The Nanny, on CBS
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streaming sites: Max

This is a show which somehow... I always felt kind of guilty about watching. Well, maybe not guilty, exactly, but... I felt like it was kind of stupid, maybe. Except for some things. Thinking back now, I'm not sure what my problem with it was, really. I'm actually sure I'd rate it higher, if I bothered to watch it, now. Maybe I should try to catch some reruns someday.

Anyway, it starred Fran Drescher as Fran Fine, whose fiance dumped and fired her (he owned the place where she worked). So she got a job selling makeup door-to-door. When she showed up at the home of Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy), a widower who was looking for a nanny for her children, she ended up getting that job, in spite of having no qualifications. Over the course of the series, there would always exist the potential for romance to develop between Fran and Maxwell, in spite of the fact that they had nothing in common (aside from the fact that she quickly came to love his kids, and they her). Those kids included Maggie (Nicholle Tom), Brighton, and Grace (Madeline Zima). I can't quite remember how I felt about Brighton, though I suppose he was okay. I vaguely think I found Maggie mildly annoying, for some reason, but I'm not sure. She was okay. Grace, however, was always a pretty good character. She was youngest, and she had the whole "adorable little kid" thing going on (though by the end of the series she was in her early teens). But she was interesting because at the start of the series she was in therapy, so she also had a "wise beyond her years" thing going on, and she was fairly funny, and whatnot.

Meanwhile, Maxwell had a British butler and confidant named Niles, who was loyal but snarky. (I should probably mention that Maxwell was also British.) Niles and Fran quickly became close friends, and Niles always wanted her and Maxwell to get together. But Maxwell had a business partner named C.C. Babcock, who clearly had a romantic interest in Maxwell (though he never seemed interested in her). She was... not a very nice person, seemed obsessed with business (and with Maxwell), and had no interest in his children. She and Niles bickered constantly (it was one of the most amusing aspects of the show), and of course she saw Fran as a rival, albeit one of much lower class than herself. So of course, she didn't get along with Fran any better than she did with Niles. And... there were some other recurring characters, including Fran's best friend, Val, and Fran's mother, Sylvia, and grandmother, Yetta.

Not sure quite what else to say. I certainly don't want to spoil any of the developments from later in the series, though there's one thing... which I'm pretty sure I never saw coming, not by a long shot, and then... all of a sudden, after a few years of not seeing it coming, I totally saw it coming, moments before it happened. And after that, there was a whole new dynamic between two of the characters. Of course, there was another change in the show's dynamic that was far more predictable, that everyone saw coming from the very start. Anyway, um... the show was... not bad. It could definitely be funny, and Niles was awesome, and the interaction between all the characters was kind of great. It could be pretty redonkulous at times, but in spite of that, I think the writing had a level of cleverness that I didn't always appreciate, at the time. And all the actors were completely believable in their roles. Which is actually kind of amazing, when you think about it.

Oh, also... I always loved the theme song.