Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, when she could pay attention to Designing Women while also overseeing Evening Shade, knew how to use the soapbox effectively. The prime example is the episode, “The Strange Case of Clarence and Anita,” which is one of the very few bright spots in this dismal 6th season, recently released on DVD.
When Thomason has something to say, you’d better strap in and hang on because she is at her strongest when there’s an issue that riles her up, this episode being her reaction to the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill scandal during Thomas’s confirmation hearings to become an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Every single argument coming from Thomason feels right coming from each woman. Mary Jo (Annie Potts) believes Thomas was guilty in Hill’s claim of sexual harassment. Allison Sugarbaker (Julia Duffy), a reaction to Delta Burke’s very public departure and the worst aspect of this season (surprising, because there’s a lot that’s awful), believes Hill lied. Thomason treats every side fairly. It starts with Mary Jo’s opinion, which is likely Thomason’s opinion, and then goes into deep discussion of the issue which cannot be readily found on TV today. I don’t think anything this political could be seen on TV today, not to mention later references to the recession under the first Bush administration, which Allison believes, does not exist, and then later, she inexplicably mentions it in stride. But it’s more than politics; it’s perception of women, which is Thomason at her best, because not only do all her points make perfect sense, but when the script of an episode is hers, you can be sure you’ll get a well-focused show that doesn’t get mired in utterly unfunny moments, which always fail to pull these women through.
Without Thomason’s scripts, which are occasional throughout the run of this season, Designing Women is not all that funny. It’s more like surprised laughter from sheer boldness in certain moments rather than ongoing laughter. As mentioned, the chief problem is the casting of Julia Duffy as Allison Sugarbaker, who has arrived to take over the Georgia-based interior design business Sugarbaker’s, or so she thinks, because her cousin, Julia Sugarbaker (Dixie Carter) is not going to let that happen. Dixie Carter’s the only one allowed to survive the season with dignity intact, and even when she’s decked out in Joan Crawfordesque makeup for a community theater production of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? in the Clarence Thomas episode, she makes it work. Carlene Dobber (Jan Hooks), a replacement for her sister, Charlene Stillfield (Jean Smart), is wired on caffeine at one point, Anthony Bouvier (Meshach Taylor) is forced to dress in drag to play a part in a community theater production of Mame, and, well, Mary Jo (Annie Potts) does get through with her strength mostly intact, if not for having to shepherd her mother back to South Carolina on a bus trip. Sadly, even Charles Nelson Reilly, playing himself, doesn’t come out ok, though he is the major relief of that Hollywood-centered episode.
The problematic season obviously extended from Burke’s departure, which was widely covered in the media, putting pressure on the production to try to put the ensemble back together without one of its key players and hope that it would work. But Allison is insufferable throughout the entire run. No matter how long she has been at Sugarbaker’s, no matter how much time she spends with Julia, Mary Jo, Carlene and Anthony, she still expresses disdain for what she perceives as the hick way of life. She’s conceited, snobbish, and there is absolutely nothing interesting about her. Toward the end of the two-part episode that opens the season, she finally admits to many shortcomings and why she is the way she is, but it doesn’t feel genuine. I am fine with watching a conceited character as long as there’s something to bite into, but there is no aspect of her personality which offers that. She plays only one note throughout, and that note is continually grating.
Truthfully, I’ve never seen Designing Women before this season. But surely the show was funnier before. Even Alice Ghostley, playing Sugarbaker family friend Bernice Clifton, seems to be treated not as an equal member of this cast, but rather as a crutch to try to hide the hobbling, tripping, and flat-out falling that this season suffers through. I had looked forward to seeing Meshach Taylor, figuring that Anthony would be my favorite character, but he is not treated well at all during this season. He’s mostly there to react to comments among the women, and though he is a strong component of the cast (there are episodes in which he is the center), he doesn’t feel like an equal in this season.
Mercifully, the only intent of this DVD set is to push these episodes out into the world again. There are no extras, which is fine. How could anyone explain this season? Why would anyone want to?
