Good & Evil

1 9 9 1 (USA)
11 (6) x 30 minute episodes

Charlotte Sandler Cosmetics is a large company in Washington DC owned by domineering cosmetics queen Charlotte Sandler (Marian Seldes) and run by her two opposite-in-personality daughters, Denise (Teri Garr) and Genevieve (Margaret Whitton) – known as “Genny”.

Denise is a schemer (Charlotte calls her “a bitch”) and believes her mother favours Genny. “She was cuter,” Charlotte tells Denise. “You had this oozing skin condition. We just didn’t want to touch you.” Her skin condition was so bad that the family put her out in the garden for a year, hoping the sun would improve it.

Denise was then sent to a boarding school in Peru, and the only thing she was good at was being bad. She is now plotting to take control of the company from her mother, who is 65 years old but won’t retire until she looks 65.

Denise is the mother of David (Seth Green), who attends the Pudget Academy for Boys.

Denise is married to a titled Englishman named Ronald Ethan (Marius Weyers), who disappeared in a “suspicious plunge off Mount Everest” in 1987 (Denise pushed him). He was found frozen at the bottom of the mountain, thawed out and returned to “his loving wife”, who now seeks to finish him off for good.

Genny is a brilliant and selfless biochemist who has dedicated her life to finding cures for just about everything. She refuses to experiment on animals and tests her vaccines on herself, which produces various side effects, such as delusions and personality changes.

Genny is the mother of a beautiful teenage girl named Caroline (Brooke Theiss), who suffered a traumatic shock two years ago when her father, Jonathan, died. As a result, she is now unable to speak.

Both sisters are in love with the same man, handsome but passively idiotic Dr Eric (Lane Davies), a heart surgeon with a sordid past.

George (Mark Blankfield) is a blind psychiatrist who has loved Genny ever since he first saw her (so to speak). He creates mayhem with his cane, devastating Genny’s lab in the process (which caused fury amongst American blind advocacy groups).

Production was halted on the low-rated ABC sitcom – which was written by Susan Harris, who wrote Soap – after the 11th episode was taped, although only six episodes were broadcast, concluding with a teaser for the unaired seventh show.

George Aliceson Tipton composed The Good and Evil Theme.

Charlotte Sandler
Marian Seldes
Denise Sandler
Teri Garr
Genevieve “Genny” Sandler
Margaret Whitton
David
Seth Green
Ronald Ethan
Marius Weyers
Caroline
Brooke Theiss
Dr Eric Haan
Lane Davies
George
Mark Blankfield
Mary
Mary Gillis
Roger
Sherman Howard