DEADLINE EXTENSION

Old age, reborn.

- DANIEL IMMERWAHR

The Golden Girls took trips and lovers, ignoring taboos and reframing senior life.

AMERICAN CHRONICLES

It started, like many good things, as a joke. NBC was filming a preview of its 1984 lineup, and Selma Diamond, a comedian in her sixties, had been tasked with introducing "Miami Vice," a flashy affair of Ferraris, cocaine cartels, and designer sports jackets. She pretended to misunderstand. "'Miami Nice'?" At last, a show about retirees, with their mink coats and cha-cha lessons. She got a laugh. And some execs thought it might not be a terrible idea.

The network proposed Diamond's concept to two producers, Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas. The show, an executive explained, should feature ostensibly "over the hill" characters who were nonetheless "young in attitude." Witt brought the idea to the writer Susan Harris, his wife, who came up with a pilot script. Harris had already pushed television's limits with a show featuring an openly gay character ("Soap"), a show about a lusty divorcée ("Fay"), and a controversial storyline about abortion (on "Maude"). Having written four seasons of "Soap" episodes, she was drained and planning to leave television. Still, a sitcom about older women was hard to resist. Here was another barrier to smash, Harris felt "a demographic that had never been addressed."