MovieChat Forums > Empty Nest (1988) Discussion > its strange, I watched this most of the ...

its strange, I watched this most of the time it was on the air...


and I cant remember what any of the storylines for any of the episodes were!

I just remember watching this cuz GOLDEN GIRLS was on before it

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Its funny. I was thinking of The Golden Girls show today and it made me remember Empty Nest.
I also do NOT remember any episodes, even though I think I watched the entire series. How weird!!

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I can pretty much say the exact same thing. As a child of the 90's I watched this show pretty religiously mostly because of Golden Girls. In fact if you remember Estelle Getty's Sophia Petrillo joined the cast of Empty Next as a series regular for it's final few seasons. Even with GG off the air they were still trying to capitolize off it's popularity.

I do recall some of the basics: Harry Weston was a pediatrician, Carol had the catering business called the Elegant Epicure (?) if I recall, Barbara was a cop, Larry worked on a cruise ship (?) and was constantly eating food out of the Weston's refrigerator, Laverne had a great Arkansas/East Texas accent and could make anything sound funny. But if you were to ask me plot points or episode details I just couldn't do it.

Golden Girls is and remains one of the greatest sitcoms ever produced. Empty Next however has just faded into the deep recesses of my memory. It wasn't a bad show. Certainly not. Just not as memorable as GG.

"I'm nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday."

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Golden Girls is and remains one of the greatest sitcoms ever produced. Empty Nest however has just faded into the deep recesses of my memory. It wasn't a bad show. Certainly not. Just not as memorable as GG.

Not a fair comparison. The Golden Girls has been in constant syndication, and its re-runs have been played millions of times over the years. This keeps things "fresh" in our collective memory. For some odd reason, Empty Nest rarely went into syndication, so we did not see re-runs played over and over, as with many other shows. So, effectively, the show was simply stored away to collect dust. It was (is) never really "out there" for public consumption, so it drops off our radar. Hence, of course, it is not as "memorable".

Larry worked on a cruise ship (?) and was constantly eating food out of the Weston's refrigerator.

His name was Charley. Charley Dietz.

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It's because the Golden Girls was such an excellent quality show that it has stayed in constant syndication. It's up there with shows like Seinfeld, Cheers, All in the Family, in that they've never been taken off of the air. In fact, it is the only show from that powerhouse NBC Saturday night lineup that stayed in constant syndication. 227, Amen, and Empty Nest pop up here and there over the years. They were nice shows but they don't compare in quality to The Golden Girls. With Empty Nest in particular, a channel would show the reruns for a little while but the ratings were low. I'm glad it's back on the air now on a small channel (Laff) so it should stay on for a long while. I used to watch it every Saturday as a kid and it brings back nice memories.

George Carlin: It's all bullsh-t and it's bad for ya.

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I don't disagree that The Golden Girls was an excellent show. No doubt about it.

But, the fact that it is constantly in syndication keeps it in our memories and unlikely to drop from our radar. The same cannot be said of other shows, also excellent, but not replayed in constant syndication.

When a show goes "MIA" for many, many years (nearly 30 years in the case of Empty Nest), that show is not afforded the same opportunity to remain in our collective consciousness.

Also, don't forget, some of these shows are rerun in syndication today, but were actually produced years -- if not, decades -- before. What that means is that the old shows (if they are rerun in syndication) have the opportunity and the ability to collect new fans from the younger generations who had never seen the show in original airings so many years ago.

So, for example, The Golden Girls can easily pick up new fans who see it now in syndication, but who had never seen it in its original airing back in 1985 (for whatever reason). That was 30 years ago! Some of these new fans were probably not even born at that time. Even though for older fans like me, it seems like yesterday that I was watching The Golden Girls in original airings on TV.

Other excellent shows -- such as the ones you mentioned and many more -- do not get that opportunity to attract a new audience via syndication and/or DVD releases.

Actually, all of those shows that you mention (Amen, 227, and Empty Nest) were absolutely great! I loved them all. And I miss seeing them, after all these many years.

So, it's really a "chicken and egg" thing. Does the syndicated show stay in syndicated reruns because it has a lot of fans? Or does it have a lot of fans because it is indeed in syndication?

As far as the second question, a lot of shows don't get that opportunity, unfortunately. And Empty Nest was/is one of them.

Nonetheless, it's a great show. It's one of only two shows (Empty Nest and The King of Queens) for which I would ever go out and purchase a DVD set. I did so for The King of Queens, but Empty Nest was never released in DVD.

You are right, though. It (Empty Nest) does pop up in syndication now and again. Pretty rarely, though. And it had not done so in many years. It is now on Laff-TV, however. So, that's a good thing.

I also had no luck finding it on You Tube. But quite a few episodes were on another channel (website) similar to You Tube called "The Daily Motion".

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I also grew up watching this and forgot almost all storylines. I found it on the Laff channel a few months ago and that was my first time watching it since 95. Golden Girls has been shown more over the years.

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This show is going on 30 years old. So, it's been quite a while.

And the show went "dark" for many/most of that 30 years.

That's why we can't remember the specific story lines.

Only very recently has the show been "unlocked" and accessible again.

I tried for YEARS to watch it. I had no luck at all.

Until maybe a few months ago.

So, for like 25+ years, it was never "out there" for us to consume.

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You need to stop repeating this. Where I live there were Empty Nest reruns throughout the 90s and even after 2000, yet I don't recall a single storyline except that the eldest daughter had a child at some point.

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I remember the one where the doctor dated someone and by the end of the episode it didn't work out. Also, the one where the sisters fought over something.

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I remember the one where the doctor dated someone and by the end of the episode it didn't work out.

In other words ... every single episode?

I remember ... the one where the sisters fought over something.

In other words ... every single episode?

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Duh, that was the joke.

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For me it was 227 that I had the same 'forgetfulness' about. I used to watch 227 every week and now that it's on OWN I don't remember hardly any of the episodes. I didn't remember Paul Winfield ever being a regular as the landlord when Rose left.

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Strangely, I remember a lot of details after two decades of not watching this show.

1: A boy was mad at Harry for diagnosing him with diabetes.
2: Laverne once randomly asked why there were no letters after Z. I found that weird when I was a kid, since we've got three letters after Z in Swedish.
3: Carole's boyfriend was the first person, whom I saw wearing jeans with holes over the knees.
4: Said boyfriend just left Carole for her sister Emily.
5: Of course, Carole had gotten pregnant before the jerk left her. She did a pregnancy on the kitchen table, which Harry found disgusting.
6: After the baby had arrived, Carole believed that he was allergic to Dreyfus. He wasnt, luckily.
7: During the final season, they decided to add a black female doctor to the fast. And I remember her name after all these years: Maxine Douglas.

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I watched this too and now can't recall a single episode. I love all those actors--longtime crush on Kristy McNichol from Family, loved Dinah Manoff in Grease and Ordinary People and other character parts, and really admired Richard Mulligan from Little Big Man, SOB, and his Emmy-winning role on Soap which required him to shuttle back and forth from uproarious farce one minute to serious drama the next. Yet the writing on Empty Nest just isn't up to that of The Golden Girls or Susan Harris' other shows.

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A lot of shows were like that back then. They finish and you've already forgotten what happened.

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