Four sisters-in-law with little in common share deep friendships, thanks in part to their dealings with Mother Buchanan, their cantankerous mother-in-law. Alex is a quick-witted, sharp-tongued Jew who is married to eldest son Roy, a school principal. The den-mother of the group, she delights in trading barbs with Mother Buchanan. Delilah is a ditsy, busty former stripper who fell in love with crusading preacher Charles. Status-conscious Vivian is continuously exasperated by her twin sons and is stuck in a passionless marriage to stuffy Ed. New to the group is Bree, a beautiful, self-involved, seemingly-airheaded former Disneyland employee, who's naive concerning her new marriage to Jesse, but seems to have more going on in her head than she's credited for. Mother Buchanan is a stoic, gravely-voiced passive-aggressive (sometimes without the passive part) nightmare of a woman who intentionally tries to make the people around her miserable, but she has occasional flashes of humanity.
Co-creator Marc Cherry worked on a handful of failed sitcoms before finding success with "Desperate Housewives," but this is probably the closest to his big hit in terms of tone and story. We have a group of vastly different women living in suburbia, dealing with various real-life issues, experiencing bizarre adventures and spouting off venomous insults. Aside from the murder-mystery angle, the biggest difference in the two shows is that the Buchanan husbands, who were often spoken of, were seldom seen. Not surprisingly, several cast members went on to appear on the later series. Everyone expected the Buchanan ladies to have a hit on their hands... except CBS, which buried the show on Saturday nights.
Interestingly, Eileen Heckart admitted she wanted the role of Mother Buchanan because it gave her the opportunity "to play the bitch," but the renowned stage actress had difficulty adjusting to the fast-paced world of sitcoms, where dialogue can be changed in an instant. You'd hardly know judging from her wonderfully campy performance, in which her every syllable seems deliberately and appropriately punched. She and the rest of the cast all had remarkable chemistry, and each of their characters were uniquely lovable.
Looking at the show more than 20 years later, it's a little dated. Life was simpler before everyone was digitally connected which, by today's standards, makes some of the gossipy situations and revelations seem unnaturally slow to pass. There's the occasional pop-culture reference or discussed incident (such as Alex's stint streaking) which date the show to another time, and it suffers from hideous mid-90s color schemes and fashions.
Those minor nitpicks aside, there's really sharp writing, incredible characterizations and a lot of heart. It's really quite a shame that CBS didn't have more faith in it because it certainly had the potential to have been a long-running hit.
