| Genre: | Sitcom |
| Creator: | Barry Kemp Mark Ganzel Robin Schiff |
| Director: | Lee Shallat-Chemel |
| Opentheme: | "Someday My Prince Will Come", performed by The Roches |
| Composer: | J. A. C. Redford |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Num Seasons: | 1 |
| Num Episodes: | 8 (3 unaired) |
| List Episodes: | Princesses (TV series)#Episodes |
| Camera: | Multi-camera |
| Runtime: | 30 minutes |
| Network: | CBS |
Princesses is an American television sitcom that aired on CBS from September 27 to October 25, 1991. The series was produced by Universal Television and lasted five episodes. The series theme song, "Someday My Prince Will Come" (from Disney's animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), was performed by The Roches.
The series chronicles the lives of three female roommates in New York City, each with a different background and upbringing, thus the series' title: Tracy Dillon (Julie Hagerty), a ditzy English teacher who dumps her fiancé after learning about his previous two marriages; Tracy's longtime best friend Melissa Kirshner (Fran Drescher), an outspoken Jewish-American who sells cosmetics at a department store; and Georgina "Georgy" de La Rue (Twiggy), a naive, recently widowed English princess (and whose previous occupation was that of a showgirl) who arrives in the U.S. to challenge her late husband's contested will. The idea of the three being roommates in the same apartment happened accidentally because the apartment's owner Tony promised Tracy and Georgy the use of the rent-free building without telling either one who would use it or to whom he had loaned it.
Before the show's premiere, entertainment media outlets such as Entertainment Tonight began publicizing the show's behind-the-scenes woes. In an effort to downplay the behind-the-scenes turmoil on Princesses, CBS execs initially touted the series as "promising" to advertisers. However, upon its premiere, Princesses received negative reviews and placed last in the Nielsen ratings for its timeslot.
On October 14, Universal Television and Hagerty announced that Hagerty had departed the series in a mutual decision.[1] [2] While producers were planning to create a storyline to write out and replace Hagerty's character, CBS cancelled the series and pulled it from the air.
Following the series cancellation, Drescher and Twiggy remained good friends as the latter returned to England. While going to visit Twiggy in England, Drescher accidentally ran into CBS programming head Jeff Sagansky on her flight, and he gave Drescher a chance to pitch her own series. While visiting Twiggy, Drescher came up with the idea of what became The Nanny.[3] [4]
The show received negative reviews. It ranked 118th out of 132 shows that season, averaging a 6.3 household rating.[5]