Who's The Boss? - General Discussion

[JAYJAY1979]

Season 6 was the right time for the show to have Angela and Tony admit their feelings and start to date instead of season 8.

I just watched the first two episodes of Season 7 and while I'm not a fan of the character of Kathleen, I feel so sorry for her here because Tony is all about cheating on Angela with Kathleen.

In season 7 episode 1 Ridiculous Liaisons, Tony is obsessed with meeting Angela's date... that he drags Kathleen to the restaurant and basically ignores her.  Why she didn't dump him in this episode I'll never know though it was nice to see Tony acting jealous and irrational for once instead of Angela.

In season 7 episode 2 Hey dude, Tony and Angela practically go to New Mexico to convince Sam not to drop out of college.. they acted so much like a married couple while I believe he ditched plans with Kathleen to do this.  Ironically, in this episode, Mona ended up being the one to convince Sam not to forgo college for a guy... in a way only Mona can.  A rare return to form for the character to the earlier season version of the character.

[GHScorpiosRule]

On 12/17/2023 at 4:11 PM, Bastet said:

This show sure loved its back door pilots, didn't it?  So far I've come across the first modeling-related one, with Fran Drescher (even though she'd already played an interior decorator in an earlier episode) and some blonde who can't act,

Meant to respond to this earlier, but the blonde was Donna Dixon, who was married to Dan Ackroyd, and also in “Bosom Buddies” I think as Tom Hank’s’ love interest? (can’t recall and don’t care enough to look it up). She was also in the finale of Moonlighting  in the jail cell where she and David were taking and he admitted he was “in care” with Maddy.

[GHScorpiosRule]

15 hours ago, JAYJAY1979 said:

Season 6 was the right time for the show to have Angela and Tony admit their feelings and start to date instead of season 8.

But they did-in the season premiere but didn’t actually say “I love you” but agreed to not do anything to preserve the friendship-yet did discuss marriage, as was revisited in “Sam Accelerates”  when Sam asks Angela her “intentions towards my father” and Angela explains in a most convoluted matter the agreement and Tony made.

Then Show erased Marci when Sam returns home and Bonnie comes to visit with the line that they first met in sixth grade. Which, no. She met Bonnie, Robin, and dimwit Julia in 7th  grade-second season premiere!

I also hate the new guy singing the opening credits in the last two seasons. And I noticed there are new writers in the last season which explains the even more worse writing.

[Bastet]

59 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

She was also in the finale of Moonlighting  in the jail cell where she and David were taking and he admitted he was “in care” with Maddy.

That wasn't the finale, that's "Blonde on Blonde", the end of which kicks off the Mark Harmon arc that plays out over the rest of season three, but, yes -- that's the same terrible actor!  I had forgotten.  Gods, she is awful in that Moonlighting episode (and just as bad in the few minutes of this stupid back-door pilot I sat through before moving on).

I was tired, so only watched a few more episodes last night, and unfortunately one of them was "Dear Landlord".  We've discussed before how thoroughly out of line Tony is, and how Angela is expected to just shrug it off; the false equivalencies on this show drive me insane -- he failed to do the job she was paying him to do, costing her $250/month and ultimately leaving her having to start the tenant search all over again, but because she was jealous he did all this because he got distracted by the batting eyelashes of a younger woman, she's supposed to apologize to him, too, for ... expecting a business transaction to be handled as a business transaction?  Oh, that crazy, uptight Angela!

He also ticked me off in "Take Me Back to the Ballgame", calling off a business deal for her because he has his boxers in a twist about the baseball player she's courting as a spokesperson for her client's product is all about the Benjamins.  But at least in that one she called him on it and got the deal done (until, of course, the player reneged, because Tony was right about him, but she didn't have to apologize for anything in this one, just said that's how business is played sometimes, and if you live by the sword you die by the sword).

Backing up, in "Her Father's Daughter" when Sam and Bonnie go on a class trip to Ft. Lauderdale for winter break, chaperoned by Tony and Angela, there is music missing during the intro to their arrival and over the end credits -- Hulu replaced whatever song was there with silence.  Does anyone remember what it was?  Maybe the original recording of "Where the Boys Are" since the girls were singing that song earlier?

