‘Murphy Brown’ is Coming Back at Exactly the Right Time

If you had asked me two years ago about my thoughts on a Murphy Brown revival, I’d have said three words: “No bleepin’ way!”

Why was I so against the idea at the time? Because it just felt wrong. Murphy Brown was a show that was very “of its time,” when newsmagazines like the fictional FYI were considered to be important sources of information, journalists were trusted and revered, and snarking off about government shenanigans was considered cutting-edge comedy.

In an era where people get their echo-chamber-approved news from social media and there are about a dozen late-night shows riffing on government shenanigans, the idea of Murphy Brown seemed woefully outdated.

Then, as Candice Bergen-as-Murphy says in the video below, “We had an election.”

This was a preview video that came out around the time of the upfronts, and it was the first time we were able to see Bergen, Grant Shaud, Joe Regalbuto and Faith Ford reprise their roles for the first time since 1998, and it just seemed right.

You know what else got us excited? This quick video of the first table read:

People forget that the 1988-98 time period where the original series existed was pretty silly, at least relative to what had come before: An actor (Ronald Reagan) had been president for two widely-divisive terms; and it looked like the right had started to worry more about women’s reproductive rights and the death penalty than they were about making government smaller. The country was just a year removed from the Iran-Contra hearings, which would turn out to be the biggest government scandal since Watergate.

Murphy, playing a respected reporter with a long resume, could rant and rave about Oliver North and soon-to-be-vice-president Dan Quayle and get nods of recognition from audiences on both sides of the aisle, because even Republicans were able to see how silly things had gotten. During the Clinton years, Murphy and crew could make fun of Bill’s affairs and his penchant for cheeseburgers.

But post-9/11, the news cycle accelerated and pundits on the 24-hour cable news channels were “hurting America”, as Jon Stewart said way back in 2004. Stuff was going too fast and was too critical to have fictional characters lobbing jokes from a script that was written the month before.

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Running lines in my trailer.

A post shared by Candice 🦖 (@bergenbags) on Aug 3, 2018 at 1:41pm PDT

Ironically, though, with the news cycle going even faster, with Donald Trump making news every time he tweets during his late-night or morning “constitutional,” it’s refreshing to see an older Murphy, Myles, Corky and Frank coming back to navigate the new reality of the news business. It also feels necessary because it’s not just about the fact that we’ve elected a reality host incapable of shame or admitting he’s wrong into the White House; it’s the fact that he’s turning everything that we know about the presidency and how our government works upside down.

Maybe it’s comforting. Or maybe the desire to see how Diane English and her writers handle a time that’s even sillier than the one they last occupied is leading me to get excited about the show’s return to CBS’ Thursday schedule this fall. The only thing we worry about is that the news cycle will be too fast; but considering that there are overall themes that the show can discuss, like #MeToo, the fundamental change in our democracy, the steadfast support of Trump no matter what he does, and more, the day-to-day ridiculousness doesn’t need to be explored.

And if Trump gets re-elected? That means we’ll likely have the Murphy Brown revival around for a long, long time.