I seem to remember "Sally" being pregnant twice on the show and then there was no explanation of what happened to the baby. Does anyone know how they explained this?
shareThe first time Sally was pregnant was on the episode with Barbara McNair ... the last of the first season ... Susan St. James revealed in an interview at the time, that NBC ordered an extra episode and she had planned her pregnancy around the show's hiatus ... so it was written into the episode and then dropped for the second season .. no explanation, no reference. The second time Sally was pregnant was because St. James was ... this time they wrote it into the show, she had the child .. I don't ever remember them referring to the sex of the child .. both Sally and the child perished in the plane crash ... and the show became McMillan
shareI am so glad that I finally found this site and you all are talking about Sally's "pregnancies" on the show. I have been dumbfounded by this for ages and have never been able to get my questions answered. I saw the episode at the end of the first season and like the last person said. It was dropped at the second season and not referred to again....that time she was only pregnant a few months. Now, the second time she was pregnant, which I think was the 1975 season, she really got big...must have been 8 months pregnant (in real life too)....she was pregnant in at least 6 episodes. Then, there was one episode, where Mildred Natwick played her mother in law and said to Sally," and after just having had that beautiful baby boy unstairs".....so the baby is a boy and during the episode, Sally evens mentions that she had to get a babysitter. David Birney was in the episode too....However, the baby is never seen, heard and then disappears....I think there were episodes after the episode I just mentioned....and the baby is never mentioned again.......In "McMillan", after Sally died.....they always say that just Sally died....a baby is never mentioned.....
It is truly a mystery.....one that not even McMillan could solve.....How did they get away with just having a baby "disappear" . I know the show is about a husband and wife and the producers probably thought that the baby would just be a hinderance in the stories....but to just pretend that she was never pregnant??? To mention a baby once and then forget?? How in the world did the producers of the show ever get away with this??
I will always wonder why this was done....always.
Something tells me if this show was written by women we would not be having this discussion :)
sharesurprisingly imdb does not report that the show became "mcmillan" in its 6th and final season. the whole sally/baby thing was handled clumsily ,and having them killed in a plane crash did not fit the tone of the series. i think it would have been better to have mac retire as police commisioner and become a private eye, with the absence of st. james explained by saying she decided to become a stay at home mom and not get involved in mac's investigations. as a PI he could have traveled around on cases and not always be in SF.
sharesurprisingly imdb does not report that the show became "mcmillan" in its 6th and final season
Yes they did. Or maybe they added it after your post.
I had the chance to work with Michael Jackson who was as brilliant as they come.
Tommy Mottola
Yes, instead we'd be saying how bad the series became after the the baby grew up into a precocious but oh so lovable little kid. Puke.
shareI don't know why they even wrote a baby into the show they never did show the baby and after a while never talked about a baby either.
shareSusan Saint James was pregnant in real life so they decided to write the pregnancy into the shows. Chances are, they ran a focus group to see if people liked the idea of Sally and Mac with a child, and the answer was no. Or, the network decided they didn't want the to have kids after all.
I loved the first four seasons of the show, but they did more than a few changes to the show that defied explanation - like how she was pregnant at end of the first season, but no baby was even mentioned again (they could have just said she lost it and it would have added some drama tot he second season. Then the fourth season pregnancy that produced a baby boy with no name and is never discussed again after the first episode of the fifth season. OF course that is also the season where they moved house to the suburbs - one that looks exactly the same on the inside as the house in the city, except for an extra door and slightly different decor. I tried to watch the last season, but they botched the handling of Sally's death (it was a 10 second mention by Enright, not even my Mac) and Mac becomes a playboy again. Ugh!
I guess they either figured that the audience wasn't very bright, or the network and/or the producers didn't care about continuity. It's too bad because it was a really fun show to watch for a few years.
I think back then, they figured that the series would rerun during the summer and that would be it. Also, the fact that the writers and producers assumed viewers had a short memory or if you just glossed right over it, people would not notice and be distracted.
I had read somewhere that Susan Saint James had a contractual dispute with the producers and this may have explained how on certain seasons and episodes, her character does not seem to be as involved with the story line. It was probably acrimonious if they killed off her character, so that there was no way the character of Sally would be able to come back. I thought the appeal of the show was the chemistry between Mac and Sally and their banter.
TV producers still didn't get it, even back then.
I've been catching McMillan and Wife here and there on Cozi Tv. Just saw that episode where Enright mentions Sally's death. It's the one where Jessica Walter plays McMillan's new girlfriend. Enright says it's been 8 months since Sally died in a plane crash and how he hadn't thought Mac would ever get past it. Seems like he got past it just fine! No mention of a baby either.
