With the Chief or without the Chief…?
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jarrodmcdonald-1 — 11 years ago(October 31, 2014 06:01 PM)
Yes. Nell's ex-husband was a bit of a cad and would pop up in her life when he needed a favor. So we wouldn't want her getting back together with him.
She had a job at a publishing firm during the New York episodes. She could have met a guy there. An episode I really like from the last season is when she dated the prince of some foreign nation. She could have married him and moved to his country with him, and that could have been the last episode. I guess I just wanted Nell to have the sweet fairy tale ending. -
jarrodmcdonald-1 — 10 years ago(July 16, 2015 08:36 PM)
Yes, I often wonder why they hold certain episodes till later in the season. Since their idea was to reformat the series yet again and move it to Sam's college, had it been renewed for a seventh season, it seems logical that the one where Nell plays mother hen on campus would (or should) have been the last one aired. That way, if they had returned in September, they could have picked right back up with Nell taking a full-time job there and meddling in the lives of Sam and her friends. Addy could have stayed on the show if they said she took a job teaching on campus while Nell oversaw the dorm. The other characters, like Nell's mother and Grandpa Kiniski, might have been dropped or used on a recurring basis. I don't think the Lawrence brothers would have fit in the new format, and that might have been one of the reasons NBC did not bring the show back because NBC had plans for them, eventually giving them their own series (which Nell guest-starred on).
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stevenackerman69 — 10 years ago(July 21, 2015 08:14 PM)
Sometimes it just depends on the order the network wants to air them. Since these sitcoms were not written as a continuing soap opera, you could show them out of order and there would be no problem.
I have the feeling that if there had been a 7th season with Nell as the house mother at Sam's college (yes, that was what was planned), they could've still had Grandpa and Nell's mother making some appearances. Actually, Nell's mother was never really a regular, just a recurring character. I'm sure we would not see Marty and Rosie O'Donnell's character and I'm not sure about the Lawrence brothers. They eventually did their own series, but it wasn't right away. Remember, Joey went on to do Blossom first.
As to why NBC decided not to bring the show back, it could've been that the ratings weren't there anymore and since the network was doing much better than when the show first started, they could get rid of shows that were too old a lot easily now. -
jarrodmcdonald-1 — 10 years ago(July 22, 2015 06:06 PM)
That's right Joey did Blossom first, then the show with his brothers came afterward. But he probably had a long-term deal with the network. And if they had moved this show to the college, I doubt they could have kept the young boys as part of the stories in that setting.
A six year old sitcom is not ancient. Cheers ran for 11 seasons on NBC, and so did Frasier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1981_American_television_series_debuts
By the way, I looked at the wiki page for American TV series that debuted in 1981, the year Gimme A Break! first aired. When GAB ended, only a small handful of shows that debuted in '81 were renewed. They were Dynasty (ABC); Falcon Crest (CBS); Simon & Simon (CBS); and Hill Street Blues (NBC). Most shows that started in '81 died early deaths. GAB was the only sitcom from '81 that produced enough episodes for syndication. -
TMC-4 — 10 years ago(September 05, 2015 02:30 AM)
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stevenackerman69 — 10 years ago(January 20, 2016 11:14 PM)
I don't know how much longer the show would've gone on if Dolph hadn't died. It might've just been 5 seasons and that's that. It wasn't a big ratings winner to begin with, just a mild success at the time when NBC wasn't doing well to begin with.
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stevenackerman69 — 10 years ago(January 23, 2016 04:26 PM)
Been watching some of the episodes from the first two seasons and they are very good. Dolph Sweet did a great job as Carl and there were some real funny episodes. Too bad Nell didn't get along with the writers and producers so new ones came in and the format changed a bit. For example, Carl's brother Ed was written out of the series and he was pretty interesting.
By the way, today marks 13 years since Nell Carter left us. -
jarrodmcdonald-1 — 10 years ago(February 18, 2016 05:27 PM)
I think she was right to get rid of the original batch of writers and producers. Some of the humor was a little low-brow, for my taste, in those early episodes. Way too many fat jokes in the first two seasons. And the kids were not fully fleshed out..it was all rather stereotypical in the beginning.
I feel it became a much stronger, more diverse program when Arthur Julian took over. And while she was still sharp-tongued and made plenty of wisecracks when a situation called for it, she was also allowed by Julian and his staff to be more mature and tender. She grows from being a mammy-type character in the early years to becoming the emotional anchor who kept the family together and made something of her own life.