The Golden Palace

Synopsis

The Golden Palace begins where The Golden Girls had ended, in the quartet's now-sold Miami house. With Dorothy Zbornak having married and left in the previous series finale, the three remaining roommates (Sophia Petrillo, Rose Nylund, and Blanche Devereaux) decide to invest in a Miami hotel that is up for sale. The hotel, however, is revealed to have been stripped of all of its personnel in an effort to appear more profitable, leaving only two employees: Roland Wilson, the hotel's manager, and Chuy Castillos, the hotel's chef. This requires the women to perform all the tasks of the hotel's staff.

The series focused on the interactions between guests at the hotel and the hotel's staff, as well as between the Golden Girls and the previous hotel staff. Guest stars were frequent, including recurring characters that had previously appeared on The Golden Girls, such as Debra Engle and Harold Gould as Rebecca Devereaux and Miles Webber, and other celebrities. Bea Arthur also reprised her Dorothy Zbornak role for a two-part storyline in which she visits the hotel to check up on her mother.

Following the cancellation of the series, Sophia returns to the Shady Pines retirement home, appearing as a cast member in the later seasons of Empty Nest. What became of Rose, Blanche and the hotel is left unresolved.

Broadcast history and reception

The Golden Palace aired on CBS, changing networks from NBC, which had aired The Golden Girls on Saturday nights for its entire run. Susan Harris, Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas all pitched their Golden Girls successor series to NBC in early 1992, as a way to continue the saga of Blanche, Rose and Sophia after Bea Arthur's departure from the role of Dorothy. NBC entertainment chief Warren Littlefield originally committed to airing The Golden Palace, with a 13-episode order for the 1992–93 season. However, CBS soon entered the picture and fueled a bidding war for the new series, offering a full season (24 episode) order. Witt, Thomas and Harris tried to get Littlefield to improve his NBC deal, but he refused to extend his episode order, citing that the declining ratings of The Golden Girls in its seventh season made it risky to give the spin-off a longer commitment. The producers thus went with CBS, who agreed to market The Golden Palace as a show with its own voice separate from that of its parent show.

CBS used The Golden Palace as one of four comedies assembled on Friday night in an effort to combat ABC's TGIF comedy block; The Golden Palace was grouped with Major Dad, Designing Women and Bob, all of which were either successful comedies prior to the move or, in the case of Bob, featured a previously successful sitcom star (Bob Newhart). The premiere garnered solid ratings, and the show won its timeslot for its first few weeks, but viewership fell steadily for the entire block as the season progressed. CBS had scheduled the show for a second season, but canceled the show (and the entire block) the night before they announced their 1993 fall schedule. The only one of the four aforementioned shows to get picked up for the 1993–94 season was Bob, which hired Betty White to join its revamped cast.

Twenty-four episodes of the series were produced. In some versions of Disney-ABC Domestic Television's syndicated packaging of the series, The Golden Palace has aired as part of The Golden Girls syndication library.

British comedian Alexei Sayle was originally hired for the series in the role of the hotel's chef, who initially was to be portrayed as Eastern European. Sayle was replaced by Cheech Marin before the pilot was shot.

Cast