Gimme a Break!: Season 06 (1986)

The major cast and format changes in Gimme a Break's sixth and final season commence with the two-part season opener, in which Nell Harper (Nell Carter), housekeeper for the Kanisky family in suburban California, finds herself experiencing a bad case of "empty nest syndrome." Eldest Kanisky daughter Katie (Kari Michaelsen) has moved to San Francisco to start a fantastic new job; middle daughter Julie (Lauri Hendler), her husband Jonathan (Jonathan Silverman), and their baby daughter have relocated to San Jose; and youngest daughter Sam (Lara Jill Miller) is off to New Jersey, there to begin her freshman year at Littlefield College. Staying behind with Nell are the girls' feisty Grandpa Kanisky (John Hoyt), the family's foster son Joey (Joey Lawrence), and Nell's best friend Dr. Addy Wilson (Telma Hopkins). Before long, however, this little group has moved bag and baggage to New York City, where Addy has landed a new job and Joey comes face-to-face with Matthew, the little brother he never knew he had (Matthew is played by Matthew Lawrence, the real-life younger brother of series regular Joey Lawrence). Finding a job with a publishing house, Nell moves into a Greenwich Village apartment over a Mexican restaurant called El Gatspacio, run by a zany character named Marty (Paul Sand), who for business purposes assumes the identity (and wretched accent) of a Latino named Esteban. Also joining the cast on a regular basis is Rosetta Le Noire as Nell's cantankerous mother Maybelle and a very young Rosie O'Donnell as wisecracking neighbor kid Maggie O'Brien. The series' final episode "Mama's Date" is highlighted by a surprising revelation concerning Nell's mother. It does not, however, play like a traditional "finale" -- mainly because the cast and production crew were unaware that NBC had decided to pull the plug on Gimme a Break after six years on the air. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi