Shark Bytes

This show was really good the first couple of years. Emma was my prepubescent hero. It started to go downhill when her character left; it was never the same after that. It was completely over the minute Bob and Allie got married. Why they continued the show after that is beyond me. Kate, who was once a strong, independent woman, was reduced to a pathetic third wheel. The whole dynamic of the first few years of two best friends raising their children together was gone.

Wow, it is great to have a place to express the opinions I'd kept to myself since the show first aired and beyond. Although I'm a latecomer to JTS, I think it's wonderful. I agree with 90% of the views, except for a few I didn't really see here. IMO it was definitely the move to mid-town, because EVERYthing changed and yet it kept the premise as if NOTHING had changed. What I hadn't seen mentioned was how- (how do I put it..) snide Allie became before & after her wedding. Along with her hairstyle, her attitude changed from being a normal divorcee to a haughty, "look where I am now" vibe. Kate turned into the quintessential third wheel.

It was also, maybe sublminally, the appearances, wardrobe and hair, that moved the JTS momentum along. Kate, who was formerly a free-spirited individual who looked totally realistic and casual, suddenly looked like a legal secretary all the time. Even at breakfast, she/they would wear robes that I would bet had street clothes on underneath. (Who goes to bed with their watches on, anyway?!) (I know, I know, get a life.) But I had always appreciated the realistic looks of the characters, and when Allie started with the 'grown up' hair and totally different wardrobe, it was like a different show. The new place had no personality, the 'rules' were different (no feet on coffee table, no good ol' toaster...) Kate really did seem like a single, lonely spinster who wanted only to have what Allie & Bob had. Bob wasn't bad, just unnecessary. I agree with those that said they should have remained independent and end at the wedding. Whoever thought SSJ was gay and married to Rock Hudson was smoking something bad! The womens' acting and characters were unlike anything before and after, in TV history.

Emma- beautiful but superficial and clueless. Jenny, bad overacting and over-dressing aside, was snide and superior to the end. And Chip, cute as a button in the beginning, had literally nowhere to go but down. It is unfair to call him fem or gay because hey- where is he supposed to go from there? Was he suddenly going to look hip and cool? He just had the bad luck to grow up. Like McCauley Culkin, Fred Savage, Gary Coleman and Corey something, cute kid actors don't seem to grow into handsome men. Not their fault. Just an observation.

Whew, that felt good to get all that out! I love this site! Look for my future JTS remarks on WKRP, MTM and Golden Girls, because now I'm on a roll! Thank you for letting me share.

it's said that this show jumped sharks
with the episode where kate, (or maybe allie, i don't know) turned up homeless.
that was right up there with the MASH episode where everyone's having war dreams as the most interesting episode, not the worst.
everything else sucked, however.

I enjoyed the show for the most part. I was about Emma and Jennie's ages when it aired so I could relate to them as my parents were also divorced and I never saw my dad much after that. It jumped when Allie married Bob and took Kate with them to live in the new place. As a newlywed, would you really want your attractive best friend living with you and your new husband? Still enjoy watching the reruns on the We channel though. Guilty pleasure!

In the Now You Know Department, there was actually a pitch made to Filmation Studios for an animated version of Kate & Allie, which never made it past the conception stage. It would have been yet another "Gilligan's Planet", with one episode having Kate's boyfriend, Ted, constructing a homemade spaceship in the apartment's backyard which sends Kate, Allie and the cast into outer space. Equally dreadful episodes would have had Allie becoming a vampire bat as well as her and Kate joining the circus as acrobatic performers. No doubt this project would have been a Shark-Jumper for Filmation, which was already waning as a dominant cartoon studio and was shuttered in 1993 with the release of the company's final project--the movie "Happily Ever After". Other Filmation flops, such as "Bugsburg" and "Bravestar", would seal the company's fate.

Emma's loss was huge, she was so gorgeous AND the best of the kids by far. Chip was fruity and Jennie wasn't much of a deep charater.

I always liked Lou. What was so bad about him that Kate didn't want to go out with him?

Normally a very funny show, but the whole "women are better than men" theme started getting on my nerves after a while.

this is one of the best shows from the 80's. I still liked the show even when Allie got married but it wasn't as good as it was in the beginning. Also Ari Meyers not on anymore I think hurt the show too. This show started when i was nine and I found Ari to be fine.

In response to Mary's post, NBC Universal now owns the distribution rights to Kate & Allie, although it originally aired on CBS. If Mary is an established screenwriter, the Kaplan-Stahler Agency would be a good place to begin the submission process. Mary can also suggest the idea to CBS through the CBS.com web site, but the network will not accept any unsolicited ideas for legal matters pertaining to copyright and celebrity stalking.

Who would one contact to see if there could be Kate & Allie reunion show, or movie. I'm watching re-runs on WE and this show is still fresh (until Bob entered, I agree).

I think the show JTS when Allie got married. So stupid. The show was about Kate and Allie, not Kate and Allie and Allie's husband Bob or whatever his name was. I loved kate and allie's chemistry. They could have ended the show with them still living together. It just worked. Even without them being in a relationship it worked. It felt like a relationship to me, well more lika a real marriage. I am married and what I see on the show is exactly what goes on in our home. Forget their Gender. So yes, Allie getting married really ruined it. Besides, we know Kate really wanted to be with Allie. She loved Allie more than she knew I think. I like the episode where Kate is talking to Ted about being with allie forever and how she said that was bad and then she said it would be worse, not being with Allie. Just a sweet show and they had to ruin it. And no one is funnier than Jane Curtain. And Susan was such a beautiful woman. They both were really.

As a student at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, I had written my very first spec script--it was for Kate & Allie, which was totally unfounded coming from a twentysomething, writing for a show about fortysomethings. I submitted it as a Letterman Award project and lost. The episode, which would have aired in Fall 1989, would have had Kate & Allie flying to Los Angeles to appear on a game show similar to "Let's Make a Deal" called "The Trading Post"--akin to "Sanford & Son's" "Let's Swap Something!". Trouble is already brewing when Kate and Allie lie to Bob about going to a catering event in Denver; then Kate drinks so much champagne on the plane that she pukes on the Gateway Arch as the jet is flying over St. Louis. Then she gets arrested for public intoxication by the LAPD as soon as she and Allie trade in what was in the coffee pot--$5000 and a diamond ring--for a zonk prize, which consisted of 500 cans of tuna! Allie has to use the rest of the money she and Kate had on the trip to get her best friend out of prison. Too bad Reeves Communications, which is now defunct, never got to see the potential of this script. It's their loss.

My favorite episode was the one where they make new years resolutions and then Kate and Allie catch each other cheating..then one eats chocolate, and one smokes for the other!
I agree when emma's character 86ed it out of there, it just wasn' t the same!
And the move irriatated the crap out of me to the point I even as an 11 yr old couldn't suspend belief!

I loved Kate and Allie when it was on in the 80s and I am loving it even more now, bringing back fond memories of that time in my life. TV today is full of such crap, that bringing back this show in reruns is very refreshing. I only wish they would all do a reunion show, updating us fans as to what became of all the characters. Maybe someday they will, we can only wish.