Murphy Brown: Why She Mattered, Where She Went, and Why She’s Back
Nearly 30 years ago, CBS premiered a groundbreaking sitcom about a tough-as-nails journalist who was at the top of her game and fresh out of a stint at the Betty Ford Clinic. Over the next decade, the show won a boatload of awards, enraged the Vice President, and boldly tackled feminist issues on network television. Then it disappeared for nearly 20 years. Tonight, it comes back for an 11th season.
Why did Murphy Brown matter?
Murphy Brown premiered on November 14, 1988 and ran for 10 seasons and 247 episodes before concluding on May 18, 1998. The pilot episode centers on the return of internationally renowned journalist Murphy Brown to her network television news magazine FYI (For Your Information) after a stint in the Betty Ford Clinic. Without vices like binge drinking and chain smoking to rely on, the brilliant 42-year-old feminist was as ornery a blowhard as ever.
Upon her return, she was reunited with her two closest friends, fellow journalists Jim Dial (Charles Kimbrough) and Frank Fontana (Joe Regalbuto) who had been her co-anchors on FYI since the show’s inception. Much to her chagrin, however, she was also introduced to two new twentysomethings hired in her absence to boost the show’s ratings — Louisiana beauty queen Corky Sherwood (Faith Ford), who has been added as a fourth co-anchor, and neurotic Jewish yuppy Miles Silverberg (Grant Shaud), who had been installed as the show’s producer. The ensemble cast was rounded out by Phil (Pat Corley), the surly owner of the legendary DC watering hole where the gang hangs out, and Eldin (Robert Pastorelli), the eccentric house painter who showed up to renovate Murphy’s gorgeous Georgetown home and didn’t leave for 7 years.
The show was an instant hit with critics, industry brass, and Emmy voters, but it was not until its third season when it caught on with viewers and skyrocketed into the Top 10 (it was the 6th most watched show on all of television during the 1990–1991 season and peaked at #3 the following year). During this time, the show deftly and audaciously blended a number of styles. It was a workplace sitcom about what went into making a news show a la The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It was a character driven comedy about the personal relationships of a very unlikely group of friends a la Cheers. And it was a biting political satire that fed off of current events a la Saturday Night Live.
The peak of Murphy Brown’s cultural relevance undoubtedly came during the 4th and 5th seasons. The 4th season began with Murphy having an unexpected pregnancy resulting from the surprise arrivals of her ex-husband and ex-boyfriend in the 3rd season finale. With the father (who turned out to be her ex-husband) uninterested in being involved and Murphy deciding against abortion, she decided to have the child as a single mother. While that may not seem particularly outrageous today, it enraged the conservative politicians at the center of the “Family Values” movement. Vice President Dan Quayle infamously and disdainfully called out the character’s decision to raise the child without a father. Again, the idea of the second most powerful person in the U.S. government picking a fight with a fictional television character may not seem so crazy in the Trump era, but in 1992 it certainly was. In response to Quayle’s comments, the show started its 5th season with a scathing double episode (entitled “You Say Potatoe, I Say Potato” in a mockery of the Vice President’s embarrassing flub at a spelling bee) that addressed the controversy head on and blended reality and fiction in a way that few sitcoms ever have.
The series remained a ratings powerhouse until the end of its 8th season, when it began to show signs of waning viewer interest. By this point, Phil had been killed off, Eldin moved to Spain, and Miles took a job in New York City. The show attempted to compensate for the exits with the introduction of Lily Tomlin as new FYI producer Kay Carter-Shepley. The comedy legend gave it her all, but the show’s energy and relevance had officially started to wane (its removal from the prime Monday night time slot it held for nearly a decade in favor of fresh blood certainly didn’t help).
Rather than cancel the series, CBS agreed to a special tenth and final season that the show’s creative team cooked up. In the Season Ten premiere, Murphy was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her battle with cancer was a major focus throughout the season, which dealt head on with issues that were rarely discussed on television in the 1990s, such as medical marijuana, mastectomies, and the health care industry. The show didn’t fully regain its quality with this arc, but it did regain a sense of purpose and relevance. The arc was credited with a significant rise in women getting mammograms and won an award from the American Cancer Society.
The highly rated series finale found Murphy’s breast cancer going into remission following a surgery that involved cameos by George Clooney, Alan King, creator Diane English, and journalism legend Edward R. Murrow (using archival footage, as he had died 30 years earlier). We finally met the long-distance girlfriend of Frank’s that no one believed was real, and it was none other than Julia Roberts (at the peak of her fame). Murphy got to fire one last secretary and it was the Divine Miss M Herself, Bette Midler. (Murphy fired 93 incompetent secretaries on screen during the show’s run.) And in the final, poignant scene Eldin returned from Spain to “touch up” the house.
