We all know how the show has many plot holes that the writers seemed to overlook like the fact that Blanche's daughter went from overweight and low self esteem to boney thin and confident about artificial insemination in such a short amount of time. Do these things in the show ever bother you?

They don't bother me. I love this show so much that I just roll with it. :D

The only goof that bothers me is that Dorothy and Stan were married for 38 years, as mentioned several times through out the series, and neither Kate or Michael could possibly have been the result of a teen pregnancy as they each look to be in their mid twenties in the 80's. Dorothy married Stan somewhere between 1945-1949. Their oldest child would've been 40/nearing 40 when the series started. Otherwise i can deal with the other goofs.

The only goof that bothers me is that Dorothy and Stan were married for 38 years, as mentioned several times through out the series, and neither Kate or Michael could possibly have been the result of a teen pregnancy as they each look to be in their mid twenties in the 80's. Dorothy married Stan somewhere between 1945-1949. Their oldest child would've been 40/nearing 40 when the series started. Otherwise i can deal with the other goofs.

I always thought it was possible that they had another unnamed child besides Michael and Kate who was the result of her teen pregnancy. Kind of like Blanche's 3/4 sons that were mentioned but never seen on the show. Plus Dorothy had grandchildren and Kate had no children while Michael only had a baby with Loraine so she must have another child with children for her to be a grandmother.

In the very first episode, Dorothy tells Rose that she is from Queens, then miraculously she is suddenly from Brooklyn.

Funny I don't remember that. I know that in the first episode they had a gay male cook living with them but he was never seen again. I was curious as to how he would turn out as a character if they kept him in the show.

But if they hadn't gotten rid of him then the show wouldn't have an excuse for Sophia to show off her great Italian cooking skills or for Rose to whip up those viking-scandanavian midwestern concoctions. Lol

Funny I don't remember that. I know that in the first episode they had a gay male cook living with them but he was never seen again. I was curious as to how he would turn out as a character if they kept him in the show.

But if they hadn't gotten rid of him then the show wouldn't have an excuse for Sophia to show off her great Italian cooking skills or for Rose to whip up those viking-scandanavian midwestern concoctions. Lol
Sorta off topic: I'm wondering if their gay cook was the same man who played Vera's husband in "Alice." His name was "Elliot" in that show.

But yeah, no explanation about the cook's absence after the first episode?

Yes, you nailed it. Charles Levin was Elliot on "Alice" as well as being Coco on GG.

He must have been a very good actor, because I just assumed he was gay in real life, until I read Betty White's autobiography, in which she happens to comment that he was not.

While an undisputed class, this show indeed did have a number of inconsistencies- the writers just did not pay the attention they should have to the details. It's such a well done show, though (especially seasons 1-4), that they don't detract from enjoying the show.

One of my "favorites": Sophia saying she and Angela are the last remaining of the original family- before Angela morphs into Angelo.

One of the words writer goofs? Having Rose, in a later episode, say her parents' last name was Nylund. D'oh!

While an undisputed class, this show indeed did have a number of inconsistencies- the writers just did not pay the attention they should have to the details. It's such a well done show, though (especially seasons 1-4), that they don't detract from enjoying the show.

One of my "favorites": Sophia saying she and Angela are the last remaining of the original family- before Angela morphs into Angelo.

One of the words writer goofs? Having Rose, in a later episode, say her parents' last name was Nylund. D'oh!

Maybe Rose hooked up with the family? An extra peice of the puzzle lol after all she did say that in Saint Olaf everybody had the same family tree and could be traced back to the same brother and sister. :lol:

Also I found it kinda odd that Blanche and Virginia repatched their relationship in the episode where she needed a kidney transplant but in the episode where Big Daddy died they went back to hating each other and Virginia was never seen again. Like seriously why did their relationship in the show have to be left off on such a bad note?

The way my mind is wired, the inconsistencies have always bothered me to an extent. Granted Golden Girls began airing in a time when it probably couldn't have been foreseen that someday, viewers like us would be able to nitpick anything we wanted "on demand," to use a modern term. But the writers were inexcusably lazy when it came to the inconsistencies. It would not have been that hard to maintain a history for each character that could be easily be referred to when needed.
As for a few bloopers mentioned here, the "original family" comment by Sophia was true as far as we knew at the time, so that is more amusing. It's the contradiction of previously established information that bothers me.
IMO, the Nylund/Lindstrom error by Rose is the single worst writing mistake of the entire series. The writers, other cast members and/or Betty White herself should have caught that immediately. Eventually it was caught, because Lindstrom was referred to as Rose's maiden name thereafter.

"The writers, other cast members and/or Betty White herself should have caught that immediately".

I so agree schmave.

