Delta (1992–1993) User Reviews

A Good TV Series to Rid Delta Burke of Suzanne Sugarbaker

[JennLynn · 22 January 2000]

The main reason Delta Burke did this TV Series was to rid her of her role as Suzanne Sugarbaker on "Designing Women" where her contract was not renewed for the 1991-1992 season. This show showed us a different side of her. Delta Bishop was a country singer. Suzanne Sugarbaker couldn't sing - at all, as Julia said on "Designing Women". Though it lasted one season, the show made an impact on her career. In 1995, she did star as Suzanne again in the short-lived comedy "Women of the House".

Sorry follow up to DW

[theb52s · 5/10 · 2 April 2007]

Found the season premiere of this on one of my old videotapes. A cool concept that turned out to be pretty lame. Delta Burke deserved better than this tripe. I remember watching this when it first aired and expected something exceptional. What a disappointment. The year 1992 was the perfect time to have a clever series with the Nashville country music scene as a backdrop. Can you imagine all of the great legends that could have made cameos??????? So many stories of Country-Western wanna-be's and has-been's could have been used as plot lines. And Delta auditioning and trying to find her way to stardom. Too bad this didn't work.

Not a good fit for Delta Burke

[jdiasnwfl · 4/10 · 1 June 2021]

I like Delta Burke but this series was just not a good fit for her. Delta Burke Cannot sing well. So to have a series where she's trying to make it big in Nashville as a singer was just not working. They tried several things to make the ratings go up. I guess they thought people weren't watching because Delta Burke was blonde so they had her color her hair back to black. Then they changed the emphasis on the series by having Delta Bishop decide she was going to be a songwriter in Nashville rather than a singer. But unfortunately the changes came too late and only true fans were still watching.

Delta Burke gone country... and blonde!

[VinnieRattolle · 20 July 2009]

Delta Bishop was an enthusiastic woman who decided she wanted to make it in country music, just like her idol, Patsy Cline. When her husband Charlie refused to support her dream, she dumped him, quit her job as a hairstylist, moved in with her ditsy cousin Lavonne, and got a job waitressing at The Green Lantern bar, where Cline once sang. Working at the bar was Darden Towe, the owner with a gruff exterior but a heart of gold, and Connie, a loudmouth black lady from Detroit who despised Southerners. Lavonne's husband Buck (Bill Engvall in an early turn as his patented blue-collar redneck character) was a constant foil for Delta, and Lavonne's boss Thelma was constantly spouting off eccentric advice (the same sort of dialogue Beth Grant rattled off a decade later beside Burke in "Sordid Lives"). Arriving late to the series (after Delta reverted to brunette hair) were Delta's sleazy agent, the egotistical "tune mogul" Sandy, and Delta's shrill mother Rosiland.

Following a very public behind-the-scenes battle on "Designing Women," "Delta" was supposed to be Burke's big comeback. Didn't quite work that way. The problem is that the show features a large cast, but it wasn't an ensemble -- Burke was the star of the show, all of the others were just eccentric background characters. Darden was given more dimension than any of the other characters (it was obvious he'd have been a potential love interest if the show had survived), and Buck, Connie and Thelma each had numerous scene-stealing moments, but the rest of the characters were forgettable... not unlike the show itself.

Burke later said that she felt pressured to do the show when it was offered, and she wasn't entirely comfortable singing - which shows. Delta can pull off singing a song every now and then, but some of the songs she was forced to sing were out of her range to begin with and she often seemed unsure of herself while performing.

All in all, there was a great cast, an occasional big-name country guest star, a few funny moments and catchy songs but overall it was a fairly mediocre series.