''It Had to Be You'' is an American

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

starring

Faye Dunaway Dorothy Faye Dunaway (born January 14, 1941) is an American actress. She is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Faye Dunaway, many accolades, including an Academy Awards, Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, three Golden ...

and

Robert Urich Robert Michael Urich (December 19, 1946 – April 16, 2002) was an American film, television, and stage actor, and television producer. Over the course of his 30-year career, he starred in a record 15 television series. Urich began his ca ...

. It premiered on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

on September 19, 1993, and last aired on October 15, 1993, before being pulled from the air and put on hiatus. The series centered on Dunaway's character, Laura, a ''Network''-like businesswoman, who hires blue-collar Mitch, a single father of three boys played by Urich, to do some carpentry work at her Boston office, and their ensuing romance.

Cast

as Laura Scofield *

as Mitch Quinn *

Robin Bartlett Robin Bartlett (born April 22, 1951) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in two NBC sitcoms ''The Powers That Be'' and ''Mad About You''. Career She appeared in the short-lived series ''The Powers That Be''. She played the le ...

as Eve Parkin *

Justin Whalin Justin Garrett Whalin (born September 6, 1974) is an American former actor and teacher. He is known for his roles as the teenage Andy Barclay in '' Child's Play 3'' and Jimmy Olsen in the American television series '' Lois & Clark: The New Adven ...

as David Quinn *

Will Estes William Estes (; born October 21, 1978) is an American actor known for his role on CBS police drama '' Blue Bloods'' as Jameson "Jamie" Reagan, a New York City Police Department officer and the youngest son of the police commissioner, played by ...

as Christopher Quinn *Justin Jon Ross as Sebastian Quinn

Production

The series was produced by

Warner Bros. Television Warner Bros. Television Studios (operating under the name Warner Bros. Television; formerly known as Warner Bros. Television Division) is an American television production and distribution studio of the Warner Bros. Television Group division of ...

. The theme song was the 1924 hit " It Had to Be You" written by

Isham Jones Isham Edgar Jones (January 31, 1894 – October 19, 1956) was an American bandleader, saxophonist, bassist and songwriter. Career Jones was born in Coalton, Ohio, United States, to a musical and mining family. His father, Richard Isham Jones ...

, with music by Stephen James Taylor. Four episodes were aired before the show was put on hiatus.

was subsequently pulled from the series, and a new pilot was ordered with the focus being on Robert Urich's character coping with life as a single father.

, who had played an assistant to Dunaway's character, would also continue in the series, being moved up from supporting character to co-lead. However, her character would not be a romantic partner for Urich. Although a new pilot was shot, the revised version of the series never aired. The show premiered eleven days after the cancellation of '' The Trouble with Larry'', another series co-created by Andrew Nicholls and Darrell Vickers (and which lasted only three episodes). When ''It Had To Be You'' was cancelled after four episodes, it gave Nicholls and Vickers the unusual distinction of overseeing two of the earliest-to-be-cancelled new shows of the same American television season.

Episodes

Reception

Ken Tucker of ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...

'' rated the series a C+ and called it "one of the season's vaguest, most ambivalent new sitcoms". Tucker described the casting of "odd-couple lovers" Urich and Dunaway as "almost perversely capricious". Tony Scott, reviewing the pilot in ''Variety'', criticized the "thin script" and "lumpy badinage". Noting that the show would premiere with a special "preview glimpse" in the slot after ''

60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique styl ...

'', Scott concluded that "a glimpse should be enough". David Hiltbrand of ''

People A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

'' magazine gave ''It Had to Be You'' a grade of C−. He praised supporting actor Bartlett's performance, but felt Dunaway "seems quite uncomfortable doing comedy", and found the way her character was written to be "repulsive". Overall, Hiltbrand characterized the show as "brittle, artificial, tiresome and devoid of romantic chemistry." CBS put ''It Had to Be You'' on "permanent hiatus" after four episodes had aired.

References

External links

*{{imdb title, 0106034, It Had to Be You 1990s American sitcoms 1993 American television series debuts 1993 American television series endings CBS original programming English-language television shows Television series about families Television series by Warner Bros. Television Studios Television shows set in Boston