[GHScorpiosRule]

38 minutes ago, Bastet said:

That wasn't the finale, that's "Blonde on Blonde", the end of which kicks off the Mark Harmon arc that plays out over the rest of season three

Man, I’m really batting a thousand (pardon the pun) with getting so many episodes and seasons wrong!

I can’t recall the music from that spring break episode. I’ll watch and see if it’s silent in the ad free version.

I went and watched Judith’s first episode in Law &  Order: SVU’s third season and she’s absolutely AMAZING. I wonder if that low register/husky voice is her normal voice? I know her higher pitched one she used on this show was nails on a chalkboard for me sometimes.

And since it’s the season, I loved and 😂😂 at her impression of the “mob” Liam sharks in the first season’s Christmas episode when she learned Tony was moonlighting!

“People who tawk like dis” along with the way she curled her hand!

Edited December 24, 2023 by GHScorpiosRule

[JAYJAY1979]

I came acrosa on YT the British remake 'The Upper Hand' and it appears as though they use the scripts from UTB..but there are some slight changes to adapt it to the UK.

I watched Angela/Caroline's first fight side by side.  While the events pretty much match up, the way each performer plays the scenes are different.  

In UTB, the fight between Angela and the other woman lasts longer and involves rolling around the floor..plus Angela dumps both drinks over her head.  In the UK version, Caroline is hit and both are separated quickly.  Though Caroline downs her drink before pouring a huge pint of beer over the girls head.  Little differences like that always interest me.

Same with the first kiss episode.  Angela/Tony have more chemistry so the day after talk is more ridden with sexual tension and banter.  While in the UK episode, there isn't sexual chemistry so the conversation is less awkward and more like two friends then a potential couple.

British humor differs from American humor so seeing the British performers perform American sitcom scripts is interesting because the interpretations differ.

[ljenkins782]

On 12/18/2023 at 4:00 PM, Bastet said:

Ugh, "Another Single Parent" is awful.  So awful, instead of skipping ahead like I did with the episodes that were just boring, I had to keep going to see how awful it would get.  It is so incredibly uninformed; the majority of parental abductions are by fathers, not mothers, and when it is a mother, she's often doing so to flee an abuser.  That was not the case here, no, but it just shows how ignorant the writers were that before they talked to Kelly, neither Angela nor Tony raised that as a possibility when first discussing what Melissa had said. 

Yeah, that would have been my first conclusion if I found a woman was hiding out with their child. And I would have expected one of them to consider that.

Speaking of absentee parents, does Jonathan's non-relationship with his father make any appearance in the later seasons? I usually bow out around season 5, does Jonathan ever make any mention of the dad that wanted custody of him for 5 mins and then disappeared from his life entirely. I know Tony filled in as his father figure, but he did have an actual dad out there. And not for nothing, but Tony was VERY against Jonathan spending time with his father, where was all his concern for parental rights back then? 

Quote

 

Quote

I could have sworn Tony said that they were both losers or geeks in high school.

It's another instance where the first part of the scene is cut off due to Hulu's inability to time ad breaks, but I don't think it's missing enough for him to have said that.  There is something earlier where he tells her now she has him feeling like he's back in high school, but it wasn't about him being a loser/geek back then, too.

 

No, that scene was just an imaginary scene to show how Angela felt in school and they slotted Tony in there as part of her remembrances, they weren't implying that the actual Tony was a geeky loser in high school. Although by the time we get to the longer-haired Tony of the later seasons, it becomes more plausible that he could have been a dork since he kind of becomes one.

Quote

Oh, for Pete's sake.  So she's an average student in junior high and her first two years of high school, during which time she doesn't take any advanced courses, and then for one semester applies herself, so suddenly the school decides she's the greatest thing since sliced bread?

And what was the reason that Sam had to accelerate? Did the actress have another commitment or was this just an attempt to shake up the show now that they've all been living together for that many years?

Quote

Meant to respond to this earlier, but the blonde was Donna Dixon, who was married to Dan Ackroyd, and also in “Bosom Buddies” I think as Tom Hank’s’ love interest? (can’t recall and don’t care enough to look it up). She was also in the finale of Moonlighting  in the jail cell where she and David were taking and he admitted he was “in care” with Maddy.

Ugh, Donna Dixon. Beautiful woman who should have just been a model who doesn't have to speak. It's actually stunning that she had any acting career at all, she has the most wooden and unnatural line delivery.

