I watched the first two seasons of "The Facts Of Life" on DVD recently, and one of my favorite episodes was "Brian and Sylvia," focusing on the interracial marriage of Tootie's Uncle Brian (future "MacGyver" star Richard Dean Anderson) and Aunt Sylvia (Rosanne Katon). Ja'net DuBois (Willona from "Good Times") also guest-starred as Sylvia's mother (and Tootie's grandmother). Mrs. Garrett, Blair, and Jo appear briefly at the beginning of "Brian and Sylvia," wishing Tootie and Natalie farewell.

I later discovered that "Brian and Sylvia" was a backdoor pilot for a potential spinoff series, not unlike the "Diff'rent Strokes" episode "Almost American" (which aired during the third season of "Strokes" in 1981).

What are your thoughts on "Brian and Sylvia"? Do you think it would've been a successful spinoff of "Facts" had NBC greenlit it as a weekly series for their lineup during the 1981-82 season? Drop me a line.

I watched the first two seasons of "The Facts Of Life" on DVD recently, and one of my favorite episodes was "Brian and Sylvia," focusing on the interracial marriage of Tootie's Uncle Brian (future "MacGyver" star Richard Dean Anderson) and Aunt Sylvia (Rosanne Katon). Ja'net DuBois (Willona from "Good Times") also guest-starred as Sylvia's mother (and Tootie's grandmother). Mrs. Garrett, Blair, and Jo appear briefly at the beginning of "Brian and Sylvia," wishing Tootie and Natalie farewell.

I later discovered that "Brian and Sylvia" was a backdoor pilot for a potential spinoff series, not unlike the "Diff'rent Strokes" episode "Almost American" (which aired during the third season of "Strokes" in 1981).

What are your thoughts on "Brian and Sylvia"? Do you think it would've been a successful spinoff of "Facts" had NBC greenlit it as a weekly series for their lineup during the 1981-82 season? Drop me a line.

I thought it was terrible. :eek:

I love this episode. :)

It has such nostalgic pull for me; this is one I vividly recall watching at my grandparents' house. I don't mind that it's a backdoor pilot, since two of "our girls" are involved throughout the show (I love Natalie's enthusiastic gestures with the countdown, lol).

I don't think the show would have worked as a series on its own, but I do love this season 2 finale. :)

I think that having an interracial marriage on a primetime sitcom during the early '80s, probably wasn't that groundbreaking anymore since we already had the Willises on The Jeffersons for at least, the past five years. I don't know if that's the main reason why "Brian and Sylvia" wasn't turned into a full fledged series. But it isn't like it wasn't covering new ground. And plus, we were talking about sitcoms in the '80s, which were decisively more conservative and more cautious to be cutting edge or offensive.

I don't dislike the ep but at the same time I don't think it was really all that great ether

It was a decent episode but not the best of the series, although it wasn't bad either.

The real highlights of the episode are seeing Tootie interact with her Aunt Sylvia in her aunt's sole appearance, Natalie's tagging along as Tootie's best friend and treated as a "family guest" in Brian and Sylvia's home, and Ja'net Dubois' very entertaining character as Sylvia's mom (and, henceforth, Tootie's grandmother).

Since Sylvia is the sister of Tootie's mother, it would have been nice if she had been mentioned in the episode (or maybe she was; I can't recall, I haven't seen it in a long time, but I don't think she was).

I'm partial to interracial couples that contains a black woman and a white man or a black woman/other but I didn't really like this couple to be honest. I didn't feel like they had much chemistry and the husband's comment about his wife not being able to blush because she's black was not funny. I'm not surprised that they eventually got a divorce.