Chuck Lorre’s first strike…
Chuck Lorre is one of the most successful showrunners in US television history. Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Grace Under Fire, Dharma and Greg, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, Mom, Young Sheldon, The Kominsky Method and Bob Hearts Abishola. Chuck Lorre has created them all. Of the 12 sitcoms that he has overseen the creation of, only two have failed to make it past one season. One of these was his recent sitcom Disjointed, in which Kathy Bates plays a character who opens a cannabis dispensary. First airing on 25th August 2017, Netflix cancelled the show after 20 episodes on 14th February 2018 after mixed to negative critical reviews. To find the other short-lived Chuck Lorre sitcom, you have to go back to Chuck Lorre’s first sitcom creation, a show called Frannie’s Turn.
The year was 1992, and 39-year-old Chuck Lorre had spent the previous 8 years as a TV writer. Between 1984 and 1988, he had written episodes for several animated programmes including Pole Position, M.A.S.K., Muppet Babies, MoonDreamers, Defenders of the Earth and The New Adventures of Billy and Cecil. He had also co-written the classic theme tune to the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. In 1987, Lorre transitioned to sitcom writing beginning with Charles in Charge. He later wrote for My Two Dads from 1987 and 1990 and later Roseanne from 1990 to 1992.
In 1992, during the fourth season of Roseanne, Lorre was approached to oversee his own sitcom about a working-class family. This new sitcom would start airing on the CBS network in September 1992. The show, named Frannie’s Turn, would air its first episode on Saturday 13th September 1992 at 8:00pm on CBS. Frannie’s Turn would be the latest in a string of sitcoms that CBS had aired in the Saturday 8pm timeslot, following in the footsteps of Billy, Capitol Critters, The Family Man, You Take The Kids and the TV adaptation of Uncle Buck. Following these numerous failures, Chuck Lorre and CBS would be hoping that Frannie’s Turn would break the network’s recent creative rut.
As well as being the creator of Frannie’s Turn, Chuck Lorre also served as the show’s sole writer and as an executive producer. He would be joined on the production team by Caryn Mandabach, Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, who would produce the show under their Carsey-Werner Productions label. Carsey, Werner and Mandabach would produce Frannie’s Turn at the same time that they were working on fellow sitcoms A Different World and Roseanne.
What was the plot of Frannie’s Turn? The official description on Carsey-Werner’s website reads as follows: ‘Frannie Escobar is a homemaker whose life is making her crazy. But with laughter, wisdom and plenty of heart, Frannie copes with the ups and downs of everyday life with her cantankerous Cuban husband Joey, his eccentric mother, their dim-witted son and headstrong daughter. In a house where the sexes battle, the cultures clash and the generation gap is unbridged, life is lively, unpredictable and always entertaining’. (Carsey-Werner.Net, 2000)
The show starred notable British actress Miriam Margolyes as Frannie Escobar, Tomas Milian (The Big Gundown) as her husband Joseph, Stivi Paskoski (Video Power’s Johnny Arcade) as her son Eddie, Phoebe Augustine (Twin Peaks‘ Ronette Pulaski) as her daughter Olivia, and Alice Drummond (the librarian from the beginning of Ghostbusters) as her mother-in-law Rosa. The show would also feature recurring appearances from Taylor Negron as Armando and LaTanya Richardson as Vivian and notable guest appearances from Anthony Tyler Quinn and Dan Butler. Quinn and Butler would soon become recognised for their roles as Jonathan Turner on Boy Meets World and Bob ‘Bulldog’ Briscoe on Frasier, respectively.
After airing its first episode on 12th September 1992, Frannie’s Turn would last just 5 episodes before being cancelled on 10th October 1992, with one episode remaining unaired. According to a Los Angeles Times article from 5th October 1992, “CBS…was unhappy with the performance of the entire Saturday prime-time lineup and were considering making changes. Representatives of the comedy series “Frannie’s Turn” reported later in the week that CBS had told them the show was in danger of cancellation if its ratings didn’t improve this past weekend.” (Sharon Bernstein, Los Angeles Times, 5th October 1992). The series would be cancelled by CBS 5 days later.
