The 5 Mrs. Buchanans

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.

More than one quality series was cancelled in its first season by the network (here, CBS) because some idiot decided to bury it in a lousy time slot. So it was with 'The Five Mrs. Buchanans', and no one has even had the decency to release the existing episodes as a collectors' DVD. Wonderful writing, and the cast is flawless. It deserves a Collectors' edition.

This show was great, and I don't understand why they didn't give it a chance. Instead they decided to cancel it after only 17 episodes. The whole cast was terrific and Beth Broderick and Eileen Heckart played their roles especially well. The episodes were always well written and well acted and to sum up; This show was hilarious, and it shouldn't have been cancelled so fast.

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.

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 !