Perfect Strangers

Plot synopsis:
=== Development ===
The series was the brainchild of Dale McRaven (co-creator of Mork & Mindy) and producers Tom Miller and Robert Boyett. Miller claimed that the series' inspiration came in the wake of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, when America experienced a wave of renewed patriotic sentiment. Their idea for a comedy about an immigrant in America was initially rejected by all three major commercial television networks operating in the U.S. at the time (ABC, CBS and NBC).
In December 1984, Bronson Pinchot garnered notice for his role in Beverly Hills Cop as Serge, an effeminate art-gallery employee with an unplaceable foreign accent. When Miller and company pitched Pinchot as the star of their immigrant show, ABC signed on to the project, originally entitled The Greenhorn. By this time, however, Pinchot had become unavailable, as he had taken the role of a gay attorney in the NBC series Sara alongside star Geena Davis.
Sara failed to find an audience, and was canceled by May 1985. With Pinchot now available, Miller and Boyett began to develop the show in earnest. By November, comedian Louie Anderson was cast as the immigrant's American cousin. A pilot episode was put into production, but in the end Anderson was not considered right for the role.
Development was placed into overdrive when ABC President Brandon Stoddard offered the producers a prime tryout slot for the spring of 1986 between the hit shows Who's The Boss? and Moonlighting on Tuesday nights. After running through several actors for the part of Balki's cousin, the producers settled on Mark Linn-Baker, whom they had recently seen in a guest appearance on Moonlighting. Linn-Baker displayed immediate chemistry with Pinchot, and the series raced into production under the new title Perfect Strangers. It premiered on ABC on March 25, 1986.
=== Season 1 (1986) ===
The series commences with Larry living alone in an apartment in Chicago. In the pilot episode, Balki unexpectedly shows up at Larry's door claiming to be his distant cousin. Balki joined Larry as a clerk at the Ritz Discount Store, located on the ground level of their apartment building. Their boss is Donald "Twinkie" Twinkacetti (Ernie Sabella), an unscrupulous miser who is also their landlord. Twinkacetti's incessant berating of his two employees (he calls Balki "Turnip" and Larry "Yo-Yo") is occasionally alleviated by his wife Edwina (Belita Moreno). In the first season, upstairs neighbor Susan Campbell (Lise Cutter) is Larry's platonic friend.
Airing in the coveted timeslot between Who's The Boss? and Moonlighting, Perfect Strangers was an instant ratings hit in the spring of 1986, landing in the season's top 10 highest-rated shows.
=== Season 2 (1986–87) ===
For its second season, Perfect Strangers was moved to Wednesday nights at 8:00 p.m. as a lead-in to the new ABC sitcom Head of the Class.
Susan's character was phased out early in this season. Larry began dating Jennifer Lyons (Melanie Wilson) and Balki began dating Mary Anne Spencer (Rebeca Arthur), after meeting them through a local gym. In later episodes, we learn that both women are flight attendants who live in Larry and Balki's building.
=== Season 3 (1987–88) ===
The start of season 3 in fall 1987 found Larry and Balki in a new, larger apartment where Balki had his own room instead of sleeping on a fold-out sofa. External shots clearly depict a new apartment building. According to season 6, episode 13, Larry and Balki's address is 711 Coldwell Street, Apt #209, Chicago, Illinois. The characters never made reference to the move, and Jennifer and Mary Anne were still co-tenants in the new surroundings.
Larry acquires a reporter job working out of the basement of the Chicago Chronicle, a fictional metropolitan newspaper, and helps Balki get a mail room job. They are overseen by demanding city editor Harry Burns (Eugene Roche). Burns is phased out of the show by the end of season 3; by the 5th season, the paper's publisher, Mr. Wainwright (F.J. O'Neill), takes over as Larry and Balki's boss, appearing through season 7. Balki's immediate supervisor is mail room head Sam Gorpley (Sam Anderson who had portrayed a bank clerk in the season one episode "Check This" in which Balki opens his first bank account), who never warms to "the Mypiot" and constantly plots to get Balki fired. Lydia Markham is the Chronicle's thin-skinned, multi-phobic advice columnist; she's played by Belita Moreno, who had previously played Edwina Twinkacetti. Although Larry physically remains at his typewriter in the basement, he joins the investigative team of Marshall & Walpole (loosely-based on the famed Washington Post duo of Woodward and Bernstein) in season 4. Larry's relationship with Jennifer matures as well.
