Murphy Brown is going to live on.
No, there won't be an 11th season of CBS's "Murphy Brown." But the character played by Candice Bergen is going to survive the breast cancer that afflicted her this season.According to executive producer Marc Flanagan, the hour-long series finale (which will air during the May sweeps) will feature "an optimism that Murphy's life will go on. Yes, Murphy's life will go on."
Series creator Diane English will write that final episode, which will feature both "a finality" as well as "optimism" for all of the show's characters.
"Diane was talking about that everybody sort of gets what they want," Flanagan said. "And that's something that's been talked about. So that's certainly an air of optimism."
BACK WHERE IT BELONGS: CBS has also announced that the hourlong "Murphy Brown" finale will air on a Monday night at 8 p.m. - the time slot the series occupied for nearly nine years before being shuffled off to Wednesdays this season.
Bergen herself still isn't pleased about that move, so this display of some degree of respect from the network is only fitting.
FINALE REUNION? The "Murphy Brown" finale will feature, of course, all of the current cast members - Bergen, Faith Ford (Corky), Joe Regalbuto (Frank), Charles Kimbrough (Jim) and Lily Tomlin (Kay). And at least one - possibly more - of the departed cast regulars will be back.
"I think that Bobby (Robert Pastorelli, who played Eldon) is very happy to come back to the show, and I'm sure Pat Corley (Phil) is as well," Bergen said.
(Of course that begs a logistical question - the character of Phil died a couple of years ago.)
"Grant (Shaud), I think, has more complicated feelings about coming back," Bergen added. "I think he's quite pleased to have put some distance between who he is and who (the character of) Miles Silverberg is. I'm not sure that was a marriage that he was always very happy with, being sort of identified as this neurotic sort of nerd. Sort of understandable.
"So I don't think we know if Grant will be back. But I certainly hope so."
BERGEN THE MIMIC: Lily Tomlin, who joined the cast of "Murphy Brown" in its ninth season, said she has always been made to feel welcome. But sometimes she wishes she'd been there for the entire run of the show so that she'd be a bit closer to the cast.
"I always envied the relationship between Faith (Ford) and Candice (Bergen) because Candice kind of treats Faith like a kid sister," Tomlin said.
She said that "Candice is kind of like a bad kid anyway" and that the star has a way of nudging or pushing or thumping Ford on the head when the cast gets together to read the script at the beginning of each week. "It's behavior you just don't expect. But Candice is really extremely playful," Tomlin said.
(At which point Joe Regalbuto interjected that that was a "very polite" way to describe Bergen.)
Tomlin went on to describe Bergen as "a wonderful mimic. She mimics Faith a lot during readings when Faith is daydreaming a misses a line. Candice will read Faith's whole speech as Faith, with a kind of a Southern accent and all the inflections that Corky uses."
(And, indeed, Bergen demonstrated that just a bit, and she's right on the mark.)
"So one day I was sitting there daydreaming and I missed my line," Tomlin said. "And Candice started to imitate me and then she stopped. She pulled back.
"And I said, `What? You can't make fun of me? Don't you think the rest of us yearn for that intimacy?' "
IN THE BEGINNING: According to Joe Regalbuto, the cast of "Murphy Brown" has worked well together since day one. But getting used to working with Candice Bergen took a little bit longer.
The cast got together at creator Diane English's house to run through the pilot script for the first time.
"We read it and it just clicked," Regalbuto said. "And I remember here was Candice Bergen, who I had known about my whole life. And I was thinking, `This person is Candice Bergen and I'm acting with her!"
That feeling sort of wore off during a week of rehearsal but returned with a vengeance during the first run-through in front of an audience.
"All week, she'd been coming in just in her rehearsal clothes and it was in dim light and everything," Regalbuto said. "And then we came out and got introduced to the audience and they said, `Here she is, Candice Bergen!' And I turned around and all the lights were on and she was made up and it was like, `Holy (cow)! It's Candice Bergen! It's actually Candice Bergen!' "
"I clean up well," Bergen deadpanned.