I watch the show on Antenna TV, and I’m pretty much done after season 5. Season 6 was an opportunity to reinvent the show, but the new characters were awful, pale copies of the originals. Charlene was a bit ditsy, but also a deeply principled person (the 80s equivalent of Edith Bunker). Carlene was just an idiot. Can you imagine doing “The Rowdy Girls” with Carlene instead of Charlene? Nope. Allison, as others have pointed out, had no redeeming qualities. What if she had been someone with good business sense? Or at least the ability to go toe-to-toe with Julia occasionally? Julia Duffy didn’t really belong on the show - she didn’t seem southern at all.
It’s a shame that none of the actresses won an Emmy. Jean Smart, to me, is the heart and soul of the show. As much as I like Delta, I think the show could have survived her departure had Jean stuck around.
I don’t agree with Linda Bloodworth-Thomason’s attempt to link her lack of success on CBS in the 1990s to Les Moonves’ sexual harassment scandal. As far as I can see, there’s no link. He didn’t harass her. He just chose not to pick up any more of her shows. Of the four shows she did four CBS, only one - DW - was truly successful. And she really mishandled DW in its later years. “Evening Shade” was a timeslot hit, and wasn’t great creatively. It wasn’t successful in syndication either. “Hearts Afire” eked out a three year run, but wasted a great cast and also has rarely been rerun. “Women of the House” bombed. “Emeril” (done for NBC) was also a dud. HBO actually shot six episodes of her series “12 Miles of Bad Road” and chose not to air it. How many chances does she want? She was lucky she got that $50 million deal. I’d argue her track record didn’t warrant it.
