Brooke Shields was the biggest star in the world who didn't have a home. By 1996, she’d done the movies, the modeling, and the high-profile relationship with Andre Agassi. But she needed a win. She needed to prove she could be funny, not just a face on a Calvin Klein billboard. Enter Suddenly Susan, the NBC sitcom that basically defined the "Must See TV" era while simultaneously becoming one of its most tragic footnotes.
If you weren't watching TV in the mid-90s, it’s hard to describe the sheer power of that Thursday night lineup. You had Friends at 8:00 PM and Seinfeld at 9:00 PM. Suddenly Susan was gifted the "hammock" slot right in between them. It was a ratings goldmine. If you breathed in that time slot, 25 million people saw you.
But the show wasn't just a beneficiary of a good schedule. It was a weird, sparkly, and eventually very dark piece of television history.
The Altar, the Magazine, and the "Must See" Magic
The premise was classic 90s fluff. Susan Keane, played by Shields, ditches her wealthy fiancé at the altar and tries to "make it on her own" as a columnist for a San Francisco magazine called The Gate.
Honestly, the show felt like a prototype for Sex and the City, just with less cursing and more slapstick. Susan was the "it girl" trying to find her voice. Her boss was Jack Richmond, played by Judd Nelson, who spent most of the series looking like he’d rather be back in The Breakfast Club.
The supporting cast was a fever dream of talent:
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- Kathy Griffin as the neurotic food critic Vicki Groener.
- Nestor Carbonell as Luis, the suave photographer (long before he was Richard Alpert on Lost).
- David Strickland as Todd, the boyish music critic.
In that first season, the show was a massive hit. It ranked #3 for the entire year. You couldn't escape Brooke Shields. She was finally getting those Golden Globe nominations. She was proving the doubters wrong.
When the Laugh Track Stopped: The David Strickland Tragedy
You can't talk about Suddenly Susan without talking about what happened in March 1999. It’s the shadow that still hangs over the show’s legacy. David Strickland, who played the lovable Todd Stites, died by suicide in a Las Vegas motel during the filming of the third season.
It was devastating. Strickland had been struggling with bipolar disorder and substance abuse, though many of his castmates didn't realize the extent of it until it was too late. Brooke Shields actually hired a private investigator to find him when he didn't show up for a court date.
The show handled it in a way that remains one of the most emotional moments in sitcom history. They didn't recast him. They didn't give Todd a wacky "moved to Europe" excuse. In the Season 3 finale, titled "A Day in the Life," the characters spend the episode looking for Todd, only to find out off-camera that he had died. The final minutes featured the cast sitting around, out of character, sharing real stories about David.
It was raw. It was human. And it changed the show forever.
The Season 4 Reboot No One Asked For
By the time Season 4 rolled around, things got... weird. The showrunners were gone. Judd Nelson was gone. Even the office was gone.
Suddenly, Susan Keane wasn't at a posh magazine anymore. The show moved to a warehouse in Chinatown. They brought in Eric Idle from Monty Python and Sherri Shepherd. It felt like a completely different series.
NBC also moved the show from its cozy Thursday night slot to Monday nights. The ratings didn't just drop; they cratered. We’re talking about a slide from the Top 5 to somewhere near #100. It’s one of the most dramatic "jumps the shark" moments in TV history, mostly because the network basically pushed the shark into the tank themselves.
Why We’re Still Talking About Suddenly Susan
Despite the messy ending, the show did something important. It cemented Brooke Shields as a legitimate comedic actress. Before Suddenly Susan, she was a child star and a model people weren't sure what to do with. Afterward, she was a TV vet.
She recently told People that she even took a "carpet bag coffee table" from the set as a souvenir. It’s a reminder that for the people who made it, the show was a family—one that survived a massive tragedy and the brutal whims of network executives.
What You Should Do If You’re Feeling Nostalgic
If you’re looking to revisit the show or dive into that era of TV, don't just look for clips. Here is how to actually engage with the history:
- Watch the David Strickland Tribute: Find the Season 3 finale. It is a masterclass in how a sitcom can pivot to handle real-world grief with dignity.
- Check out Brooke's Memoir: If you want the real "behind the curtain" stories, Shields’ book Down Came the Rain and her more recent interviews provide a lot of context on how she navigated the pressure of the show and the loss of her friend.
- Look at the "Must See TV" Timeline: Research the 1996-1997 NBC schedule. It explains why some shows (like Suddenly Susan or The Single Guy) were huge hits that almost nobody remembers today—it was all about the "hammock."
The final four episodes of the series actually aired in the middle of the night on December 26, 2000, as part of an "NBC All Night" block. It was a quiet end for a show that once had the world by the tail. But for a few years in the 90s, Susan Keane was the face of the single girl in the city, and Brooke Shields was finally the captain of her own ship.
Actionable Insight: If you're interested in the evolution of the workplace sitcom, compare the first season of Suddenly Susan to 30 Rock or The Office. You’ll see the exact moment when the "multi-cam" studio audience format started to feel its age against the changing tastes of the 2000s.