During the last season, after Renée Taylor lost all the weight, there seemed to be a bit of coldness or distance between her and Fran Drescher. They no longer looked like a real mother and daughter on camera but like a couple of actors portraying characters. It was also around the last season, that the show suddenly verged into soap territory. Fran thinks she has a miscarriage, Sylvia has an affair, and a really random Christmas episode where Fran thinks Max died because he didn’t come home?

During the last season, after Renée Taylor lost all the weight, there seemed to be a bit of coldness or distance between her and Fran Drescher. They no longer looked like a real mother and daughter on camera but like a couple of actors portraying characters. It was also around the last season, that the show suddenly verged into soap territory. Fran thinks she has a miscarriage, Sylvia has an affair, and a really random Christmas episode where Fran thinks Max died because he didn’t come home?

I would argue the show was "flirting" with soap territory as early as when Max told Fran he loved her and took it back, and her obsession with that became an arc. And by season 5 you had Fran's rash; Max's amnesia; CC's breakdown; Max's mugging; and Max and Fran's near break-up over past lovers; Max about to be broke because of his father's will (which didn't make much sense given that there had been no indication before that Max's money was really his father's. Max and CC were always sucking up to investors for their plays - but never needed money from family. It might have been inherited originally - but they always seemed to have control of the money, until that episode.)

And the fact that the same people went back and forth for seasons (Fran and Max, Niles and CC) is more typical of dramas versus comedies where there are often new dates every week.

As for Sylvia...again, I always talk about this, but they really eroded the contrast between Fran and CC here...we were shown CC's family being cold and neglectful, and Fran was supposed to be the warm one, but in season 5 she was in therapy and her therapist decided her relationship with Max was like that with her father (i.e., both were distant.) And it seems like Fran's obsession with getting married had to come partially from Sylvia's pushiness about it (which started fairly early on, it seems to me). Sylvia at one time pointed out to Fran that the person robbing them wasn't wearing a ring! And she (and Fran) were obsessed with the husband being wealthy...even though Fran told CC what a snob she was for turning Niles down "because he's not rich."

I almost feel like there are a few different canons or series' within the six years. The first year or two are The Sound of Music plot...Fran injecting warmth and life into the household, (although she's inconsistent, I think, in her devotion - there are episodes where she plans to move out and such) but starting around seasons 4 and 5 you have the saga of the undefined relationship between Fran and Max where Fran becomes, frankly, very desperate, insecure, and clingy...and has some really mean and/or dishonest moments...not at all the bubbly person who was "what the doctor prescribed." And screws up in ways that seem to be serious reasons for Max to question whether they should be together...although they don't seem to be Max's reasons.

And Max changes from just "not ready to move on from grieving to a relationship" to borderline-playboy and not very good at relationships.

And CC becomes more sympathetic (she looks like a stronger woman than Fran in many episodes, actually) and the show becomes more soap-opera-like and wacky in season 5. And then there were actually two different canons within season 6 - one with Maternal Affairs, The Producers, The Dummy Twins, Yetta's Letter's Maggie's Wedding, and The Baby Shower. In the finale, although Niles and CC are together, there are inconsistencies compared to the arc with The Dummy Twins, Yetta's Letters, Maggie's Wedding, and The Baby Shower, which are about how they got together and the happy days of their early relationship.

Now, I seem to remember reading somewhere that the ending to the series was not what Fran Drescher wanted...she was not in favor of Max and Fran getting together! I did not read / watch in detail what she would have preferred, but from what I know (admittedly not that much) about the "real" Fran Drescher (always in quotes for a celebrity's public persona) I suspect she would have preferred to continue with a spunkier, more independent Fran, and /or have Fran overcome the obsession about being married?

(Daniel Davis didn't think Niles and CC should get together, either. Now, I think there are flaws in how their relationship is written, but I do NOT feel their attraction "came out of nowhere" as some have said.)