Gimme A Break! Didn’t Know WHAT It Was Doing In Its Final Season

https://popculturereferences.com/gimme-a-break-didnt-know-what-it-was-doing-in-its-final-season/

Revamped Concept: So, Season 6 came, and the show decided to blow up the whole concept big time, but without really knowing HOW to do so. The two older daughters (I’m going to say…Elphaba and Betty? That sounds right) were both written off as having moved to different cities (the middle daughter had a baby with her husband, that was also a plot point of Season 5), and the youngest daughter (Shania, I want to say?) moved to New Jersey to go to college. Nell’s best friend, Addy (Telma Hopkins), got a job in New York City, so Nell decides to move to New York with Addy, where they would share an apartment and, I guess, I dunno, raise Joey together, while nominally keeping an eye on Shania in college…

After getting to New York, they met Joey’s brother, Matthew (Matthew Lawrence), who was dropped off by Joey and Matthew’s biological father so that Nell could become HIS foster mother, too. That’s already insane. But wait, there’s more! So then, like, the grandfather of Shania (John Hoyt), who had been a cast member in previous seasons, ALSO decides to move to New York FROM CALIFORNIA. Also, Nell’s mother moves to New York and ALSO joins the cast.

With Shania pretty much dropped from the show (she was nominally still on the show, but not really), the show decided to pivot to more adult-centric stories, so Paul Sand joins the cast as Nell and Addy’s landlord and the owner of a local restaurant (which could be used as a hangout spot). Then Rosie O’Donnell joins the cast as a neighbor. It’s all so, so stupid. There’s no rhyme or reason to this stuff at ALL. And the opening credits keep changing from episode to episode (the grandfather’s opening credit scene uses a piece of footage from the California years. They literally couldn’t spring to get a new clip of the grandfather in New York?).

Shania is then officially written off of the show (despite also having her college professor inexplicably added to the cast at one point, too). Nothing like, “Shania’s gone now,” just they stop talking about her and she makes no more appearances. Nell then becomes a book editor out of nowhere. It’s all so awful. The show could not pick a lane. So, so bad.