The 5 Mrs. Buchanans

I remember waiting each week to watch this show. And over the years I have talked about it many times. It was funny, witty, beautifully done, it was written well and the characters where played by perfect people. I have always hoped they would bring it back. I think they could bring this out or one exactly like it, and it would do well today. The issues with mother in laws is timeless. And the old episodes of this show is as funny now as it was all those years ago. I hope and pray they can find a way to bring back this show, even if we have to get new actors, as we could all use a little humor today. This humor was just plain fun. No one will play these characters better than the ones in the original series, but something like this would be great. So much story line here.

This was definitely the best series I have ever seen. It related to so many people, having relatives with whom we have nothing in common except being part of the family, and a conniving mother-in-law who wants nothing more than happiness for her sons for whom no other woman could possibly be good enough. The mischievous reactions brought upon by the 3 daughters-in-law was also very hilarious.

Emma could make me burst in laugh with just a facial expression or her unforgettable "Hellooo!" when the front door opened. Never understood why it was eliminated. Maybe was it too witty for some people, I don't know.

If you haven't seen this series, it's a must. All 17 episodes can be found on YouTube, although each broken down in 3 parts. In the meantime we can only expect that some day, one of the TV channels playing oldies will bring it back for everyone who has never had the opportunity to see it.

Whenever I am feeling down, I watch one of the episodes, and it makes me feel great.

Enjoy !

I don't know why some shows get canceled. This show related to one of my co-workers when I worked at the supermarket about an overbearing mother-in-law played by the Oscar winner Eileen Heckart. Her daughters-in-law were played by Broadway professional veterans like Judith Ivey and Harriet Sansom Harris as well as soap veteran actress Charlotte Ross and Beth Broderick. The husbands were rarely shown because it was really a show centered around the relationships between the sisters-in-laws and their mother-in-law. The newest in-law was played by Charlotte Ross. Beth Broderick played the more sensual wife while Judith Ivey's character was Jewish and the oldest of all the Buchanan wives. Harriet Sansom Harris was divine as the snobby wife who is always a show stopper in any performance. Of course there was Eileen Heckart who can make a great entrance and say more with a facial expression than a thousand words.

I miss this show! Set in fictional Mercy, Indiana, this comedy centers around four completely different women who have only two connections to each other: they each are married to a Buchanan boy, and they each cannot stand their mother-in-law. Alex, married to Roy, is a Jewish feminist from New York City. Vivian, married to Ed, is a frumpy Hoosier housewife with two children from hell, twins Lyndon and P.J. Delilah, married to preacher Charles, is a somewhat ditzy former stripper from Corpus Christi, Texas. Bree, newly married to Jesse, is a perky Californian who used to work with her mother. They constantly are trading barbs with the cruel but hilarious Mother Buchanan, who tries as hard as she can to make their lives a living hell through meddling and manipulating, her two specialties.

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.