But last week they showed a later episode where he was having an affair with Stefanie Powers. Since I had just seen an episode the day before where Sally was kidnapped I was really confused! They had a bunch of "flashbacks" that showed how loving he was and how scared he was that he'd never get his wife back. Didn't even know she had died on the show! Here I was expecting a big catfight between the two women! haha Then he really does lose his wife (and some mystery baby) and he's suddenly a player again...smh
The people you idolize wouldn't like you.
It was 18 months, not 8.
shareWhen Sally was killed, they should have kept the baby. They could have retitled the show "McMillan and Baby", and the baby could have helped Mac solve crimes, the same way that Sally used to.
share"McMillan and Baby"... Brilliant. LOL I love it.
http://yetanothertvreviewpodcast.blogspot.com/share
"One Man and a Smart Baby" Haha
I'm so grateful for this thread. I kept seeing reruns with Sally pregnant and I kept wondering why I didn't remember anyone saying what had become of the baby. I didn't remember if she was supposed to have miscarried or not.
They definitely made a mistake letting Susan Saint James go. Choose your show or choose to be cheap. It was sad to see the show fade away.
I do remember one of the episodes - it was the first one of the season - Sally suffered a miscarriage and lost the baby. It seemed to me that it was in the opening scene that she was being rushed by ambulance to the emergency room. I do remember that very well. Mac was really concerned about her.
shareYou're thinking of the last episode of the first season. It does indeed open with her being rushed to hospital, but she doesn't suffer a miscarriage. Mac was really concerned alright, that's correct, but they established that mother and baby were 100% fine.
http://yetanothertvreviewpodcast.blogspot.com/share
What is really ironic is that one of her sons really died in a plane crash.
shareI was just wondering the same thing! I just started watching this show via Netflix and really want to buy the whole series. I just watched the episode where she was pregnant and saw another one from season 3 (on youtube) and there was no mention of a baby at all! I thought, well, they're keeping that kid quiet. The producers could have just hidden the pregnancy, like they do on a million other shows or they could have bitten the bullet and just given them a baby. They'd only have to show him/her a couple of scenes or at least mention him/her once or twice. It's not like they'd have to take the kid out on a case or anything.
Now I'm kind of bummed to learn that Sally dies and Mac's on the make during the last season. Not sure if I want to buy the series now, but I prob will anyway! I like the show - just like I'm growing to love "hart to hart".
Now I'm kind of bummed to learn that Sally dies and Mac's on the make during the last season. Not sure if I want to buy the series now, but I prob will anyway! I like the show - just like I'm growing to love "hart to hart".
I just stopped by this mb to see if there is a thread about this. I am now watching the reruns and they are showing the episodes with Sally being pregnant and I've always wondered (then and now) about Sally's pregnancies. The one that I watched last night had a very pregnant Sally playing tennis with Stephanie Powers' character. Thanks for the explanation.
shareI have been watching reruns and I don't think they are in order. Yep....she is pregnant...don't see a show when she has it but then there is a baby....don't know sex,name or anything. The kid is upstairs all the time and they hardly ever talk about it. Next show...no baby so I figured it was not in order.
They handled the baby business very badly. She was really pregnant so they either should have shot scenes before she showed or hide most of her when she did.
I had the chance to work with Michael Jackson who was as brilliant as they come.
Tommy Mottola
Agree with everyone: The whole baby issue was very badly handled, especially when the series became simply "McMillan" and Mac was enthusiastically playing the field just 8 months after his wife and child's deaths. The producers should have paid Susan St. James and Nancy Walker the moon to stay with the series, because it just plain sucked after they left. Rock Hudson and St. James had such good chemistry.
Another inconsistency throughout the show(s) was Mac's smoking. First he smoked, then in a number of episodes he said he didn't smoke. And then with "McMillan" he was puffing away like a demon. Ugh.
Well, every show has inconsistencies but no show had inconsistencies like McMillan & Wife.
The reason the first pregnancy was dropped because Rock Hudson objected to it and didn't want it in the story. They never do say what happened to that first pregnancy.
The second time, he sort of got his way because once she had the baby, it disappeared.
It was a boy.
Rock Hudson apparently didn't get along all that well with Susan St. James. He was livid when she got pregnant and even more livid when she brought the baby on the set and nursed.
Mildred left to run a diner - which was an in-joke because she was Rosie in the paper towel commercials.
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