Backdoor Pilots: Golden Girls Shows Us the Neighbors Next Door
Added 2023-06-26 00:09:57 +0000 UTC“Empty Nests” (May 16. 1987)
Welcome to the premiere of Backdoor Pilots, our new Patreon-only bonus series!
The Golden Girls spinoff Empty Nest premiered October 8, 1988, to acclaim and success. However, fifteen months earlier we got a look at a rougher-edged version of the same premise when The Golden Girls aired an episode that introduced us to never-before seen neighbors. Rita Moreno played Renee Corliss, a stay-at-home mom trying to cope with the fact that her kids had all left the house. It doesn’t work, yet it still managed to be one of the few backdoor pilots to launch a long-running show. They just had to kill Renee off to make it happen, and there’s maybe some bad blood between her and creator Susan Harris?
In this episode, we also discuss the actual pilot to Empty Nest, and if you like, you can watch that episode on our Vimeo, since it’s not streaming anywhere.
For more background on the history of this show, listen to the Empty Nest episode of Gayest Episode Ever.
The theme song to this series was composed and performed by Meika Grimm. The art for the series was designed by Ian O’Phelan.
