The cast of "Sunday Dinner"
Sunday Dinner was a CBS network sitcom, produced by Norman Lear (making it his return to television producing at the time).
The show first premiered on June 2, 1991. CBS was sure that Norman Lear's comeback would be successful and in the process, they moved summer reruns of Murder, She Wrote to 9 p.m. in order to air the show on Sunday nights at 8/7c alongside reruns of Lear's classic All in the Family (at 8:30/7:30c).
But after two weeks, both programs swapped time slots & neither the press or scheduling helped; the show only lasted six weeks, ending on July 7, 1991 after airing 6 episodes.
Plot
"Sunday Dinner" was about Ben Benedict, a widowed 50-something businessman in Long Island, New York who falls in love with a 26-year-old lawyer by the name of TT Fagori (Teri Hatcher).
The situation of Ben and TT's age difference was an issue in itself, but it also tackled other environmental and social issues in the way that Norman Lear's earlier shows did, with a dose of spirituality.
Ben's kids (who were all around TT's age) resented her involvement with their father, except for beloved son Kenneth (Patrick Breen), a real estate agent on the fast track, who seemed to root them on.
Others in the cast included Marian Mercer as Ben's sister Martha Benedict, who had been living with Ben's family since the death of his wife. Ben's daughters were airheaded Diana (Kari Lizer) and forthright intellectual Vicky (Martha Gehman), who was back living at home after her divorce, along with her cute young daughter Rachel (Shiri Appleby).
In every episode, some stressful confrontation or incident between TT and the Benedicts would occur and these situations were usually the result of Diana & Vicky's feeble attempts to undermine Ben & TT's romance.
They refused to get past the surface image of TT being "just another bimbo" who, despite being in a well-paying profession herself, may have only been after an older man for his money. At every situation's climax, TT would retreat to a private corner and address "The Chief", engaging in a one-sided talk with God about her issues.
Cast
- Robert Loggia as Ben Benedict
- Teri Hatcher as Thelma Todd "TT" Fagori
- Martha Gehman as Vicky Benedict
- Patrick Breen as Kenneth Benedict
- Kari Lizer as Diana Benedict
- Shiri Appleby as Rachel
- Marian Mercer as Martha Benedict