Ironically, her character and conversations with Fran Drescher in that terrible backdoor pilot is a pretty good summation of Donna Dixon herself, she does this whole riff on things she considers to be problems that other people would kill for (like not being able to gain weight and how things fall into her lap because of her looks, etc). And it seems pretty clear that Dixon's career was entirely thanks to her appearance because she was atrocious at acting.

[JAYJAY1979]

2 hours ago, ljenkins782 said:

Yeah, that would have been my first conclusion if I found a woman was hiding out with their child. And I would have expected one of them to consider that.

Speaking of absentee parents, does Jonathan's non-relationship with his father make any appearance in the later seasons? I usually bow out around season 5, does Jonathan ever make any mention of the dad that wanted custody of him for 5 mins and then disappeared from his life entirely. I know Tony filled in as his father figure, but he did have an actual dad out there. And not for nothing, but Tony was VERY against Jonathan spending time with his father, where was all his concern for parental rights back then? 

No, that scene was just an imaginary scene to show how Angela felt in school and they slotted Tony in there as part of her remembrances, they weren't implying that the actual Tony was a geeky loser in high school. Although by the time we get to the longer-haired Tony of the later seasons, it becomes more plausible that he could have been a dork since he kind of becomes one.

And what was the reason that Sam had to accelerate? Did the actress have another commitment or was this just an attempt to shake up the show now that they've all been living together for that many years?

Ugh, Donna Dixon. Beautiful woman who should have just been a model who doesn't have to speak. It's actually stunning that she had any acting career at all, she has the most wooden and unnatural line delivery.

Ironically, her character and conversations with Fran Drescher in that terrible backdoor pilot is a pretty good summation of Donna Dixon herself, she does this whole riff on things she considers to be problems that other people would kill for (like not being able to gain weight and how things fall into her lap because of her looks, etc). And it seems pretty clear that Dixon's career was entirely thanks to her appearance because she was atrocious at acting.

In regards to the Sam question, my theory is because the actress had grown bored playing the character (hence the jet black hair color) that the show maybe did this to give Ms. Milano something new to play.

It's interesting that in later seasons Tony becomes dorky, Mona becomes meaner, Sam becomes more indecisive, and Jonathan becomes the kid with a punchline.

Only character to me that changes and grows for the better is Angela.

[GHScorpiosRule]

2 hours ago, ljenkins782 said:

And what was the reason that Sam had to accelerate? Did the actress have another commitment or was this just an attempt to shake up the show now that they've all been living together for that many years?

Not that I'm aware of.

28 minutes ago, JAYJAY1979 said:

In regards to the Sam question, my theory is because the actress had grown bored playing the character (hence the jet black hair color) that the show maybe did this to give Ms. Milano something new to play.

Except this happened at the end of the season, and when season seven opened, Sam was back home, going to college, after that second episode where she thought she would stay in New Mexico for a year.

So, who knows why this inane plot was used.

[Bastet]

On 12/26/2023 at 9:31 AM, ljenkins782 said:

Speaking of absentee parents, does Jonathan's non-relationship with his father make any appearance in the later seasons?

I have it in my head one of his late season absences is explained by him being in CA visiting Michael, but I can't place it and may in fact have made it up.

I've put my re-watch on pause, as I enjoyed "Sit Down and Be Counted", the flashback episode where the Census worker comes to clear up the confusion created by Mona's made-up answers explaining the household, and just could not bring myself to continue on from this episode encapsulating what a couple Angela and Tony are to the one where they start dating other people. 

We've noted before the discrepancy between Tony and Marie having married young and Tony having a seemingly endless list of conquests in his past, but a lot of the time the references are vague enough it could have happened after Marie died (did we ever learn specifically when that happened, how long he'd been a widower when the series began?) or maybe even way back in the day before they got together.  In "Beautician Heal Thyself", though, Tony tells a story about a pair of flight attendants and it's set during his major league debut.  (And, of course, the baseball groupie in "Cardinal Sin" was from his time in the majors.)  Wasn't Marie still alive when he got called up?  If so, that is some seriously lazy writing when you don't intend to present the character as having been a cheater.

