"Maybe I have gone up a size or two. I don't think it's that noticeable. It's not like I'm going to enter the banquet room followed by a tidal wave." - Delta Burke as Suzanne Sugarbaker
The Best of Designing Women DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
Designing Women, created and produced by future Clinton speechwriter and confidante Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, premiered on CBS in the fall of 1986. The show centers on four friends who run Sugarbakers, an Atlanta-based interior design firm run out of a beautiful Victorian house. The founder of the firm is Julia Sugarbaker (Dixie Carter), a recently widowed firebrand who has strong, forward-thinking opinions on every subject imaginable - and is not afraid to share them with others. Her sister Suzanne (Delta Burke), a former beauty queen who collects ex-husbands like some people collect trinkets from the Franklin Mint, is more concerned with her designer outfits than designing someone's living room, but she still manages to show up at the office between dates. Mary Jo Shively (Annie Potts) is a recently divorced mother of two who serves as a junior designer under Julia. Charlene Frazier (Jean Smart) is the firm's business manager who cannot quite shake off her small town roots. Helping out around the office is Anthony Bouvier (Meshach Taylor), an ex-con who is often exasperated by his role as the solitary male in the world of Sugarbakers.
The Best of Designing Women collects five episodes covering a span of the series' first four seasons. First up is the pilot episode. When Suzanne's gynecologist retires, Mary Jo suggests her ex-husband, Ted (Star Trek: Enterprise's Scott Bakula), as a replacement. Although Mary Jo does not seem to mind, the other women are horrified when Suzanne has the gall to actually start dating Ted. Like most pilot episodes, the characters are not as rich and well drawn as they will eventually become, but this one does have some fun moments. Julia's speech to a boor who tries to flirt with the women at a Japanese restaurant - the first of many tirades over the years - is riveting, and Carter's eyes light up as she instills every word with meaning.
"Killing All the Right People" is from the show's second season. In this episode, Kendall (Tony Goldwyn), a fellow designer and friend, asks the Sugarbakers team to design his funeral. He has AIDS, and their decision to take on the assignment causes the firm to lose another client, and gives Mary Jo the strength to speak out in favor of distributing condoms at her child's school.
Running in October of 1987, this was one of the first times that series television dared to touch the hot button topic of AIDS, and this from a sitcom, no less. Bloodworth-Thomason, who wrote many episodes of the series herself, including all of the ones on this disc, was never one to shy away from hard hitting issues and social problems. This could sometimes be a liability - sometimes the show became too didactic, focusing more on the sitcom's "sit" at the expense of its "com" - but it is hard to find fault in such good intentions.
The third episode, "Reservations for Eight," ended the series' second season. In it, the ladies head off on a weekend ski trip with their boyfriends or, in the case of Suzanne, ex-husband. When an avalanche closes the slopes and forces the entire group to remain in their suite, a mini battle of the sexes erupts, with the men and the women arguing about the faults of the opposite sex. This episode is unique because of the overwhelming presence of men. Except for Anthony, men usually appeared on the show in small doses. As a result, the men in particular Hal Holbrook as Julia's boyfriend, Reese, seem to dominate this episode. The episode is funny enough, but perhaps it is too atypical to make an appearance on a "best of" compilation.
"Big Haas and Little Falsie," from the show's third season, centers on Mary Jo's obsession with breast augmentation surgery. This episode is outrageously funny. As Mary Jo exponentially increases her breast size, her personality goes through an equally stunning change. Annie Potts is brilliantly funny at this sort of thing, and she is a pleasure to watch.
The final episode, "They Shoot Fat Women, Don't They?" is perhaps the best of the series. This fourth season episode was written by Bloodworth-Thomason as a reaction to tabloid stories about Delta Burke's weight gain. In it, Suzanne attends her class reunion and is stunned to learn that her former classmates no longer view her as a vivacious beauty queen but simply as fat. This is expertly contrasted with a project Anthony is working on involving a fast to benefit starving children around the world. Burke's final monologue is beautifully delivered and not to be missed.
Designing Women was famously cancelled by CBS in the spring of its first season, but was brought back from the dead after an outpouring of viewer mail and protests. It would go on to run for seven increasingly tumultuous seasons. At the end of the sixth season, Burke acrimoniously left the series, claiming that the producers were pressuring her about her weight gain. At the same time, Smart decided to pursue other acting opportunities. The producers brought in a revolving door of replacements, but the series floundered creatively for its final two seasons.
The five episodes in this collection are included on a single disc. The menu is simple, yet fun - a hand wielding a paint roller "paints" the main menu onto the screen. The viewer can choose to play all of the episodes, or can pick from the individual episodes. The DVD is housed in a keepcase. An insert lists the episode titles, brief synopses, and episode credits.
Perhaps the most exciting news about this disc is that it marks the first time Columbia/Tri-Star has added chapter stops to the interior of television episodes. There are no scene selection menus or cute chapter names, but nevertheless, stops have been added immediately following the opening credits, at the midpoint commercial breaks, and before the closing credits. The company should be commended for listening to consumer reaction on this issue, and hopefully they will continue to include chapter stops on future releases, especially those featuring hour-long shows.
