Women of the House

Women of the House
The original cast of Women of the House
Created by	Linda Bloodworth-Thomason
Written by	Linda Bloodworth-Thomason
Directed by	Harry Thomason
Starring	Delta Burke Teri Garr Patricia Heaton Valerie Mahaffey Lisa Rieffel William Newman
Composer(s)	Bruce Miller
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	13
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Production company(s)	Bloodworth-Thomason Mozark Productions Perseverance Inc. TriStar Television
Distributor	Sony Pictures Television
Release
Original network	CBS (episodes 1-8) Lifetime (episodes 9-13)
Original release	January 4 – September 8, 1995
Chronology
Related shows	Designing Women

Women of the House is an American sitcom and a spin-off of Designing Women that aired on CBS from January 4, 1995 to August 18, 1995 and the last four episodes airing on Lifetime on September 8, 1995. The series starred Delta Burke, reprising her role of Suzanne Sugarbaker, who had reconciled with producers of Designing Women after a bitter, highly publicized, off-screen battle.

Suzanne Sugarbaker's latest husband has died, and as his widow, she assumes his political office for the remainder of his term. Washington, D.C. was ill-prepared for the outspoken, "big, dumb, hick beauty queen's" arrival to the United States House of Representatives, though she did form an unusual bond with then-current President Bill Clinton, who was frequently heard off-screen. Along with her, Suzanne dragged her mentally handicapped brother Jim (Jonathan Banks), her young, adopted daughter Desiree (Brittany Parkyn), and her oft-spoken of (but only once seen) maid, Sapphire Jones (Barbara Montgomery).

Teri Garr starred as Suzanne's press secretary Sissy Emerson, a washed up reporter who had turned to the bottle a few years earlier, but was starting to clean up her act. Patricia Heaton portrayed Natty Hollingsworth, Suzanne's snooty, conservative, anal-retentive, bun-wearing administrative assistant whose Congressman boyfriend was serving a prison sentence. Jennifer Malone (Valerie Mahaffey, Julie Hagerty), known to her co-workers as "Malone," was a vivacious, naive, frail housewife who was recently left by her husband, and whose children were tyrants. The years of sexual repression had taken its toll on Malone and she had begun to become obsessed with sex. Later seen in the cast was Lisa Rieffel as Veda Walkman, a ditsy Generation Xer who took an internship at the office. In more minor roles were William Newman as Dave, an older gentleman with bad arthritis who worked in the office and Adam Carl as Adam, another intern (which was not the same-named character Carl played in several episodes of Designing Women).