Betty has been known to say that she let's the writers do their job when she's working, and I love her for that (not being a diva) But the surname issue she should have intervened in, in my opinion.

Golden Girls will always be my favorite sit-com of all time, for sentimental reasons, because I dearly love Betty White, and because the show in totality was just heartwarming. But by comparison, Frasier is probably one of the smartest written scripts I've ever watched. It was also perfectly cast. Although Estelle was absolutely adorable as Sophia, I always thought that physically, she was an oddball choice. Blue eyes, way too small to be Bea's mother, and with a New York accent instead of an Italian one. Just didn't make sense. She was so funny in her role that they completely got away with it, but as a Sicilian myself, I can assure you she looks and sounds nothing like one. :lol:

I'm especially not sure what to make of how loose and fast the writers played with the ages of Dorothy's children. When we first met him, Michael was 29. When he got married to Lorraine, he was 24, then less than two years later, Dorothy says "he's 30 years old!" :rolleyes: And as others have pointed out, none of those ages made sense, since Dorothy had been pregnant with one of them at the onset of a 38 year marriage.

Although Estelle was absolutely adorable as Sophia, I always thought that physically, she was an oddball choice. Blue eyes, way too small to be Bea's mother.

Believe me it is possible for a small woman to give birth to children who are much taller than herself. My own mama is an example of such a thing she is on the short side like my grandmother but my brothers and sister are all very tall compared to her much like Dorothy is compared to Sophia. Plus in one flashback episode Sophia's mother was played by Bea Arthur herself so Dorothy could possibly take after her grandmother more than her mother which would explain the difference in height.

Golden Girls began airing in a time when it probably couldn't have been foreseen that someday, viewers like us would be able to nitpick anything we wanted "on demand," to use a modern term

This is very true, and I had not thought of it in this way. I imagine most long-running series have inconsistencies as well, but you probably wouldn't notice unless you binged watched episodes over a 24-hour period, as I have done! :lol: :lol: :lol:

And on top of that 80sTrivia, series that came out long before the Golden Girls were far more consistent. I can't think of many series I've ever watched, regardless of the era in which they aired, that disregard canon as much as the Golden Girls.
If a modern show had those inconsistencies, viewers will take to social media, etc. immediately to highlight them.

The GG have too many inconsistencies, compared to other shows.
Some you can overlook, some you can't.

Yes it does bother me if the later writers who wrote for GG, if they didn't watch the earlier episodes. Did they?

A lot of the inconsistencies have to do with family members. It is very unclear how many children Rose and Blanche have, for example.

In the episode "Nice and Easy", Blanche's promiscuous niece runs off to spend the night with that stranger from Miami Vice at his apartment. Less than an hour later, Blanche, Dorothy and Rose show up at the Vice cop's apartment. Now how did they know where he lived?

LOL, good point. Especially since she only introduced him by his first name, Ed. :eek:

Maybe that's the power of being a TV show and not real life...

I also never thought of that. And here I thought I noticed all the inconsistencies. Good point
My question was who's child was Blanche's niece?

What I did notice is GG first introduced Blanche's bratty 14 grandson, then her niece, before they introduced any of her (how many?) kids.

I also never thought of that. And here I thought I noticed all the inconsistencies. Good point
My question was who's child was Blanche's niece?

What I did notice is GG first introduced Blanche's bratty 14 grandson, then her niece, before they introduced any of her (how many?) kids.
Yep, and Blanche also had two sons that were never introduced. And Dorothy's brother Phil was never introduced.

Also, when Sophia's brother Angelo is pretending to be a priest, he confesses that he was actually married for 72 years to a woman named Philamena. Now in 72 long years, Sophia was never aware about Angelo's wife? Very strange.

I also never thought of that. And here I thought I noticed all the inconsistencies. Good point
My question was who's child was Blanche's niece?

What I did notice is GG first introduced Blanche's bratty 14 grandson, then her niece, before they introduced any of her (how many?) kids.

Obviously Lucy could belong to either of Blanche's two sisters whom she didn't get along with. We know that Virginia was married before AND was knocked up in high school so she could possibly be Virginia's daughter or Charmane's (?spell). Heck for all we know Clayton could have had Lucy with his ex wife before he came out the closet about being gay.

Also Blanche did have a lot of grandchildren and I think most of them belonged to Janet (the daughter who hates her lol). She had one teenage grandson named David and two young granddaughters named Melissa and Sarah.

