You Can Now Stream the Forgotten “Designing Women” Spin-Off

by Christopher Rudolph

1h ago

We’ve been on a Sugarbaker high since Hulu finally made all seven seasons of Designing Women available on streaming. But if you’ve already blew through all 163 episodes of the classic sitcom, then you might be interested to know that there is even more streaming Sugarbaker waiting for you.

We all know about The Golden Girls spinoff, The Golden Palace, which lasted only one season—but what about the Designing Women spinoff, Women of the House?

The series debuted a year and a half after Designing Women left the air, and focused on Suzanne Sugarbaker (Delta Burke) who is now a grieving widow of her fifth husband, who was a congressman. She ends up filling her late husband’s seat in the House of Representatives, and staffs her office with a group of driven Washington women played by Patricia Heaton, Natalie Hollingsworth, and Terri Garr.

If you have never heard of Women of the House it’s probably because it only lasted 13 episodes before it was canceled by CBS, with the final four episodes airing on Lifetime. Now the entire first season is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

Does it recapture the magic of the original Designing Women? No, even though it is also from series creator Linda Bloodworth-Thomason. But since it’s set in 1993 Washington, D.C. there are plenty of Bill and Hillary Clinton jokes (“She is secretly running the country,” Garr quips about the former first lady in one scene), and the first episode ends with Burke lip syncing a performance to “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from Dreamgirls.

Sold yet?

Suddenly we have Labor Day Weekend plans.