[bluegirl147]

A lot of writers underestimate the audience.   But viewers pay attention and remember things.  How hard is it to have someone in charge of continuity?  It was established pretty early on I think that Tony and Marie married young.  That shouldn't have been hard to remember.  Did they really need to make Tony out to be some sort of ladies man? Was it going to be a necessary part of his personality?  With Sam from Cheers yes his being a ladies man was essential to his character.  But Tony was presented as a widower with a young daughter.  Having him talk about two flight attendants was as @Bastet said lazy. 

[Egg McMuffin]

The British version of WTB, The Upper Hand, actually went further than the American version did. The two leads are wed at the end of the penultimate season, so they are husband and wife in the final season. I believe they find out she’s pregnant in the series finale.

I was going to say that Donna Dixon and Dan Ackroyd are still married. Which they technically are, but have been separated for over a year. And yeah, her acting is…not great.

[ljenkins782]

On 12/28/2023 at 8:27 AM, bluegirl147 said:

A lot of writers underestimate the audience.   But viewers pay attention and remember things.  How hard is it to have someone in charge of continuity?  It was established pretty early on I think that Tony and Marie married young.  That shouldn't have been hard to remember.  Did they really need to make Tony out to be some sort of ladies man? Was it going to be a necessary part of his personality?  With Sam from Cheers yes his being a ladies man was essential to his character.  But Tony was presented as a widower with a young daughter.  Having him talk about two flight attendants was as @Bastet said lazy. 

That's very true, the ladies man past was a completely unnecessary addition and in fact, detracts from the appeal of this specific character. The young widower looking for a better life for his young daughter angle that Mona used to sell Angela on Tony in the first episode was a more appealing version and makes more sense than the sleazy womanizer version in terms of the story they were telling.

I guess they assume that people can't judge what's appealing on their own, they have to show just how many other people want them in order to show them as attractive? I don't know, I can't think of any other reason to add this contrary detail to Tony's past that completely obliterates the backstory they've already laid out.

It would have worked well enough to have Tony's friends think of him as the one that all the women are after, I'm sure he would get the most attention in that crowd of doofuses. But he doesn't have to actually BE a Sam Malone-esque womanizer. 

And it seems like Tony being that sort of person would derail their main aim of the show, which was the Tony/Angela relationship, feeling like yet another woman in a long line probably wouldn't appeal to Angela.

[bluegirl147]

6 minutes ago, ljenkins782 said:

The young widower looking for a better life for his young daughter angle that Mona used to sell Angela on Tony in the first episode was a more appealing version and makes more sense than the sleazy womanizer version in terms of the story they were telling.

TPTB presumed the audience was superficial and liked Tony because he was attractive physically.  And yes @ljenkins782 I think they thought making him some sort of Casanova made him more attractive.  What the audience liked was a father wanting a better life for his daughter. This was not the first time people in charge misjudged what audiences wanted to see.

[Egg McMuffin]

Agreed. To me, the appealing aspects of the show are: the widower seeking a better life for his daughter; their adjustment to that new life; the relationship among the members of this ad-hoc family, and the evolving relationship between Tony and Angela. I felt like the first aspect was dropped almost immediately, and Tony and Sam assimilated into their new family and community too quickly.

[JAYJAY1979]

On 1/5/2024 at 3:40 AM, Egg McMuffin said:

Agreed. To me, the appealing aspects of the show are: the widower seeking a better life for his daughter; their adjustment to that new life; the relationship among the members of this ad-hoc family, and the evolving relationship between Tony and Angela. I felt like the first aspect was dropped almost immediately, and Tony and Sam assimilated into their new family and community too quickly.

I think it would have been more realistic had just Sam quickly assimilated into their new family and community quickly with Tony feeling left out and struggling to fit into this new environment.. and the comic potential from all that.

[Bastet]

On 12/27/2023 at 2:22 PM, Bastet said:

I've put my re-watch on pause, as I enjoyed "Sit Down and Be Counted", the flashback episode where the Census worker comes to clear up the confusion created by Mona's made-up answers explaining the household, and just could not bring myself to continue on from this episode encapsulating what a couple Angela and Tony are to the one where they start dating other people. 

Well, all these months later, I've picked back up with my re-watch of the series.  The Kathleen arc wasn't quite as bad as I remembered, but it's just plain odd -- that's a huge bomb to throw on Tony and Angela's relationship this far into it, but because this is a sitcom, it's treated lightly.  