Another big GG inconsistency: (two parter) Sophia confesses to Dorothy that she first married a man named Guido Spirelli back in Sicily before she moved to America. Now assuming she was at least 18 years old, why doesn't she have an Italian accent? Secondly, if she was an adult when she came to America...how could she not know how old she is??? In one of the flashback episodes, she tells young Dorothy that immigration made a mistake on her birth certificate when she came to America, so she didn't realize that she is actually a whole year older than she thought. :crazy:

Another big GG inconsistency: (two parter) Sophia confesses to Dorothy that she first married a man named Guido Spirelli back in Sicily before she moved to America. Now assuming she was at least 18 years old, why doesn't she have an Italian accent? Secondly, if she was an adult when she came to America...how could she not know how old she is??? In one of the flashback episodes, she tells young Dorothy that immigration made a mistake on her birth certificate when she came to America, so she didn't realize that she is actually a whole year older than she thought. :crazy:

I guess we can't blame that on her stroke... Or can we? :D

I guess we can't blame that on her stroke... Or can we? :D
No, she made the comments about the birth certificate long, long before the stroke.... just more lazy writing!

The very first Blanche centered episode was the one where her sister Virginia wants Blanche's kidney. Clayton was not mentioned as a possible donor which leads me to think that the Clayton character wasn't created yet. I think at some point the writer's decided to give Blanche a gay brother.

Two actors played Blanche's' father. I know the first one died. But the storylines were completely different. The original father sold everything for a musical career.

^^^ Yes, and the 2nd big daddy married a much younger woman, so why wasn't she at his funeral when he died?

^^^ Yes, and the 2nd big daddy married a much younger woman, so why wasn't she at his funeral when he died?

They never even showed the actual funeral. Just Blanche fighting with her sister Virginia and refusing to go to it. I'm sure his new wife would have attended the actual funeral along with all the other friends and relatives.

But once again we never got to see the actual funeral!

"But the storylines were completely different. The original father sold everything for a musical career."


Yes. Yet when the father eventually died, the family home was obviously still very much his, since he was buried above ground on the family estate, next to his first wife. :eek:

The inconsistencies in the Golden Girls episodes both bother me, and amuse me. They are abundant, so we'd better just accept the fact that numerous changeovers in writers accounts for the sequence of events in the GG lives being very, very inconsistent.

The ultimate "boo-boo" in my opinion, was Rose referring to her parents as "Nyland" instead of Rose's maiden name. I'm very surprised no one caught that and changed it, especially Betty White herself.

The inconsistencies in the Golden Girls episodes both bother me, and amuse me. They are abundant, so we'd better just accept the fact that numerous changeovers in writers accounts for the sequence of events in the GG lives being very, very inconsistent.

The ultimate "boo-boo" in my opinion, was Rose referring to her parents as "Nyland" instead of Rose's maiden name. I'm very surprised no one caught that and changed it, especially Betty White herself.

Very true. But I'm sure there are hardly any TV shows that don't have inconsistancies or continuity errors.

Ed.

Well, the thing about the Golden Girls is that the continuity errors are so obvious. How hard would it have been for the writers to keep track of the girls' children, after all? We're not talking about one-time events or one-off characters.

I think the fact that The Golden Girls episodes are watched over, and over and over again, makes their plot holes much more obvious.

I doubt I would have noticed the "Nylund/vs/Lindstrum issue if I had only seen it once during it's original run. Nor would I have wondered why both Michael and Kate seemed so young, despite Dorothy having been married when she was pregnant....over 38 years earlier. And the whole "rooster insemination" thing makes me laugh at myself for not noticing years ago! :lol:

So many unexplained things (like Michael actually getting younger between episodes) just make me laugh all the harder. Bottom line.....I will always love the Golden Girls. Imperfections and all. :D

Yes- Blanche's children was a problem. It appears she has 6 kids, but the 3 sons were not mentioned until after the first one was revealed- not such a huge deal. The problems with the age of Janet's character(she was married and had a 14 year old son David), but two young daughters under 10 was irritating because both of those daughters appear in the same season and there's no mention of their connection. It makes sense if she married young (let's say she was 20 when she had David, 33 when she had Melissa, and 35 when she had Sarah), but I always wish there were more details about her in general, especially why she and Blanche had such a turbulent relationship.

With Rebecca, I prefer the Season Three Rebecca much more then the season 5 and 6 Rebecca- I think they could have had her be the same actress and it would have been much more interesting or have had Blanche have another daughter from the start for the new actress to play. I never could really dig into Rebecca's new storylines.

Rose's children are not seen enough, but I actually am alarmed by those who call Kirsten greedy- she was primarily upset because it appeared that her mother had mishandled her father's money, NOT that she wasn't getting a big enough inheritance. I enjoyed the actress who played the role in that episode too and would have preferred to see her back at a more recent time. I liked the actress who played Kirsten in Season 7, but the character's inconsistency's bothered me.

