‘Murphy Brown’ Is Coming Back To CBS Later This Year

CBS announced today that the landmark feminist sitcom Murphy Brown would be returning for the 2018-2019 season. Series star Candice Bergen will reprise the titular role and Murphy Brown’s creator, Diane English, will once again serve as writer/executive producer on the project. The new season will be 13-episodes long, shot in the traditional multi-cam format, and will take place in the current day. As CBS put it in a press release, “Murphy Brown returns to a world of cable news, social media, fake news and a very different political and cultural climate.”

Murphy Brown debuted almost 30 years ago on CBS and soon became a wellspring of critical acclaim and cultural controversy. The show took us behind-the-scenes of a major news show, where it turned out that the network’s leading female journalist was a single, cantankerous, recovering alcoholic. As the years went on, Murphy Brown would sometimes divide audiences. Murphy famously — or infamously — chose to be a single mother to her son Avery. The storyline was meant to reflect real life debates about parenthood and in 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle actually attacked the show and the fictional character for  “mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone.”

In the past, Murphy Brown has received 62 Emmy nominations and 18 wins.