I've started the Billy arc, though, and that is already every bit as bad as I remembered.  Good grief.  Adding any kid to the show was going to be a mistake, but this was seriously the best child actor they could find?  They should have given his grandma a miraculous recovery a lot quicker than they did.

I enjoyed the one where Tony and Angela go to New Mexico where Sam is living and working for the summer, and find out she's planning to marry some cowboy.  Tony tells Angela she's the voice of reason, so please go talk some sense into Sam, and Angela makes it about sixty seconds with Sam's fantasy nonsense before snapping at her to go pack her bags, they are taking her teenaged butt home.  Well, I should say I enjoyed that part of the episode; the rest of it is nothing special.  And they retcon Angela as having been 18 when she married Michael, so Sam could do the "You were my age when you got married" spiel.

Not wanting to write for Danny anymore now that he's older is laughably obvious; at one point they literally have Jonathan walk in the front door, deliver his one line as he's walking through the house, and walk right out the back door. 

[Bastet]

Holy cow, season seven is boring!  And I had absolutely no memory of the one where Mona teaches Tony's class about sex.  Well, I still won't, as I wound up fast forwarding through most of it.  The one where Tony and Sam are both auditioning for the sportscaster gig was pretty unwatchable, too.

I don't like "Ms. Mom" overall, but I do love Angela yelling "When a child pukes in your car, you make time!" when Tony scoffs that she had time to go to the car wash but not listen to the answering machine.

And it was nice to see Bonnie again in "You Can Go Home Again" when an overwhelmed Sam is hiding from life in her old bedroom.  (But how is it available for her, now that Billy is living there?  He has to have either her bedroom or Jonathan's, if Jonathan took hers, as they had no spare bedrooms once Tony and Sam moved in [thus the shenanigans in "Eye on Angela"].)

I was ready to give up for the morning when "Tony and Angela Get Divorced" was next up in the rotation, and that one I like despite the ridiculous premise.  "Boy, you are Italian."  Then my cat was snoring away on my chest and I didn't have the heart to wake her, so I decided to watch the next one, but it was that sex ed one that I wound up FFing through.  Next was their obnoxious neighbors scheduling their kid's birthday party the same day as Billy's, and I wound up FFing through that, too.

Looking at an episode guide for the rest of the season, I don't see anything to look forward to other than the night on the train in "The Road to Washington".

[Bastet]

I love all the physical comedy in the episode right after they get together, when they're trying to hide it from the family.  Angela sliding around on the floor trying to get and keep hold of the duck cracks me up.  And I love all her elaborate lies.

I'm also a sucker for the physical comedy in the engagement episodes, but I hate that Angela's valid feelings about learning Tony got talked into proposing to her get swept aside and it becomes all about her fears and what she's put poor Tony through by wanting a proposal that stems from him wanting to marry her, not him having a midlife crisis, him being goaded by their family, or him having a bruised ego.  This entire relationship has been at his pace, with her patiently waiting for him to catch up to her.  She thinks they're finally at the same stage, and immediately has the rug pulled out from under her.  She's hurt, and she asks Tony for time to process her feelings before they have a serious talk.  But that's unreasonable of her, apparently.

At least in the one where he feels like a kept man, he admits he's being a jerk, and she's not expected to cater to his macho nonsense.  Judith plays well the sheer disappointment when Angela says he knows what she faces every day from insecure men who can't handle a successful woman, she thought he was different, and if he's not then it's good she found out now.

But too often on this show Tony's behavior gets excused or celebrated when he should be called out for it, while Angela gets disproportionately punished or punished for things that aren't even wrong in the first place.

 

[Bastet]

I'm up through the first of the two Sam gets married episodes, and I'm usually so blinded by the sheer stupidity of her decision I can't see any of what's going on, but this time I'm kind of watching it as a farce.  In that mindset, while I typically find Tony's childishness like nails on a chalkboard, his utter glee when he realizes Hank's parents are about to find out Hank has decided to become a puppeteer rather than a doctor is hilarious.

And, frankly, Tony deserves his daughter being stupid in this particular way.  For eight years, he has mocked Angela whenever she pointed out getting married was a big decision that requires careful consideration of numerous factors, holding up him eloping with Marie when they were teenagers because of twu luv as the right way to go about things.  Well, now he's got a daughter who's in love with every guy she dates, and the two times it lasts more than a month, she decides it's forever and gets engaged.

