What if Suzanne Sugarbaker of "Designing Women" married an aging congressman, then succeeded him when he died?
What if Delta Burke, the actress who played Suzanne, resolved her differences with the executive producers of "Designing Women" after the bitter dispute that ended when she left the show?What if those executive producers - Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and her husband, Harry Thomason - decided to work on a new sitcom so they could wreak vengeance on the Washington D.C. establishment that made their lives so difficult as Friends of Bill?
Well, the answer to all of the above is in the new CBS sitcom "Women of the House" - a very funny successor to "Designing Women."
Yes, Burke is back as Suzanne. And from the moment she makes her arrival, shouting "Excuse me! Excuse me!," it's obvious this is the same old Suzanne - brassy, loud, vain, self-absorbed and very funny.
In Wednesday's hourlong premiere of "Women of the House" (7 p.m., Ch. 5), we do learn there have been a few changes since we last saw Suzanne. She has been married again - two more times, apparently, bringing the total of husbands to five. She's adopted a young daughter, Desiree. She's got a retarded brother, Jim, in tow.
And, of course, now she's a member of Congress. Not that she's become particularly political, and she's certainly not politically correct.
What does Suzanne think about gays in the military? She doesn't mind - but fears it could leave the beauty parlors short-handed.
What does Suzanne do when she discovers a car with a handicapped sticker in her late-husband's parking space? She lets the air out of the tires.
"You know, they have their own parking spaces now so they certainly don't have any business pulling into dead people's spots," she says.
And don't try to tell her that having a black maid named Saphire is a racial stereotype.
"Look, I can't help what it is. Saphire's her damn name and she's too old to change it now," Suzanne responds.
That unseen house servant is just one more similarity between "Women of the House" and "Designing Women." (Remember Suzanne's maid, the never-seen Consuela, on the earlier show?)
Like that "Women," this "Women" centers on four women sitting around a couch talking - only this time that couch is in Suzanne's congressional office, not the Sugarbaker decorating office.
And, of course, the other three women have changed. There's Jennifer (Emmy winner Valerie Mahaffey of "Northern Exposure"), the new receptionist, a timid homemaker whose husband has just run off and left her.
Natalie "Natie" Holingsworth (Patricia Heaton) is the Washington insider, the administrative assistant whose last job ended when her congressman boss was sent to prison. And Sissy (Teri Garr), a drunken ex-reporter for the Washington Post who lost her job because she never checked out all those rumors she printed.
"I heard Hillary threw something the other day." Sissy says. "It was either a lamp or a sofa or maybe it was a party. I just know it has something to do with how she's secretly running the country."
And that's but one example of how Bloodworth-Thomason, who wrote the episode, uses "Women of the House" as a platform to return fire at the D.C. establishment. (You may remember that her husband was, for a time, caught up in the rumor and innuendo surrounding the scandal at the White House travel office.)
"We just don't want to see you get started off on the wrong foot, because once you do the press will never let up on you," Natie says.
Doesn't that sound like something someone close to President Clinton might say? Not that "Women of the House" plays partisan politics. Suzanne is an independent, and the jokes are aimed at members of both parties. And mostly at how phoney and ridiculous many of Washington's scandals are.
Suzanne is out of her league - and on CNN's "Crossfire" with Michael Kingsly and John Sununu - when her little idea to sell her brother's crafts at the Capital gift show to raise money for his school suddenly becomes "Knick-knack-gate."
"There's no such thing as a little mistake in Washington," Natie says. "Even the tiniest little thing can be made into a great big thing. I mean, it doesn't matter that George Bush was never mystified by a supermarket scanner. Or that Bill Clinton's haircut never held up any airplanes.
"All that matters is that it's repeated over and over again until it becomes fact and/or it sells enough newspapers and the retractions are printed on page 78."
"You know, basically, there are four things they really hate in this town. The newly rich, happy people, movie stars and hicks," Sissy says. "You never had a chance."
There are references to - or jokes about - the first family, Bob Packwood, Ross Perot, Dan Rather, Connie Chung, Bob Halderman, John Erlichman, Katie Couric, Janet Reno and Prince Charles.
Bloodworth-Thomason takes direct aim at Sally Quinn, a maven of D.C. power politics.
"She's married to the man who used to be the editor of the Washington Post," Sissy says. "She's kind of like a retired base commander's wife who refuses to give up her husband's position and continues to patrol the compound in an armed Chrysler minivan looking for trouble."
Not that "Designing Women" is by any means mean-spirited. It's bright and funny, and the combination of Bloodworth-Thomason's writing and Burke's portrayal of Suzanne is a return to a real television classic.
And this time around, Burke is a co-executive producer with the Thomasons, so maybe they'll all be able to get along.
(Hey, there are even some fat jokes in the first couple of episodes - jokes Burke must have ap-proved.)
Let's hope so. Because "Women of the House" shows every appearance of being a worthy successor to "Designing Women."