The 5 Mrs. Buchanans

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.

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.

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 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.

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!