an interior design firm as they laugh, cry and argue about life, love, politics, culture, womanhood, motherhood, and whatever’s on their minds. Splendidly acted with expertly crafted scripts that are often riotously funny and emotionally resonant, Designing Women was one of the sitcom gems of late 1980s. Shout! Factory’s DVD set of the fifth season, the last to feature the entire original cast, has no extras but no cuts or music changes and a decent technical presentation considering its method of post-production. Highly recommended.
Designing Women: The Complete Fifth Season (1990-1991)
Studio: Shout! Factory (produced by Columbia Pictures Television)
Year: 1990-1991
Rated: NR
Length: 555 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Languages: English Mono
Subtitles: None (Closed-Captioned for the hearing impaired)
MSRP: $44.99
Film Release Date: September 17, 1990
Disc Release Date: December 6, 2011
Review Date: December 15, 2011
The Movie:
4.5/5
Ever since The Birth of a Nation came out nearly a century ago, Hollywood’s depiction of the South has relied heavily on historical depictions, broad caricatures, and, quite often, outright condescension. It seemed that there was never a shortage of Southern belles wooing gallant Confederate heroes-to-be beneath moonlight and magnolias, car-crashing good ol’ boys running from crooked politicians and pot-bellied policemen, moonshine-brewing mountain men, and, with the advent of the Civil Rights Movement, the increasingly common parade of virulent racists and their victims. However, there was usually a shortage of realistic, present-day perspectives from someone who had actually lived there or done their homework. On September 29, 1986, CBS debuted a sitcom called Designing Women, created by Arkansas-born-and-raised Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, that offered something that was not only different but that blossomed into one of the gems of late 1980s TV situation comedy.
Set in Atlanta, Georgia, the women of Designing Women are part of the Sugarbaker & Associates interior design firm. Julia Sugarbaker (Dixie Carter) is the owner; she used the money she inherited from her husband, Hayden McElroy, to open it up. Outspoken and uncompromising in her liberal beliefs to the point of stubbornness, she prides herself on her fairness and principles. Her sister Suzanne (Delta Burke) is the polar opposite; a thrice-married ex-Miss Georgia, she’s insensitive, narcissistic, and judges everything based on how it affects her personally, if she cares about it at all. Also working at Sugarbaker’s is Mary Jo Shivley (Annie Potts), a divorced mother of two who speaks her mind with a slightly sarcastic edge, Charlene Frazier-Stillfield (Jean Smart), an unpretentious, good-natured country girl who can go on and on about trivial details, as well as Anthony Bouvier (Meshach Taylor), the firm’s African-American delivery man, who is working his way back into the world after his “unfortunate incarceration” for inadvertently getting mixed up in a robbery with which he had nothing to do. Showing up occasionally is Bernice Clifton (Alice Ghostley), an endearingly off-beat well-to-do widow and friend of Suzanne and Julia’s mother, Perky; her often bizarre statements are explained by an arterial blood flow problem at the neck.
Equal parts social commentary and observational, character-based humor Designing Women is alternately riotously funny and emotionally resonant while its cast always plays its parts with panache. In addition to the cleverly crafted storylines, much of the humor is derived from the characters’ personalities and interplay. Some of the show’s best moments come from Julia’s long-winded rants at those who offend her sensibilities; many of the political monologues were contrary to Dixie Carter’s personal beliefs, but she famously agreed to do them in exchange for a song. It is a testament to her professionalism and her abilities as an actress that the role becomes so human instead of being transparently heroic or patently obnoxious, making it palatable for viewers across the political spectrum. Delta Burke is a hoot and a holler as the former beauty queen resting on her laurels; her arrogance and inability to see beyond her own needs leads to some outrageously un-PC statements; unlike Archie Bunker, who often seems to be aware of what he’s saying but unaware of who he is hurting by saying it, it is unlikely that she knows what she’s saying. However, underneath her ignorance is a capacity to care when she looks beyond her own needs; for example, in “The Bachelor Auction,” she shows that despite her condescension towards Anthony there is the seed of a friendship that would grow if she could move beyond her own narrow interests and unconscious prejudices. For this reason, Anthony has not judged her too harshly. Meshach Taylor has a tricky task: as Anthony, he’s playing a black man working for Southern white women after his release from prison. Unlike the gay stereotype he was saddled with in the two Mannequin movies, the writers neither fall back on stereotypes nor try to avoid them in a painfully self-conscious fashion. Given good material to work with, he is as much an asset to the cast as anyone else. As the sassy Mary Jo, Annie Potts shows fine comic timing and a surprising vulnerability and pathos as she strives to be as strong-willed as Julia but lets her hair down as the difficulty of being a single mother in a male-dominated world gets to her. As Charlene, Jean Smart brings out her sweetness and innocence and mixes it seamlessly with a sense of intelligence and believability. Alice Ghostley is delightful as Bernice, bringing a quirky appeal and a gently surreal mindset while still working within the show’s relatively realistic grounding. Together, they make an eminently enjoyable ensemble that only a select few shows on the air at the time, or since then, could beat.
