The Golden Girls

So I’ve been planning a rewatch of this show for a long time and with the passing of the legend that is Betty White (which means all four ladies are no longer with us) I have decided it’s time to just go ahead and watch some of the best comfort tv there is.

The Golden Girls originally aired when I was a baby so I don’t recall it on it’s original airing but the 90’s saw reruns of it on Saturday night tv here in Ireland and that was where I first met Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia. Saturday evenings were the best evenings as we used to have terrible frozen pizza (they were gourmet back in the day) and chips, or other overly processed frozen foods that we lived for! The Golden Girls remind me of good kid times and over the years, as I’d catch an episode here and there, I’d be hurtled back to the days of bad 90’s fashion and, frozen food!

As a kid I definitely didn’t appreciate the writing, the acting or just how truly funny and relevant it was. As the years have gone by and I’d catch an episode, I was often struck by how ahead of its time it really was. Also, primetime sitcom carried by four older ladies? Groundbreaking!

It’s absolutely dated in some respects, problematic dialogue being the biggest issue, but it was also bringing social issues to the forefront in a time when these things weren’t discussed. Prime example, divorce wasn’t legalised in Ireland until well after the last season of this show aired, yet I clearly remember asking my mother about Dorothy and Stan and her explaining to me what divorce was all about.

There are a thousand other ways this show was ahead of its time and why it’s stayed with me throughout my life, so I’ve started my rewatch and I’m going to ‘review’ each season and post it here. By review I mean VERY short musings on each episode. This is so I’ll have a special Golden Girls place and maybe it will encourage those who were asking ‘Who is Betty White?’ at the beginning of the month to go check out four women who smashed primetime tv in the 80’s and early 90’s.

I still can’t believe people didn’t know who Betty White was but I’m old now so what do I know! Some info on the four ladies below:

• Bea Arthur (13 May 1922 to 25 April 2009) plays Dorothy Zbornak (Daughter of Sophia Petrillo)
• Estelle Getty (25 July 1923 – 22 July 2008) plays Sophia Petrillo (Mother of Dorothy Zbornak) – everyones favourite fact is that even though she played her mother in the show she was actually younger than Bea Arthur.
• Betty White (17 January 1922 – 31 December 2021) plays Rose Nylund
• Rue McClanahan (21 February 1934 to 3 June 2010) plays Blanche Devereaux