page_title: I Do, Adieu
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: I Do, Adieu / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: This photo with Shelley Long at the 1996 Cable ACE Awards. I was a Judge for Comedy at the time with my twin sister Jennie Frankel. The Awards were last presented in 1997.
context_page_description: "I Do, Adieu" is the fifth-season finale of the American television sitcom Cheers, written by Glen and Les Charles and directed by James Burrows. It originally aired on May 7, 1987 on NBC. During the fifth season, Sam Malone repeatedly proposes to Diane, and she refuses repeatedly until she accepts engagement in "Chambers vs. Malone". In the previous episode, "A House Is Not a Home", Sam and Diane bought a house together. Before this episode aired, Ted Danson decided to renew his contract with the show as Sam Malone, while Shelley Long decided to quit the series, which could conclude the on-and-off romance of "Sam and Diane" that went on for the first five years since 1982.
  In this episode, Diane is offered an opportunity to finish one of her novels. However, she must choose between her talents and her man, Sam. After she becomes persuaded into honing her talents, Diane leaves the job, the bar, the relationship, and the city behind for that. In the 1993 series finale, "One for the Road", Shelley Long makes her special guest appearance as Diane Chambers and the "Sam and Diane" story line is there resurfaced.
context_section_description: The producers intended Cheers to be a comedy about the bar itself, but, as Burrows claimed, the "Sam and Diane" romance predominated the show for five years and, as he hypothesized, would have made the bar more of a minor role and more irrelevant if Shelley Long had not left the show as Diane Chambers in this episode. With Long leaving the series, the producers made plans to revamp the show with the bar as a central setting, as originally intended, and then they credited Long's departure for saving the series from cancellation. After years of writing Sam as a "straight man", especially to Diane, the writers would transform Sam into becoming more "carefree" and a "goof-off" in season six. The creators, in February 1987, decided to find a female lead replacement whose hair is not blonde and who does not resemble Shelley Long. Brunette-haired Kirstie Alley debuts as Rebecca Howe in the next episode, "Home Is the Sailor" (1987).
  This episode was written by Glen and Les Charles and directed by James Burrows. On December 15, 1986, Shelley Long decided to leave Cheers as the regular character Diane Chambers, even though she and Ted "[had] done some really terrific work at Cheers", for her movie career and family, while Ted Danson signed a contract for the next season (1987–1988), which led producers, the Charles brothers and Burrows, to separate Sam and Diane. An idea to keep Sam in and write Diane out without risk of ruining the quality and losing viewers had been developed. Before Diane was written out by having her leave Boston for a writing career, some ideas were attempted and discarded, like Sam and Diane's child in the next season, as Sam would have been a single father, and another ideal man for Diane. Three endings were filmed, in part to attempt to keep the actual one a secret, and because it was possible that Long might decide to stay: 1) Sam and Diane become married; 2) Diane accepts an offer to finish a novel; 3) not revealed by the producers. The alternate ending in which Sam and Diane get married aired on May 27, 1998 as part of a 90-minute Fox special produced by the Paley Center called Behind the Laughs: The Untold Stories of Television's Favorite Comedies: A Museum of Television and Radio Special.
  Steve Giannelli is credited for his background appearance, and Walter Addison portrays the Justice of the Peace performing Sam and Diane's bar wedding.
caption: Shelley Long (pictured in 1996) makes her final appearance as Diane Chambers in this episode.
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