The Best of Designing Women
For a while,Designing Womencaptured some of the spirit of Hollywood's silkiest and smartest, Golden Age sophistication. Debuting in the fall of 1986, this half-hour sitcom--about four Atlanta belles who either owned or worked for an upscale interior design firm--seamlessly blended an understated glamour with razor-sharp dialogue, polished Southern grace, and a ripened female perspective--a sort of perfumed but unequivocal feminism for college-educated women over 30. The core cast of stage and film veterans--Delta Burke, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts, and Jean Smart--was unusually strong, and their characters' problems and conflicts were unique to adulthood rather than the protracted adolescence common among today's comedies. The five episodes on this disc represent some of the show's strongest material, including season two's "Killing All the Right People," which--for its time--was bold in introducing a character dying of AIDS complications. Also quite witty is "Reservations for Eight," in which the Georgia quartet and their lovers bicker over gender stereotypes.--Tom Keogh