The Golden Girls - Season 1 Best -

Furthermore, the writing doesn't talk down to its audience. The jokes require a vocabulary (Dorothy calls people "pustules" and "yokels"). The conflicts are real. When Rose grieves for her husband, it takes multiple episodes; she doesn't get better in 22 minutes.

When The Golden Girls premiered on NBC on September 14, 1985, television was a very different landscape. The charts were dominated by family-centric shows like The Cosby Show and Family Ties . The idea that four single, older women sharing a house in Miami could become a ratings juggernaut—let alone a cultural institution—seemed like a gamble. The Golden Girls - Season 1

– In one of the most progressive arcs of the decade, Dorothy moves in with a new boyfriend. Her disgusted ex-husband, Stan, tries to shame her. The episode concludes with Dorothy refusing to apologize for her sexual agency. "I am 55 years old," she snaps. "I am not a child." Furthermore, the writing doesn't talk down to its audience

From the moment Sophia shuffles in with her purse raised, to the final freeze-frame of the season, the show is a comfort blanket and a sharp knife simultaneously. When Rose grieves for her husband, it takes

The premise was deceptively simple. Three widows—Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur), Rose Nylund (Betty White), and Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan)—answer an ad for roommates at a house in Miami. They are later joined by Dorothy’s mother, the feisty Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty), after her retirement home, Shady Pines, burns down.

Note: The streaming versions have removed a few jokes considered racially insensitive by modern standards (specifically regarding the "rapist" neighbor jokes). However, 95% of the season remains intact and brilliant.