[GHScorpiosRule]

20 minutes ago, Bastet said:

I'm up through the first of the two Sam gets married episodes, and I'm usually so blinded by the sheer stupidity of her decision I can't see any of what's going on, but this time I'm kind of watching it as a farce.

Same here. I mean, yeah, early 90s, but she's still in college and not even legal yet, and I thought by this time, getting married because twu wuv was no longer the trope. Frankly, Sam just got stupider and stupider.

21 minutes ago, Bastet said:

And, frankly, Tony deserves his daughter being stupid in this particular way.  For eight years, he has mocked Angela whenever she pointed out getting married was a big decision that requires careful consideration of numerous factors, holding up him eloping with Marie when they were teenagers because of twu luv as the right way to go about things. 

Sadly, the show couldn't make up its mind. Only twice were we told of his and Marie's young wuv; in the pilot and when Tony was telling Angela he and Marie got married because they were in love, and not because it was the right thing to do after Geoffrey proposed to her.

Because, practically every season, we got some woman he was in wuv with and dated, sisters he lusted after, or a whole slew of girls he dated through high school. So, when then, were he and Marie childhood sweet hearts and got married? Other than doing the math with his age and Sam's age. Then that redhead in Season five who was a groupie, and supposedly, Tony lusted after her, too? When he was supposed to be happily married to Marie?

[Bastet]

4 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I mean, yeah, early 90s, but she's still in college and not even legal yet,

She's 19, and he's a little older, so they're legal, just way too young.  She's a sophomore, and he's a senior, but he's going to be attending grad school to study puppetry.  At UConn, so it's not like he's moving across the country.  They'll be in the same small state, in towns an hour and a half away from each other.  But at the end of the first episode, when they decide to sneak off and get married after all the parents freak, she asks if he thinks they're doing the right thing, and he says if they want to be together, what else can they do?

Oh, I don't know, DATE?!  They've been going out for two months.  They're young, they're still in school, they have no money.  They don't get into it, but I think part of it is sex.  I think Tony has so warped her mind with his mixed messaging about sex outside of marriage she feels like if she's going to be in a committed, sexual relationship, she's supposed to be married.  So, again, he gets what he deserves. 

Edited March 26 by Bastet

[GHScorpiosRule]

5 minutes ago, Bastet said:

She's 19, and he's a little older, so they're legal,

Heh. I should have clarified and stated she's not even old enough to drink! 

But points for the rest of your post, for sure.

[Bastet]

I finished the series last night.  The Tony of seasons seven and eight is so obnoxious I don't know why the hell Angela still wants him, yet that all goes away for me in the final scene.  "You got the job."

Realistically, they're going to have big problems if he doesn't find a teaching job quickly, and I don't know why any of the local schools that didn't want him before would suddenly want him now.  He should probably get a Master's, but what's he going to do for work during that program?  (If he and Angela do get married, her continuing to employ him as the housekeeper would be a giant mess, but he wouldn't be comfortable with her supporting him completely - he has a hard enough time with the fact she makes so much more money than he does - so he'd have to do something that brought in a semi-decent salary.)

But I refuse to go down that rabbit hole and ponder their chances of making it as a couple.  I just choose to live in that moment, where her career is prioritized over his because that's what makes sense, rather than her being expected to sacrifice because of male ego.  Whether he sticks with it, again, I'm setting aside, because in that moment, he's genuine when he tells her he will not resent quitting, the only thing he resented was being without her.

And it's just so brilliant to bookend it like that, with her in a robe and hair towel, answering the door to him saying he hears she's looking for a housekeeper.  Kudos to whomever tossed that idea out in the writers' room.

[GHScorpiosRule]

What I find ironic is that Tony in the earlier seasons, before he decided to go back to college, was less threatened by Angela and her biggest cheerleader, that she could do anything she wanted, because she was so very good at what she did.

Was it because, while there was the attraction, there was no acknowledgment of it, and they were, strictly, if you will, boss/employee? But even if that was the case, they became friends as well, and he was her biggest cheerleader.

I'm too lazy to check and stopped somewhere in season 6, or 7, I think, to see if the writers had changed.

Like you, @Bastet, I get so infuriated in the last two seasons. Which is why I didn't finish them. So more power to you for getting through them!

