A new streaming sitcom reminiscent of The Golden Girls has confirmed its leading cast and main team. Running from 1985 to 1992, The Golden Girls is one of the most beloved sitcoms of all time, chronicling the story of four aging and previously married women who share a house in Miami. The leading cast of The Golden Girls included Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Estelle Getty, and Betty White, and remains an oft-quoted and rewatched series today.
Taking after The Golden Girls, a new series called Mid-Century Modern has been announced at Hulu, with leading stars also announced per Variety. The leading cast of Mid-Century Modern will include Nathan Lane, Matt Bomer, and Linda Lavin. The series is created by Max Mutchnick and David Kohan and executive produced by Ryan Murphy alongside Mutchnick, Kohan, Bomer, Lane, and James Burrows, who also directs the pilot. According to the release from Hulu, the show is set in Palm Springs and follows “three best friends” who are all gay men living together. Check out the full quote from Hulu below:
The series follows three best friends — gay gentlemen of a certain age – who, after an unexpected death, decide to spend their golden years living together in Palm Springs where the wealthiest one lives with his mother and a naked Gen Z housekeeper. ‘Mid-Century Modern’ stars Nathan Lane as Bunny Schneiderman, Matt Bomer as Jerry Frank, and Linda Lavin as Sybil Schneiderman, Bunny’s mother.
A successful businessman with one foot in retirement, Bunny is forever in search of love, but he first has to be convinced he’s worthy of it. Like her son, Sybil’s strengths are her weaknesses: wise, caring, and iconoclastic – which sometimes means she’s critical, smothering and amoral. Jerry left the Mormon Church and his marriage in his early 20s after his wife informed him and the rest of the congregation that he was a homosexual. Now a latter-day saint in the literal sense of the term, Jerry is pure of heart. He is also hard of body and soft of head.
How Is Mid-Century Modern Similar to The Golden Girls?
The plot setup of Mid-Century Modern bears similarities to that of The Golden Girls. Both shows tackle a group of same-gendered people who decide to live together in their “golden years.” Based on the descriptions of Bunny and Jerry, Mid-Century Modern also brings an eclectic cast of characters together to find its comedy. Golden Girls used a similar sitcom tactic during its run, laying the groundwork for other strong shows to work off of.
The Golden Girls is a iconic for its humor and its amazing leading ladies, but how old were Dorothy, Rose, Blanche, and Sophia really supposed to be?
The characters of Mid-Century Modern can be directly correlated to various figures from Golden Girls. Bomer’s Jerry stands in to be the Rose of Mid-Century Modern while Lane’s Bunny is akin to Arthur’s Dorothy. In The Golden Girls, Dorothy has a relationship with her mother, Sophia. This role is filled in Mid-Century Modern as well, shown through Lavin’s Sybil, whose role in the sitcom sounds prominent.
Rather than engage in a direct remake of The Golden Girls, Mid-Century Modern will be an apt companion piece, sewing the threads of The Golden Girls into a modern-day package. Creators Mutchnick and Kohan previously worked on Will & Grace, which carries themes present in both Golden Girls and Mid-Century Modern, as the series deals with adult roommates and features prominent gay characters. Combined with a talented cast, the background of the creators well-equips Mid-Century Modern for success as it continues its development.
