The 5 Mrs. Buchanans

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 !

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.

This show should NEVER have been canceled. I've been trying to find a DVD of the season to no avail. The casting was superb. The only thing that could have been any better would have been to cast Olympia DuCaucas (sp?)as the mother-in-law and Cameron Diaz as the bride, but I loved the actors that were cast in both of those parts. How I wish someone could see its potential and make the series into a movie. I am generally quite critical of sit-coms, but I actually waited each week to see this one. For someone who seldom laughs out loud, I did quite a bit of it during the show. I can't recommend it enough and will wait patiently to see if someone has the good sense to revive it despite it's brief appearance. And I'll be its biggest fan!

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.