During its run the show was nominated for 62 Primetime Emmys and won 18. This included 2 for Outstanding Comedy Series (in 1990 and 1992), 5 for star Candice Bergen, 2 for its writing, 1 for directing, and 5 for esteemed guest stars like Colleen Dewhurst, Jay Thomas, and Martin Sheen. The show also won top honors from the Golden Globes, the Writers Guild, and Directors Guild — not to mention a Peabody Award and two Humanitas Prizes.
For political context, its 10 year run covered the entirety of George H.W. Bush’s administration and 3/4 of Bill Clinton’s. For television context, those 10 years saw the end of The Golden Girls, The Cosby Show, and Cheers and the launch of Seinfeld, Friends, and Frasier. And to provide a sense of how prominent the show was in the television landscape, the Season Three finale of mega-hit Seinfeld involved Jerry and Elaine sitting down to watch the show and being shocked to see that Murphy’s latest incompetent secretary was played by Kramer.
Where did Murphy Brown go?
In the 20 years that elapsed between the original series finale and the revival episode’s premiere, Murphy Brown largely disappeared from popular culture. This was in stark contrast to the other shows of its caliber that it overlapped with, such as The Golden Girls, Seinfeld, Friends, and Frasier. The primary reason for its disappearance is that unlike those hit shows it was almost impossible to find reruns of.
The reasons Murphy Brown wasn’t available anywhere after its original run were twofold. First and foremost was the music. Rather than have a typical theme song, the show heavily utilized the Motown classics that the title character loved. Although that gave the show a distinctive feel, it resulted in astronomical licensing fees for each episode. The second issue was the politics. Murphy did not just have one-liners that made reference to current events, but also entire plot arcs. The show was often top-notch satire, but such topical humor doesn’t play well in reruns. Whereas the dating travails and petty squabbles of Dorothy Zbornak, Elaine Benes, Chandler Bing, and Frasier Crane elicit laughs in any decade, jokes about Newt Gingrich’s run as Speaker of the House and the latest staffing shakeup on The Today Show have a quick expiration date.
As a result, the show was never widely distributed in syndication and only the first season was ever made available on DVD. CBS All Access, the network’s streaming service, recently made 18 episodes of the original series available on its streaming service to promote the revival and there is an obscure cable network called Antenna TV that shows reruns daily, but not a single episode is available on iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, or local television networks.
Why is Murphy Brown being revived?
As I have stated before, I strongly disagree with the argument that the current revival trend is due to the fact that “Hollywood has run out of ideas.” Rather, I argue the opposite. In this era of peak TV when the number of original series on the air has skyrocketed, it becomes harder and harder to stand out. One way to boost your chances of success is to dust off a property with a built-in audience. The show undoubtedly has nostalgic fans that are still avid television consumers and will be curious enough to at least check out the premiere.
Another factor is that in this era of peak TV, limited series and shows with short easily digestible seasons are all the rage. Thus, even if a revival only lasts a short season or two, it can still be considered a success. Back in the old days when the goal was a long run resulting in syndication, that was just not the case.
But these argument only addresses why long-concluded sitcoms are being revived, not specifically why Murphy Brown is being revived. Of course, part of the answer is the presence of a willing cast. Even though she’s 72, Bergen continues to act regularly (see her acclaimed turn in the big screen summer comedy Book Club) and Faith Ford, Grant Shaud, and Joe Regalbuto were all game to return. (Original cast members Pat Corley and Robert Pastorelli have passed away since the show’s original run and Charles Kimbrough, now 82, has only committed to making a few appearances).
But there’s also a strong belief by the creative team (particularly, the show’s creator Diane English) and the network brass that the show has relevance in 2018. As has been made abundantly clear (at times, aggressively, off-puttingly clear) there is hope that Murphy Brown can serve as an influential satire of — and commentary on — the Trump era. This was the same justification given for reviving Roseanne (“It gives a voice to Middle America and our country’s political divide!”) and Will & Grace (“With LGBTQ rights under attack, it’s time for the gang to come back!”), but in my opinion those were a bit of a stretch.
In the case of Murphy Brown,however, this justification is undeniable. The original series ultimately focused on three themes: the integrity of journalism, the fight for feminism, and the circus of politics. All three are arguably as important and controversial now as they were during the show’s original run. From this perspective, reviving Murphy Brown now makes more sense than any of the revivals that have come before.
How will the Murphy Brown revival fare?
This is the only question I have posed that I cannot answer. I will be tuning in at 9:30 tonight to find out. Early reviews of the revival’s premiere have been mediocre, with many saying that it emphasizes “outrage over comedy” (Entertainment Weekly) and is trying too hard to be topical and relevant. However, it’s worth noting that these particular criticisms were heaped upon last year’s revivals of Roseanne and Will & Grace. Both of those shows started off with flawed episodes that tried way too hard to justify the existence for their revival and then later went on to produce a string of high quality episodes that truly recaptured the spirit of the original show.
The real test for the Murphy Brown revival will be whether it can get back to producing clever comedy and provocative storylines that are driven by the characters on screen — and not the menace in the Oval Office.
