The Cosby Show: Season 08 (1991)

The eighth and final season of The Cosby Show opens with a shocker for obstetrician Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby) and his attorney wife, Clair (Phylicia Rashad). It seems that the couple's daughter Vanessa (Tempestt Bledsoe), who'd graduated from high school a year early and has been attending Lincoln University since the beginning of season seven, has for the past six months been engaged to the university's maintenance man Dabnis Brickley (William Thomas Jr.) -- who is a dozen years older than she! At first, Cliff and Clair are cold to Dabnis, suspecting his motives, but before long the level-headed working man wins their confidence and respect. In addition to William Thomas Jr., child actors Gary Gray and Jessica Vaughn join the cast as Nelson and Winnie Tibideaux, the twin children of Cliff and Clair's oldest daughter, Sondra (Sabrina Le Beauf), and her husband, Elvin (Geoffrey Owens). (The twins had previously been played by other children in one-shot appearances; now they can qualify as "regulars.") Absent this season is Lisa Bonet as the Huxtables' daughter Denise, and (except for one episode) Joseph C. Phillips as her husband, Naval lieutenant Martin Kendall; it is explained that the Kendalls have moved to Singapore, where Martin has been stationed -- and that because of Navy rules and regulations, their daughter, Olivia (Raven-Symone), must stay behind with Cliff and Clair. Of the remaining Huxtable children, youngest daughter Rudy (Keshia Knight Pulliam) is still at home, and Theo (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) is still attending college, living near campus. Also, the Huxtable household remains the temporary domicile of 18-year-old Pam Turner (Erika Alexander), Clair's second cousin once removed, who keeps in close contact with her friends from her old Bedford-Stuyvestant neighborhood, and is now contemplated a college career herself. The series' now-legendary final episode is an hour-long affair honoring Theo's graduation from college, ending with Cliff and Clair acknowledging the presence of the studio audience for the first (and last) time in The Cosby Show's eight-year history. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi