Why did the "Living Dolls" spin-off fail

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I saw Leah Remini guest host The Wendy Williams Show the other day, and she at one point during the show, mentioned Living Dolls. The spin-off only lasted 12 episodes before ABC pulled the plug in December 1989. And from what I read on Wikipedia, the show was universally panned.

The basic plot, for Living Dolls, kind of sounds like to me, if you made The Facts of Life but placed the four main girls in the world of modeling. Michael Learned seemed to naturally be placed in the Mrs. Garrett role.

The show is probably best known now for giving Halle Berry one of her first big breaks on screen. And she herself, replaced Vivica A. Fox, who played her character in the backdoor pilot on Who's the Boss.

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I'm not going to going to post it here, but I just discovered that at least one full-length episode of Living Dolls has been uploaded on YouTube. The episode is the very last one entitled "Beauty and the Beat", and it has Marion Ross as Michael Learned's sister. Michael Learned has gone on record and said that had Living Dolls continued, then Marion Ross would've in all likelihood, replaced her full time.

[DJM77]

I watched the nine episodes of Living Dolls that Crackle has and I didn't think that the show was very good.

[thejasoomian]

Are they going for a Molly Ringwald type of character with Caroline? I don't remember watching this show.

[IllinoisTVFan]

I watched this show and actually liked it but then I was still young (I think I had just graduated high school). I was also pursuing a modeling career so I think that was part of it. I remember the episode on Who's the Boss and watched all of the Living Dolls episodes. I'm sure today would look at it as something different.

[gidgetgrape]

I remember watching this show and thinking it was boring because I had no interest in modeling. I was in school and the girls I knew who were interested in modeling were more interested in looking at themselves than a tv show about models.

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Originally Posted by DJM77

I watched the nine episodes of Living Dolls that Crackle has and I didn't think that the show was very good.

I never watched Living Dolls myself, I suppose that I was too young to have any recollection of it during its original run. But from what I cribbed off of the comments on YouTube, there's the opinion that the show was too much of a rehash of The Facts of Life. It isn't that surprising since Living Dolls was made by the same production company as The Facts of Life.

But none the less, Leah Remini's character, Charlie was the Jo archetype. Both Charlie and Jo were tough-talking street girls. Caroline, the redheaded girl on Living Dolls was a vain, conceited girl like Blair. Halle Berry's character Emily was essentially the Tootie of Living Dolls in that she was with all due respect, the token black girl. There really wasn't an obvious Natalie equivalent (i.e. a plump, wisecracking Jewish girl) since the fourth girl, Martha was also naïve like Tootie.

Marion Ross' character was basically the Beverly Ann to Michael Learned's Mrs. Garrett. Both were the den mother's sister who sometimes substituted as surrogate den mother.

But more directly, one reason why Living Dolls may have failed because it really wasn't that funny. And all though it was a show that was set in the world of modeling, you rarely if ever got to see the girls actually model outside of during the opening credits. Instead, they just walked around the house making wisecracks.

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Originally Posted by gidgetgrape

I remember watching this show and thinking it was boring because I had no interest in modeling. I was in school and the girls I knew who were interested in modeling were more interested in looking at themselves than a tv show about models.

I wonder if the idea for Living Dolls came out of the "Model Daughter" episode of Who's the Boss?, where Sam takes on a job as a teen model.

The next big prime-time scripted TV show about the world of modeling that I can think of is Models, Inc., which was a short-lived spin-off of Melrose Place.

[Novera]

This is one of those shows I vaguely remember, but after streaming video became common my face lit up at the theme song! I don't remember any plots from the show or even anything major about it, but I knew that song so clearly! I think the fact so much of it was forgettable is why it didn't last. The only thing I remember is a running gag about not eating donuts from the craft table at photoshoots, or something like that.

Apparently someone (can't remember who) told Halle Berry "Don't worry, you'll get an oscar some day" after she was upset the show got cancelled.

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A commercial featuring Alyssa Milano in character as Samantha Micelli promoting Living Dolls:


I do want to laugh when Alyssa says when describing Caroline, as being a girl that guys are crazy about, since that all but applied to her in real life. It also applied to Alyssa for real when she said that Caroline never had trouble getting guys to notice that she was alive.

And this commercial was made at the height of Alyssa Milano's attractiveness on Who's the Boss?, when her hair was thick, wavy, had a medium brown color, and was really long.

I wonder if one impetus behind the creation of Living Dolls was to put a pretty young girl like Alyssa Milano on Who's the Boss? that all of the teenage boys would obsess over but multiply that times four.

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ONE SEASON WONDERS: Living Dolls

Brief Pilot Review:

This pilot was full of exposition (as many are) but it was aided by the conceit of guest star Alyssa Milano writing an article on the agency. This also helped connect the two series as a backdoor pilot had already aired on Who's the Boss? the previous season. The downside is Milano is a pretty formidable presence and some of the introduction of the new characters was hindered by her story. We needed to see how the characters, particularly Leah Remini's Charlie, interacted with each other without a character who wasn't going to be a regular in the series.

The cast is strong here, filled with people who were big names like Michael Learned or would be big names like Halle Berry and Leah Remini. The three of them, along with Milano, definitely came off best in the pilot. The other characters, particularly Deborah Tucker's Caroline, were not as strong. The line readings from Tucker and Alison Elliott were pretty flat and in sharp contrast to a more dynamic performer like Remini. There's a scene late in the pilot without Remini, Learned or Milano and yikes - it is rough. If that was an indicator of what the series became, I can understand why it didn't last long.

What Went Wrong:

In the late 1980s, Who's the Boss? was a massive hit for ABC so it's no surprise that they tried to spin a show off of it. Of course, Living Dolls was one of those shows that was so loosely a spinoff that it's hard to call it that. None of the characters were ever seen on Boss before the backdoor pilot so it was ABC trying to capitalize on the success of Boss without actually hurting the momentum of it by taking away one of its characters. Living Dolls premiered directly after Boss on Tuesday nights but its permanent timeslot was a much more difficult Saturday slot where it was paired with Mr. Belvedere, a show on its last legs.

The series didn't make it to 1990 and was cancelled after 12 episodes and very low ratings. The night as a whole was a flop for ABC and one of their many failed attempts in the 80s and 90s to establish a foothold on Saturday nights. Critics, who were generally not huge fans of Boss, savaged this show. Some of the nicest comments were from the Washington Post, which called it "tolerable mediocrity." Of course, Halle Berry and Leah Remini went on to much bigger things. David Moscow, known at the time for his role in the movie Big, has been involved in theater as an actor and producer.

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Get ready for a blast from the past as we dive into the forgotten flop of 1989 - Living Dolls! Halle Berry, Leah Remini. This short-lived sitcom was supposed to be the next big thing, but it ended up being a major disappointment. From a lackluster premise to poor plot choices, we're exploring what REALLY went wrong with Living Dolls. Was it the writing, the acting, or something more? Join me as we revisit this failed hyped TV experiment and uncover the truth behind its failure.