I'm an optimist and like to think they did get married. And I'm hoping a big GIANT KIBOSH was put on the continuation or whatever it was, about Sam, now divorced (HAH!) as the lead or whatever it was. I'm SO.NOT.INTERESTED. Just as I am about whatever was floating out there about a reboot/continuation of Remington Steele.

[Bastet]

4 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

And I'm hoping a big GIANT KIBOSH was put on the continuation or whatever it was, about Sam, now divorced (HAH!) as the lead or whatever it was.

Sony announced it back in 2020, but obviously nothing happened then.  In 2022, it went into development, with a plan to stream it on FreeVee, but nothing happened.  Then last year, executive producer Norman Lear died.  So who knows if it will ever actually go into development.

I hope not, because Judith and Danny didn't sign on, but the producers were hopeful they could get them, especially her, for a guest appearance or two.  So the basic premise, of Sam returning to her childhood home, kids in tow, to live with Tony (not Tony & Angela) makes no sense -- that's Angela's house (which she agreed to let him earn equity in over the course of the marriage in that episode where she stupidly agrees not to get a prenup), so if it's just Tony's now, you either have to kill Angela off (no thanks, plus that's not what they were going to do if they were hoping to get Judith), have them been married long enough that he owned half the house but now divorced and for some reason he got it in the settlement (no thanks), have them married but living separately (that could work in real life - hell, it does for Judith and her husband - but doesn't jibe for Tony and Angela), or have her conveniently out of town each episode (that much business travel would have been a stretch back in the day, and especially now that she probably delegates more [she could even be retired at this age, but I doubt Angela would want that]). 

It's not Who's the Boss? if it's just the Micellis, with the Bowers no longer a regular part of their lives and, specifically, no Tony and Angela.  I know Alyssa, Tony, and the producers pitching the revival were bummed when they couldn't get the core four (the fab five were already not possible, of course, as Katherine had died), but that should have told them that meant they needed to let it go, not to try to make it work with just Tony and Sam.  Do another sitcom about a single mom played by Alyssa and cast Tony as her dad, done. 

[JAYJAY1979]

I was watching a podcast that Mayim Bialik hosted and she had Melissa Joan Hart on it awhile back. They were both talking about women in comedy and Mayim made a comment about how Judith Light's character on WTB was not writtern/presented well and then said 'that's how things were back then'.

I had to admit I decided to rewatch some episodes of WTB and I think that Angela was a well rounded character.  While I think part of that had to do with having Judith Light as Angela, the other aspect was snippets of backstory was revealed about Angela.

She had to parent her mother when her father passed, she had an awkward phase as a teen, she was cheated on by her husband, and  had to then raise her son as a single mother.  So any spark/fun that she might have was suppressed because someone had to take the reigns and keep things going.

The first few seasons really showed her opening herself up to having fun, living life to the fullest, having a close guy friend and being a surrogate mother figure to Samantha, all while having some comedic escapades along the way.

I think that Judith Light infused layers into the part that the writers ran with... and man.. she could get a laugh just by one her looks and her tone of voice while reading a line.

So maybe Mayim should look beneath the surface.. because the parts she's played haven't exactly been well written female comedic characters (not since Blossom).

[KWalkerInc]

Alyssa Milano was on a red carpet this week and was asked about the WTB continuation by an Entertainment Tonight reporter.  She said that she is still shopping it around.  I would have hoped that she would have figured out by now that the proposed version wasn't a great idea, but apparently she hasn't.

[Bastet]

On 5/4/2024 at 9:15 AM, JAYJAY1979 said:

she was cheated on by her husband

I don't remember it being said Michael cheated on Angela.  When did that happen?

[JAYJAY1979]

11 hours ago, KWalkerInc said:

Alyssa Milano was on a red carpet this week and was asked about the WTB continuation by an Entertainment Tonight reporter.  She said that she is still shopping it around.  I would have hoped that she would have figured out by now that the proposed version wasn't a great idea, but apparently she hasn't.

I think maybe a reunion episode or tv movie would work better.

I'm sure all 4 performers would come back...and we could see how the concept of 'who's the boss' has changed in the 2020s vs 1980s...while seeing what everyone is up to.

 

.

[Bastet]

22 hours ago, JAYJAY1979 said:

I think maybe a reunion episode or tv movie would work better.

I'm sure all 4 performers would come back

I don't know, Judith Light has said several times over the years those things are hardly ever good (I agree).