D: Duet

 

Duet

This was one of the first shows to air on Fox when the network made its debut in 1987. Along with 21 Jump Street, Married...With Children, and The Tracey Ullman Show, Duet was part of Fox's Sunday night lineup. Though it ran two-and-a-half seasons, Duet is not as widely remembered today as the other flagship Fox shows. Though it certainly did better than two other early Fox shows: Karen's Song (a dramedy starring Patty Duke, with Teri Hatcher as her daughter) and a sitcom adaptation of Down and Out in Beverly Hills, the first show canceled by the nascent network.

The main characters were writer Ben Coleman (Matthew Laurance, who later played David Silver's father on Beverly Hills 90210), and his girlfriend Laura Kelly (Mary Page Keller) who owned a catering business with her sister Jane (Jodi Thelen). Chris Lemmon (son of Jack Lemmon) and Alison LaPlaca played yuppie friends Richard and Linda Phillips. He was a patio-furniture salesman (and later a professional pianist) and she a studio executive. Their baby, Amanda, was born at the end of season two, but fell victim to soap opera rapid aging in the third season, as the events were pushed ahead a few years for what ended being the series's final season. The Phillipses gradually became the focus of the show then, leading to a spinoff series in which Linda becomes a real-estate agent. Open House was the new series, and it only lasted one year (1989-90), and was also an early TV role for Ellen DeGeneres. Phillip Charles MacKenzie, of the previously mentioned Brothers, played Linda's rival real-estate agent. Mary Page Keller returned as Laura, who'd also became a real-estate agent. Chris Lemmon also returned as Richard, but was dropped in mid-season as he and Linda separated. MacKenzie and LaPlaca later married in real life. The intro to Open House is here, and an episode can be seen here.

This was one of my regularly watched shows of the 1980s. Both Duet and Open House were rerun on Lifetime in the early 1990s, but haven't been seen since, to the best of my knowledge.

Below are the series intros as well as a first-season episode I was able to locate:

Alison LaPlaca did not have much luck with TV after this series and its spinoff ended. Her next series, a medical sitcom called Stat in 1991, was quickly cancelled, and her next two gigs, the Tom Arnold shows, The Jackie Thomas Show and Tom, bombed as well. She fared somewhat better on The John Larroquette Show, but even that one is now largely forgotten, despite a four-year run. In 1997, she made several appearances as Rachel's boss, Joanna, on Friends. 

Chris Lemmon had previously starred on Brothers and Sisters, an Animal House knockoff that aired on NBC nearly a decade earlier. His last TV role was on Thunder in Paradise, a syndicated adventure series starring Hulk Hogan.

Most of Mary Page Keller's subsequent series were short-lived as well. Among them was Baby Talk, a TV adaptation of the Look Who's Talking movies.