Newsweek

'Murphy Brown' Returns, Ready to Take on Trump

Fans on social media were asking, What would Murphy say about this? So English revived her newsroom sitcom. “It was the idea of being relevant that really changed my mind," she says.
Candice Bergen, left, as Murphy Brown and Jake McDorman as her son ,Avery, all grown up in the "Murphy Brown" revival on CBS.
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In early 2017, the head of Warner Bros. studio, Peter Roth, approached Diane English about reviving Murphy Brown —the ’90s political comedy that turned star Candice Bergen into America’s most beloved fake news anchor. Roth thought the election of President Donald Trump offered the perfect timing for an update. But English said no.

She was working on another TV pilot at the time, but her hesitation had to do with legacy. “We were an iconic show,” she tells Newsweek. “We had lots of Emmy awards [18, to be exact]. You don’t want to revisit something 20 years later for a poor imitation.”

Given is returning to CBS for 13 episodes starting September 27, what

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