i have observed in the cheers fandom today a tendency to misdirect feelings of missing diane into a dislike of rebecca, or what circulates still is this false idea that rebecca's character was never her own independently but was contingent on dethroning sam/diane as the show's heart and sinking ship (which isn't supported anywhere by the text: the writers never wrote their dynamic as remotely identical or as the show's axis. i wouldn't even say they wrote them as a "ship." this is a reading that's riddled with issues as well.)
what's lost in that vitriol is the recognition that diane and rebecca would have supported each other as two women who were under-recognized and undervalued in their particular spheres, one being the academic elite and another the business world. in just a comparison of those worlds and structures, it becomes clear that they're dealing with several of the same types of sharks. take the boogeyman of john allen hill for instance, who sits neatly at their crossroads as the refined proprietor. (this is one intriguing way cheers kept the class satire going past the diane years: pivoting to instead look at corporations [robin colcord/lillian corp] and how corrupt white collar professionals divest power from blue collar small businesses and their owners, i.e., sam; through capitalistic ventures.)
in a world where diane and rebecca co-existed, i think that if they spooked each other it would only be through how they'd prompt self-reflection in each other (akin to the workings of the sam/diane dynamic) re. striving, ambition, and, again, who they're up against, inevitably resulting in a few, "oh god. am i like this?" moments, which would have been apt humor for the show, that is, sweet and consolatory, but existential and without being interpersonally simple or straightforward. the bottom line is they would appreciate each other, although they may not always agree with each other.
(sam could not have run cheers on his own into the 1990's. there could have been a place for rebecca even in such a world! frankly, imagining sam/diane fix-its where rebecca's a presence is great fun.)
and those Riddled Issues:
1. expected disclaimer: we just need to re-cast rebecca. but thanks to laurel, we have. ;-)
2. sam and rebecca were best suited for the "antagonistic siblings" configuration. that conceptualization for them from the get-go would have remedied the problems in the writing of the rebecca years. but all that (on how the characters were reconfigured to function as Syntax for different commentaries, and where the writing suffered from this decision) is a post for another day. otherwise i might gloss over points about the show's execution and ultimately reinforce the "shelley leaving the show ruined it" mode of thinking which only 1. keeps the blame pinned on shelley long who's been blamed enough, and 2. i just don't agree with this because it's not true. cheers ran for 11 seasons and won more awards than i have fingers for. i say this despite my iron-clad belief that the best writing was, indeed, the diane years.
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