The biggest question is what happened to Dorothy's first child- it could not have been Kate or Michael given the timeline. Did Dorothy miscarry, but decide to stay with Stan anyway? That wouldn't be that shocking given her attachment to him throughout the series. The Golden Girls Wiki says that the child was a girl whose name Kirsten Zbornack and that they had a fall out, but that is NEVER mentioned in the series at all. The actors who played her kids were all fine- I think the second actress who played Kate was more fitting for the role, but I personally prefer the first actress.

They should have stuck with the first actress for Gloria and used her more in the series.

With Blanche's family, I don't mind the Big Daddy differences at all really. Her not mentioning she has a brother until his appearance in Season 4 and him not making an appearance at his father's funeral episode in Season 5 was kind of ridiculous, although obviously the focus had to be on Blanche and on her argument with Virginia. I'm glad Charmeane finally made an appearance and was indeed great( had many of Blanche's worst qualities), but I think they could have cast an actress who looked a little older. Barbara Babcock is only three years younger then Rue in real life, but she looks like 45 in the episode which we know that Blanche is 10 years older then that.

I actually am alarmed by those who call Kirsten greedy- she was primarily upset because it appeared that her mother had mishandled her father's money, NOT that she wasn't getting a big enough inheritance. I enjoyed the actress who played the role in that episode too and would have preferred to see her back at a more recent time. I liked the actress who played Kirsten in Season 7, but the character's inconsistency's bothered me.
I much prefer season 1's Kirsten over season 7's. Part of that I guess is the inconsistency, as well; Kirsten loved Dorothy and Blanche when she met them, and she totally understood then why Rose wanted to live with them.


The biggest question is what happened to Dorothy's first child- it could not have been Kate or Michael given the timeline.
It was Kate. The timeline is just one of the many inconsistencies.


The Golden Girls Wiki says that the child was a girl whose name Kirsten Zbornack and that they had a fall out, but that is NEVER mentioned in the series at all. The actors who played her kids were all fine- I think the second actress who played Kate was more fitting for the role, but I personally prefer the first actress.
That is utter fiction. How the heck is that in a GG Wiki??


They should have stuck with the first actress for Gloria and used her more in the series.
I liked the first Gloria better, too. She's so obnoxious to Dorothy in Dorothy's bedroom at night asking Dorothy if she's sure she's not jealous of her over several things better in her own life (jeez, who asks that??), but her delivery is in such a way that we don't dislike her. Very interesting.

The book "Golden Girls Forever" quotes one of the writers or producers as saying they purposely did not have a show bible (!), because that gave writers the leeway to write anything they wanted for an episode. Well, I think that backfired big time. The biggest criticism of the show is its glaring inconsistencies, which makes the writers look sloppy in that respect. I know they didn't foresee DVD back then, but they had to know people were recording on VHS at home and would notice. Oh well, lol.

...
The biggest question is what happened to Dorothy's first child- it could not have been Kate or Michael given the timeline. Did Dorothy miscarry, but decide to stay with Stan anyway? That wouldn't be that shocking given her attachment to him throughout the series. The Golden Girls Wiki says that the child was a girl whose name Kirsten Zbornack and that they had a fall out, but that is NEVER mentioned in the series at all. The actors who played her kids were all fine- I think the second actress who played Kate was more fitting for the role, but I personally prefer the first actress.

They should have stuck with the first actress for Gloria and used her more in the series.

I've never read anything about a Kirsten Zbornak anywhere. If such a character did exist, why would she have the same name as Rose's most prominently mentioned child?
This is a lot like those sources that say Sophia's maiden name was "Grisanti." That or any other maiden name is never mentioned once during the series and I honestly have no idea where that particular name came from. Was it mentioned on Golden Palace?
At the very least, whoever has contributed to the Golden Girls Wikia has taken a lot of liberty when it comes to character history, especially the histories of Sophia and her relatives.
As for the actresses who played Gloria and Kirsten, I prefer the original in both cases and by far the original Kirsten.

There were quite a few inconsistencies on the span of the series. Not only with plot holes but errors in characters as well. Some reoccurring characters played 2 totally different roles.
Examples :
Sal plays the restaurant jester.
Frieda claxton plays Philomena
Angelo plays Sophia's pop
Miles plays Arnie Peterson earlier episode
Plumber Lou plays the coach
These to me are entertaining. I dont think the common audience that didnt know the show as well as we do would even notice these things. So it's fun to be able to point these out!

And as a previous poster mentioned, the 2 big daddy's was interesting. Murray died so I guess they had to find a replacement!

Hate that Miles started out as Arnie.

I read in another thread that the writers didn't keep a "bible" for the show and pretty much wrote what they wanted to, so they didn't pay attention to some details.

When watching "Ebbtide's Revenge." Dorothy asks Rose if she'd ever given a eulogy- we know that the "girls" tried helping Rose get over hear fear of public speaking, to deliver a eulogy for the Aunt Gretchen that she hated . :D