Unlike so many of the show’s contemporaries that aimed for social relevance but bit off more than they could chew, Designing Women tackles adult issues at an adult level. While the show’s liberal political slant is obvious—the show’s creators were friends and supporters of Bill and Hillary Clinton—its handling of human issues is earnest and believable, never seeming like a cynical attempt to rip something from the headlines to shock its audiences.
Critics praised the show for its wit and social conscience from the beginning, but audiences took awhile to notice it despite it airing between Newhart and Cagney & Lacey; CBS exacerbated the situation by moving the show to several time slots on different nights. They planned to cancel the show, but viewer protests convinced them to spare its life. It moved back to Monday nights; by its fifth season, it was a solid staple of CBS’s Monday night sitcom line-up, airing after Murphy Brown and coming in 11th place in the Nielsen ratings. But all was not well at Sugarbaker’s. The producers’ feud with Delta Burke over her weight gain—despite the fact that the writers had incorporated it into the show successfully and realistically—and behavior that they considered argumentative became fodder for gossip columnists and tabloid newspapers. What they failed to report, which may not have been diagnosed at the time, was the fact that she suffered from depression. Nevertheless, she was gone from the show at the end of the season; Jean Smart went with her for less publicized reasons. Though other sitcoms, such as Barney Miller and Cheers, had survived the loss of key cast members, and producers tried to fill the void with new cast members, including Newhart’s Julia Duffy and SNL’s Jan Hooks, it just wasn’t the same; the members of this relatively small, intimate ensemble were not fungible commodities. Ironically, the next season would be earn the show its highest ratings, when it came in 6th. Burke would reconcile with the producers long enough to star in a short-lived spin-off, Women of the House, in 1995, two years after the parent series ended.
Guest stars include Mary Ann Mobley (the former Miss America who replaced Carter as Maggie McKinney, the second Mrs. Philip Drummond on Diff’rent Strokes), Richard Sanders (WKRP in Cincinnati), Sandahl Bergman (All That Jazz), Rebecca Balding (Soap) and Dennis Burkley (Sanford, King of the Hill).
The Video:
3/5
Presented in its broadcast aspect ratio of 1.33:1, Designing Women was one of the few 1980s sitcoms shot on film. However, the show’s post-production was done on analog tape, so there is a little bit of analog video noise but little noire. On the plus side, the colors are bright and vivid with strong, warm fleshtones and good contrast that keeps the highlights high and blacks dark without crushing them. It’s not terrible, and it upconverts decently, but since it doesn’t have the same level of popularity as Seinfeid, it’ll likely be awhile, if ever, before Sony decides to rebuild the show in HD the way they did for that show.
The Audio:
3/5
The show was in stereo originally, but the audio here is mono. Nevertheless, it sounds decent. The dialogue is easy to understand and doesn’t sound muffled, and the show’s incidental music and its perfectly chosen theme song “Georgia on My Mind,” comes through crystal clear.
The Extras:
0/5
While season 1 had a Paley Media Center panel with the four principal stars and the show’s creator, subsequent seasons have had nothing, and this is no exception. Unfortunately, it seems that the Lifetime Network reunion from the 2000s, the last time the entire original cast appeared together, is unlikely to surface on DVD anytime soon.
