1 9 9 4 – 1 9 9 9 (USA)
119 x 30 minute episodes
This light, cheerful sitcom introduced twin 14-year-old girls Tia (Tia Mowry) and Tamera (Tamera Mowry), who suddenly found each other after being separated at birth.
They had been adopted by different parents, with Tia growing up in downtown Detroit, where her widowed mother, Lisa (Jackee Harry), worked intermittently as a seamstress, and Tamera raised in the suburbs, where her affluent dad, Ray (Tim Reid) – also now widowed – owned a limousine service.
Encountering each other in a department store, the girls took to each other immediately, vowing never to be separated again.
Their single parents, though, were another story . . .
Brash, pushy, working-girl Lisa clashed immediately with quiet, conservative Ray, a sort of black yuppie.
Stories revolved around the girls’ escapades and Ray and Lisa’s gradual, grudging attraction to one another.
Roger Evans (Marques Houston) was a younger boy with a crush on disdainful Tia. Or was that Tamera?
Only the first two seasons of Sister, Sister aired on ABC before it was cancelled and picked up by the newly-launched WB network, where it was shown twice a week. Newly produced episodes aired on Wednesdays, while reruns of the ABC episodes aired on Sundays.
In the first new episode on the WB, Tamera and Tia started their sophomore year at Roosevelt High School.
Seen occasionally were Denise Mondello (Anna Slotky), a bright classmate, Terrence (Dorien Wilson), who was dating Lisa, and Principal Mitushka (Fred Willard).
A year later, fawning Roger had matured into someone both girls (surprisingly) found attractive. Ray and Lisa started dating, and by the spring of 1997, they were getting serious – but it fizzled out.
Early in their senior year Tia, the more academic of the twins, got a job working in a bookstore in the neighbourhood mall and started dating Tyreke Scott (RonReaco Lee), a 19-year-old reformed street kid working as a mechanic. Jordan Bennett (Deon Richmond) became Tamera’s steady guy.
In February, the twins were accepted into the University of Michigan and commuted from an apartment over their parents’ garage. Tyreke also moved to the university – with a part-time job working for campus security – as did Jordan and their girlfriend Diavian (Alexis Fields).
Diavian’s roommate, Simone Flasser (Rachel Harris), was an obnoxious, pretentious white girl repeating her senior year because she had flunked a couple of courses the previous year.
Ray ran for state senate (he lost a close race), and Lisa’s dress business flourished.
In February, the girls met their birth father, famous photojournalist Matt Sullivan (Tony Carreiro).
In the last episode, Lisa married Victor Sims (Richard Lawson), Ray took a job working for the governor in Lansing, Tia was preparing to spend the summer in New York as an intern with the Women’s National Basketball Association, and Tamera was on her way to Africa for a summer with her birth father.
Tamera Campbell
Tamera Mowry
Tia Landry
Tia Mowry
Ray Campbell
Tim Reid
Lisa Landry
Jackee Harry
Roger Evans
Marques Houston
Terrence Winninham
Dorien Wilson
Denise Mondello
Anna Slotky
Principal Mitushka
Fred Willard
Tyreke Scott
RonReaco Lee
Viveca Sinclair Shaw
Rolanda Watts
Diavian Johnson
Alexis Fields
Jordan Bennett
Deon Richmond
Simone Flasser
Rachel Harris
Matt Sullivan
Tony Carreiro