Working as an elevator operator is Harriette Winslow (Jo Marie Payton-France). Her husband Carl (Reginald VelJohnson) is introduced in the 4th-season episode "Crimebusters", in which the couple moves into Larry and Balki's apartment building.
In March 1988, midway through the season, ABC moved Perfect Strangers from its successful Wednesday-night slot to Friday nights at 8:00 p.m. before Full House. This was a key development in the formation of the ABC Friday-night comedy block that would later become known as TGIF. Later moving to the 9/8c slot on Friday nights in the fall of 1989, Perfect Strangers would remain an anchor of ABC's Friday-night programming until it was unsuccessfully moved to Saturday nights in February 1992.
=== Seasons 4–6 (1988–91) ===
In the fall of 1989, after two seasons on Perfect Strangers, Harriette's character was given her own spin-off series, Family Matters. Joining Perfect Strangers in the TGIF lineup, Family Matters would eventually run longer than its parent show. Harriette was not seen again on Perfect Strangers, although an early Family Matters episode explained that she had been fired as the elevator operator, only to be re-hired as chief of security at the Chronicle. Carl became a main character on Family Matters.
Shortly after the sixth season opened, the producers attempted to add a child character to the show. Tess Holland, as played by Alisan Porter (who had starred on ABC's short-lived Chicken Soup the previous fall), was introduced as the troublemaking-but-immensely-cute little girl who lived upstairs from Larry and Balki. Tess appeared in the season's second episode, "New Kid on the Block", when Balki agrees to babysit her, causing an uproar both at home and at the Chronicle. While Porter was supposed to be on full-time, and even credited in the opening title sequence of the episode, she was suddenly dropped, never to be seen again. The experiment of adding a child to the cast was partially influenced by the network as well, since ABC's TGIF lineup was wishing to incorporate the child-and-preteen demographic into its audience. While the content of Perfect Strangers could often appeal to the family as a whole, it had never had children in the regular cast. A similar infusion happened a few months later on sister show Going Places, which had also started with a more adult tone.
While Larry and Jennifer's romance blossomed, Balki and Mary Anne's relationship moved more slowly: the pair would get very close, but then back off after fleeting moments of passion, then drift back into affection. Many viewers' predictions came true in the spring of 1991 when Larry proposed to Jennifer, after feeling competition from her old flame who was trying to woo her back. Jennifer accepted, and they started planning a wedding. As the 1990–91 season closed, it was clear that despite Larry's impending marriage, he and Balki's relationship would somehow remain a focal point of the show.
=== Season 7 (1991–92) ===
At season seven's beginning in September 1991, Larry and Jennifer's marriage meant that Perfect Strangers would move in a different direction. Larry and Jennifer buy a large Victorian house, then discover that they cannot afford it without additional roommates: Balki and Mary Anne. At midseason, Balki receives a promotion at the Chronicle, drawing a weekly comic strip based on his stuffed sheep, Dimitri. Gorpley and Lydia make occasional appearances throughout the season, but are gradually phased out as they have little relevance to Larry and Balki's new career paths.
With Larry and Jennifer happily married, the series turns toward Balki and Mary Anne's relationship. In the season's last several episodes, Mary Anne stops seeing Balki and moves out of the house. In the April 1992 season finale, Balki and Mary Anne resolve their differences and suddenly marry; the episode and season conclude with the two couples on their way to an extended honeymoon in Mypos—and with Jennifer telling Larry that they are expecting.
=== Season 8 (1993) ===
The first episode of season eight picked up several months after the end of season seven, by which time Jennifer is visibly pregnant. Balki and Mary Anne returned from Mypos, revealing that Mary Anne was also well into a pregnancy. For the eighth season, the Chronicle storylines were phased out, with the series shifting its full attention to the home life of the characters. The series ended with a two-part episode "Up In The Air", with each heralding the birth of a baby (first Robespierre, son of Balki and Mary Anne, and then Tucker, son of Larry and Jennifer). The last scene segues in and out of a musical montage of memorable scenes from the series to the tune of "Unforgettable" by Nat King Cole. The closing credits showed the cast bowing before the studio audience, with co-stars Pinchot and Linn-Baker doing the "Dance of Joy" one last time.

Tags: neo noir, murder

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