60 best sitcoms of all time

40. Designing Women

Sitcoms with female ensembles were popular for awhile, but foremost among them was Designing Women. Dixie Carter and Delta Burke were sisters who were also business partners, alongside colleagues played by Annie Potts and Jean Smart. The late Meshach Taylor was the only man in the main cast. It really didn’t matter because there was more than enough personality to go around — both on camera and off, as the show hit the skids after five seasons due to a whole truckload of behind the scenes difficulties.

Still, those first five years gave us a sitcom that was vivacious, entertaining and quite enough to chew on. We have Designing Women to thank for one of the best single episodes of television. The Emmy Award-winning episode “Killing All The Right People” featured a young Tony Goldwyn (future star of Scandal) as a man dying of AIDS who wanted the main characters to design his funeral. It took the epidemic and the surrounding prejudices head on in 1987, when this was still tough territory for any small-screen show. All the performances are magnificent, and the episode will leave you in tears.

That was the wonder of Designing Women. It was often as powerful as it was funny, and it was delivered by a cast that really sunk its teeth into the material. It’s a shame that the series had so many backstage problems as it did or it might have done even better, but those couple of seasons are worth going back and revisiting.

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