Final Score:
4/5
Designing Women is a superb sitcom with a stellar ensemble bringing vivid, memorable and believable characters to life. Despite the lack of extras, Shout! Factory has handled it as best they could, using uncut episodes with original logos and music from the best available masters. Hopefully they will see the show to the end for those who want to see how the show coped with the departure of two of its stars. Highly recommended.
Studio: Shout! Factory (produced by Columbia Pictures Television)
Year: 1990-1991
Rated: NR
Length: 555 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Languages: English Mono
Subtitles: None (Closed-Captioned for the hearing impaired)
MSRP: $44.99
Film Release Date: September 17, 1990
Disc Release Date: December 6, 2011
Review Date: December 15, 2011
The Movie:
4.5/5
Ever since The Birth of a Nation came out nearly a century ago, Hollywood’s depiction of the South has relied heavily on historical depictions, broad caricatures, and, quite often, outright condescension. It seemed that there was never a shortage of Southern belles wooing gallant Confederate heroes-to-be beneath moonlight and magnolias, car-crashing good ol’ boys running from crooked politicians and pot-bellied policemen, moonshine-brewing mountain men, and, with the advent of the Civil Rights Movement, the increasingly common parade of virulent racists and their victims. However, there was usually a shortage of realistic, present-day perspectives from someone who had actually lived there or done their homework. On September 29, 1986, CBS debuted a sitcom called Designing Women, created by Arkansas-born-and-raised Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, that offered something that was not only different but that blossomed into one of the gems of late 1980s TV situation comedy.
Set in Atlanta, Georgia, the women of Designing Women are part of the Sugarbaker & Associates interior design firm. Julia Sugarbaker (Dixie Carter) is the owner; she used the money she inherited from her husband, Hayden McElroy, to open it up. Outspoken and uncompromising in her liberal beliefs to the point of stubbornness, she prides herself on her fairness and principles. Her sister Suzanne (Delta Burke) is the polar opposite; a thrice-married ex-Miss Georgia, she’s insensitive, narcissistic, and judges everything based on how it affects her personally, if she cares about it at all. Also working at Sugarbaker’s is Mary Jo Shivley (Annie Potts), a divorced mother of two who speaks her mind with a slightly sarcastic edge, Charlene Frazier-Stillfield (Jean Smart), an unpretentious, good-natured country girl who can go on and on about trivial details, as well as Anthony Bouvier (Meshach Taylor), the firm’s African-American delivery man, who is working his way back into the world after his “unfortunate incarceration” for inadvertently getting mixed up in a robbery with which he had nothing to do. Showing up occasionally is Bernice Clifton (Alice Ghostley), an endearingly off-beat well-to-do widow and friend of Suzanne and Julia’s mother, Perky; her often bizarre statements are explained by an arterial blood flow problem at the neck.
Equal parts social commentary and observational, character-based humor Designing Women is alternately riotously funny and emotionally resonant while its cast always plays its parts with panache. In addition to the cleverly crafted storylines, much of the humor is derived from the characters’ personalities and interplay. Some of the show’s best moments come from Julia’s long-winded rants at those who offend her sensibilities; many of the political monologues were contrary to Dixie Carter’s personal beliefs, but she famously agreed to do them in exchange for a song. It is a testament to her professionalism and her abilities as an actress that the role becomes so human instead of being transparently heroic or patently obnoxious, making it palatable for viewers across the political spectrum. Delta Burke is a hoot and a holler as the former beauty queen resting on her laurels; her arrogance and inability to see beyond her own needs leads to some outrageously un-PC statements; unlike Archie Bunker, who often seems to be aware of what he’s saying but unaware of who he is hurting by saying it, it is unlikely that she knows what she’s saying. However, underneath her ignorance is a capacity to care when she looks beyond her own needs; for example, in “The Bachelor Auction,” she shows that despite her condescension towards Anthony there is the seed of a friendship that would grow if she could move beyond her own narrow interests and unconscious prejudices. For this reason, Anthony has not judged her too harshly. Meshach Taylor has a tricky task: as Anthony, he’s playing a black man working for Southern white women after his release from prison. Unlike the gay stereotype he was saddled with in the two Mannequin movies, the writers neither fall back on stereotypes nor try to avoid them in a painfully self-conscious fashion. Given good material to work with, he is as much an asset to the cast as anyone else. As the sassy Mary Jo, Annie Potts shows fine comic timing and a surprising vulnerability and pathos as she strives to be as strong-willed as Julia but lets her hair down as the difficulty of being a single mother in a male-dominated world gets to her. As Charlene, Jean Smart brings out her sweetness and innocence and mixes it seamlessly with a sense of intelligence and believability. Alice Ghostley is delightful as Bernice, bringing a quirky appeal and a gently surreal mindset while still working within the show’s relatively realistic grounding. Together, they make an eminently enjoyable ensemble that only a select few shows on the air at the time, or since then, could beat.
