Empty Nest
| Empty Nest | |
|---|---|
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| Created by | Susan Harris |
| Starring | Richard Mulligan Dinah Manoff Kristy McNichol David Leisure Park Overall Paul Provenza Lisa Rieffel Estelle Getty Marsha Warfield |
| Country of origin | USA |
| No. of episodes | 170 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 25 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | NBC |
| Release | October 8, 1988 – June 17, 1995 |
Empty Nest is a television sitcom that ran on NBC for seven seasons from 1988 to 1995. The series was created and executive produced by Susan Harris and distributed by Touchstone Television.
The show starred Richard Mulligan as pediatrician Harry Weston. Harry had three daughters, Carol (played by Dinah Manoff), Barbara (played by Kristy McNichol), and the rarely seen Emily (played by Lisa Rieffel). Their pet dog was Dreyfuss.
The story premise was that Carol and Barbara moved back home after the death of their mother, Libby. Emily was initially not seen in the show but became a regular for one season, after actress Kristy McNichol was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and her character Barbara was written out.
David Leisure, who had become famous in ads for Isuzu brand automobiles (see Joe Isuzu), played annoying neighbor Charlie Dietz. Park Overall played outspoken nurse Laverne Todd, who worked for Harry at the hospital. Later in the series, Harry and Laverne left the hospital to work at a clinic run by Maxine Douglas (Marsha Warfield).
Empty Nest was a spinoff of sorts from Harris' series The Golden Girls. In 1987, an episode of The Golden Girls, entitled "Empty Nest", introduced the Golden Girls' neighbours George and Renee Corliss (played by Paul Dooley and Rita Moreno) as potential leads in a spinoff series. The Corlisses, a middle-aged married couple enduring a marital upset, apparently excited few viewers, and the premise was revamped. However, also introduced in the scenes examining the problems of this couple was another neighbor who always dropped in unannounced. He was played by David Leisure, and, when Empty Nest appeared with Leisure still as the annoying neighbor, his continued presence seemed to serve as the link. (However, his character was also renamed, from Oliver in the original episode to Charlie in the series.)
In any event, Empty Nest was clearly set in the same Miami neighborhood as The Golden Girls, and some characters from each made occasional guest appearances on the other. Eventually Sophia Petrillo (played by Estelle Getty from The Golden Girls) joined Empty Nest as a regular for its final two seasons. Empty Nest spawned a spin-off of its own, Nurses, which ran for three seasons and was also produced by Harris.
The three series represented one of the few times in American television history that three shows from the same producer, all taking place in the same city and explicitly set up with the characters knowing each other from the very beginning, aired on the same network in one night. On at least two occasions, Harris wrote storylines which carried through all three series.