Information AboutSuddenly Susan |
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''Suddenly Susan'' 1997 promotional Emmy advertisement.]] ''Suddenly Susan'' was an American Sitcom broadcast on NBC from 1996 to 2000 . ''Suddenly Susan'''s headlining star was Brooke Shields , who got the show after a guest appearance on '' Friends '' in the episode " The One After The Superbowl ". ''Suddenly Susan'' takes place at ''The Gate'', a fictitious Magazine which is based in San Francisco . Among the magazine's employees is Susan Keane (played by Brooke Shields ), who always has been cared for by someone else. However, when she realizes that she and her wealthy, vain fiancé, Kip, are not meant for each other and that there’s more to life than just being known as the "s" in "The Kip Richmonds", she abruptly leaves him at the altar...and now she’s suddenly just Susan. Susan's boss, Jack Richmond (played by Judd Nelson ), the rebellious brother of Susan's former fiancé, Kip, assigns Susan to write a regular column about being suddenly single. Susan's coworkers include photographer Luis Rivera (played by Nestor Carbonell ), music critic Todd Stites (played by David Strickland ), restaurant critic Vicki Groener (played by Kathy Griffin ) and investigative reporter Maddy Piper (played by Andréa Bendewald ). Susan's grandmother and confidant, Nana (played by Barbara Barrie ), stands as a loving pillar of encouragement in Susan's otherwise hectic life. Besides the task of putting together a magazine and focusing on the lead character's life, ''Suddenly Susan'' also focuses on the private lives of many employees in the show. ORIGINAL PILOT In the shows original pilot, Susan worked at a publishing house editing childrens books. After breaking up with her live-in boyfriend Ted (played by Brian McNamara ), Susan finds herself "single" for the first time in years. Concurrently, Susan faces even greater challenges at work when her boss Eric (played by Philip Casnoff ) assigns her the task of working as an editor with Charlotte (played by Elizabeth Ashley ), a hugely successful and highly opinionated romance novelist. Thankfully, always on hand to provide support is Susan's grandmother, Nana (played by Nancy Marchand ), her co-workers; acerbic best friend Marcy (played by Maggie Wheeler ) and Neil (played by David Krumholtz ), who has a crush on Susan. The main office set redeemed most of its features when it became ''The Gate'' in the show, however the major difference was that the elevator was to the right. A cardboard cut-out of Elizabeth Ashley which is featured in the pilot, makes an appearance throughout the first three seasons of the show - it can be seen briefly behind Susan's desk, near the filing cabnets along the back wall. Brian McNamara later went onto play the part of Cooper Elliot, who took Susan to Italy at the end of season one. TRAGEDY Cast member David Strickland committed suicide on March 22, 1999, just prior to the end of the third season. This was a major shock to the cast as they were all close with David. Strickland's death was incorporated into the the third season finale, which was turned into a tribute to Strickland's character, Todd. In the episode, Todd goes missing and Susan spends the episode desperately trying to find him. As the episode progresses, Susan learns about a number of good deeds that Todd had done around his neighborhood that Susan never knew about. Also, interviews about Todd done by the main cast appear throughout the episode. As the episode comes to an end, Todd's favourite song, Fat Boy Slim 's " Praise You " plays outside in the street as Susan and her co-workers sit in a circle praying for Todd's well-being. The episode ends with a clip montage of David Strickland and ends with the titles "The Gods of comedy looked down upon you and smiled." FOURTH SEASON AND CANCELLATION At the beginning of the fourth season, both Judd Nelson and Andrea Bendewald left the show. The show was revamped and ''The Gate'' was transformed into a men's magazine by new owner, Ian Maxtone-Graham (played by Eric Idle ) and relocated from its trendy uptown offices overlooking the bay, to a dingy former warehouse in Chinatown . In tow, Ian brought along his own team of workers; Miranda Charles, his executive assistant and Navy veteran (played by Sherri Shepherd ), sports writer, Nate Knaborski (played by Currie Graham ) and Freelance photographer, Oliver Browne (played by Rob Estes ). Airing between '' Seinfeld '' and '' ER '' in its first season, ''Suddenly Susan'' was a ratings success, attracting approximately 27 million viewers per episode, despite mostly unfavorable critical reviews. When the show was moved to Monday nights in the second season, the show experienced a large ratings fall, sliding from #3 to #65 in one year. The ratings failed to bounce back, and in its final season, the show wasn't in the top 100, prompting NBC to pull it from the prime-time lineup with four episodes left unaired in June of 2000. This final quartet of shows aired in marathon form during the ''NBC All Night'' block from 2:00 to 4:00 am (EST) on the morning of December 26, 2000. TRIVIA
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