It may not have been difficult for CBS to cancel the show, considering that the network ended the 1992-93 television season as the top-rated network according to Nielsen. Comparatively, Frannie’s Turn finished as the lowest-rated of CBS’s programming for this season, rating 50th out of 53 among sitcoms and 125th out of 138 programmes overall. Only Flying Blind (with Corey Parker and Tea Leoni), Woops! (with Evan Handler and Meagen Fay) and Great Scott! (with Tobey Maguire and Kevin Connolly) prevented Frannie’s Turn from being the lowest-rated sitcom of the season.
Frannie’s Turn currently holds a 5.9/10 rating on IMDb from 15 user reviews and holds a 40% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The critical consensus reads “A strong leading role from Miriam Margoyles can’t hide the lack of laughs and innovation in Frannie’s Turn.” (Rotten Tomatoes) Reviewing the series pilot episode, Variety‘s Jean Rosenbluth wrote “As long as it’s Frannie’s turn, this new sitcom…glides along appealingly, propelled by actress Miriam Margolyes’ sympathetic portrayal of a fed-up housewife and professional seamstress…But whenever any other character gets the spotlight, the show unravels, falling apart…as quickly as a “Gucci” or a “Rolex” bought on one of the street corners in New York’s Garment District where Frannie supposedly works.” (Variety, 11th September 1992).
A more negative review came from John Voorhees of the Seattle Times who wrote that “CBS’ “Frannie’s Turn” sitcom is stupefyingly bad – terribly acted, stupidly written. One wonders the sanity of whoever at CBS gave the green light for this mess”, putting it on his ‘Shows To Avoid’ list. (Seattle Times, 10th September 1992) Comparatively, The Hartford Courant‘s James Endrst described Frannie’s Turn as ‘Roseanne‘ meets ‘Brooklyn Bridge‘ (a sitcom featuring a Polish-American family) before writing “Another solid piece of work from producers Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner (“Roseanne,” “The Cosby Show”) with a strong character and star at its centre.” (The Hartford Courant, 6th September 1992)
Unfortunately, I was unable to watch any episodes of Frannie’s Turn for this article. The show is currently unavailable on any streaming service in either the UK or the USA. Unlike Townies or The Big House, no one has yet made any of the series’ six episodes available on sites such as YouTube or Dailymotion. Aside from episode descriptions and promotional imagery, the only video evidence that Frannie’s Turn existed is a 10-second promo for the show from 1992 that has since been uploaded to YouTube. The promo shows one short joke from the show before advertising the airdate of the upcoming episode. You can see this promo below:
Frannie’s Turn is yet to receive a DVD or Blu-Ray release in the UK or the USA despite airing over 25 years ago. However, if you are eager, you can buy a DVD for $8 from Pakistan. The creators of Frannie’s Turn have not forgotten it. The show is featured on Carsey-Werner’s official website http://www.carsey-werner.com, where you can see photos, episode plots and information on where the show is currently airing. The show is currently not airing anywhere as far as the website is aware. Whether it be executives at CBS, Carsey-Werner, Chuck Lorre or any member of the cast, this show has, for the most part, not seen the light of day since the 1990s.
Frannie’s Turn has received mention in various pieces/interviews with Chuck Lorre over the years. However, it is often seen as a footnote in his career compared to the vast successes that would arrive later. It is Lorre’s ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ to his ‘Romancing the Stone’ or ‘Back to the Future’ if you understand that reference. That is what Frannie’s Turn is. It is the false start for Chuck Lorre’s before he properly begins his career with another sitcom about a woman of a certain age. A show that premieres one year later. A show called Grace Under Fire that would end its first season as one of the top 10 most-watched shows in America. The rest is history.
forgotten-media.com 