Unlike so many of the show’s contemporaries that aimed for social relevance but bit off more than they could chew, Designing Women tackles adult issues at an adult level. While the show’s liberal political slant is obvious—the show’s creators were friends and supporters of Bill and Hillary Clinton—its handling of human issues is earnest and believable, never seeming like a cynical attempt to rip something from the headlines to shock its audiences.
Critics praised the show for its wit and social conscience from the beginning, but audiences took awhile to notice it despite it airing between Newhart and Cagney & Lacey; CBS exacerbated the situation by moving the show to several time slots on different nights. They planned to cancel the show, but viewer protests convinced them to spare its life. It moved back to Monday nights; by its fifth season, it was a solid staple of CBS’s Monday night sitcom line-up, airing after Murphy Brown and coming in 11th place in the Nielsen ratings. But all was not well at Sugarbaker’s. The producers’ feud with Delta Burke over her weight gain—despite the fact that the writers had incorporated it into the show successfully and realistically—and behavior that they considered argumentative became fodder for gossip columnists and tabloid newspapers. What they failed to report, which may not have been diagnosed at the time, was the fact that she suffered from depression. Nevertheless, she was gone from the show at the end of the season; Jean Smart went with her for less publicized reasons. Though other sitcoms, such as Barney Miller and Cheers, had survived the loss of key cast members, and producers tried to fill the void with new cast members, including Newhart’s Julia Duffy and SNL’s Jan Hooks, it just wasn’t the same; the members of this relatively small, intimate ensemble were not fungible commodities. Ironically, the next season would be earn the show its highest ratings, when it came in 6th. Burke would reconcile with the producers long enough to star in a short-lived spin-off, Women of the House, in 1995, two years after the parent series ended.
Guest stars include Mary Ann Mobley (the former Miss America who replaced Carter as Maggie McKinney, the second Mrs. Philip Drummond on Diff’rent Strokes), Richard Sanders (WKRP in Cincinnati), Sandahl Bergman (All That Jazz), Rebecca Balding (Soap) and Dennis Burkley (Sanford, King of the Hill).
The Video:
3/5
Presented in its broadcast aspect ratio of 1.33:1, Designing Women was one of the few 1980s sitcoms shot on film. However, the show’s post-production was done on analog tape, so there is a little bit of analog video noise but little noire. On the plus side, the colors are bright and vivid with strong, warm fleshtones and good contrast that keeps the highlights high and blacks dark without crushing them. It’s not terrible, and it upconverts decently, but since it doesn’t have the same level of popularity as Seinfeid, it’ll likely be awhile, if ever, before Sony decides to rebuild the show in HD the way they did for that show.
The Audio:
3/5
The show was in stereo originally, but the audio here is mono. Nevertheless, it sounds decent. The dialogue is easy to understand and doesn’t sound muffled, and the show’s incidental music and its perfectly chosen theme song “Georgia on My Mind,” comes through crystal clear.
The Extras:
0/5
While season 1 had a Paley Media Center panel with the four principal stars and the show’s creator, subsequent seasons have had nothing, and this is no exception. Unfortunately, it seems that the Lifetime Network reunion from the 2000s, the last time the entire original cast appeared together, is unlikely to surface on DVD anytime soon.
Final Score:
4/5
Designing Women is a superb sitcom with a stellar ensemble bringing vivid, memorable and believable characters to life. Despite the lack of extras, Shout! Factory has handled it as best they could, using uncut episodes with original logos and music from the best available masters. Hopefully they will see the show to the end for those who want to see how the show coped with the departure of two of its stars. Highly recommended.
