Sister, Sister (TV series)


Sister, Sister is an American television sitcom starring identical twins Tia and Tamera Mowry. It premiered on April 1, 1994, and concluded on May 23, 1999 after six seasons. The premise was that Tia Landry and Tamera Campbell were separated at birth and one was adopted by a single mother while the other was adopted by a couple, although the mother died shortly afterward; 14 years later the two accidentally found each other and reunited.
The series was created by Kim Bass, Gary Gilbert, and Fred Shafferman, and produced by de Passe Entertainment and Paramount Network Television. The cast also featured Jackee Harry as Tia's mother, Tim Reid as Tamera's father, and Marques Houston as their annoying neighbor. RonReaco Lee and Deon Richmond joined the cast in the fifth season.
Sister, Sister was picked up by ABC as a midseason replacement and debuted on April 1, 1994, as part of the network's TGIF comedy lineup. The show later moved to a new timeslot for the 1994–95 season, but ABC announced that it was cancelling the program due to low ratings and its final episode aired April 28, 1995. The WB, which was still in its infancy in 1995, picked up Sister, Sister to replace the cancelled Muscle on its Wednesday night lineup of shows and the third season debuted on September 6, 1995. The program found its niche as part of The WB's lineup and aired for four additional seasons on the network, with the final episode airing on May 23, 1999.
In January 2018, a revival of Sister, Sister was confirmed and is currently in the works. As of 2019, it is currently unknown when or if the revival will happen.

Premise

In the pilot, the twins are reunited during a chance encounter shopping at a clothing store at the mall with their adoptive parents.
Tia Landry is the intelligent twin from inner city Detroit, where her adoptive mother Lisa works as a seamstress; Tamera Campbell is the boy-crazy twin from the suburbs, where her adoptive father Ray owns a successful limousine service. After their unexpected reunion, Ray reluctantly allows Tia and Lisa to move in because Lisa was about to take a job in St. Louis, which would have separated the girls again. The girls' neighbor is nerdy Roger Evans, an annoying teenager who is infatuated with both of them, and who evolves into a perfect gentleman they both find attractive. In the final season when the girls go off to college, Roger ceases to appear in the series because he was still in high school, though he does return as a guest in the final episode. By the fifth season, Tia and Tamera ended up with steady boyfriends: Tia's is Tyreke Scott and Tamera's is Jordan Bennett.
In the sixth-season episode "Father's Day", the twins meet their biological father Matt Sullivan, a white famous photojournalist who never married their mother, Racelle Gavin, because they never got the chance: she was asked to paint a mural in Florida and he was assigned "the opportunity of a lifetime" in the Middle East; when he left, Racelle told him she'd join him in Tel Aviv but never mentioned her pregnancy, and after 6 months she stopped writing. When she died, Matt wasn't allowed to see the girls because he couldn't prove he was their father, and when he searched for them later, he never found them because they had been adopted separately.

Production

For the first five seasons, the series often had Tia and Tamera, either together or separately, break the fourth wall by talking directly to the viewer. During the ABC run, Tia and Tamera would address the audience on some of the goings on in the storyline involving them and occasionally other main characters, usually Roger. After the series moved to The WB, the breaking of the fourth wall was limited mainly to certain episodes and usually only in the teaser scenes and featured increasingly less often by the fourth season. For some of the episodes in the fifth season, it was included but was dropped by the middle of the fifth season. The sixth and final season was the only season that did not include it.

Characters

Main characters

Theme song and opening sequences

Theme song

The series' original theme song was written and composed by Tim Heintz, Randy Petersen and Kevin Quinn. Season one was the only season using the full version, with the short middle instrumental portion, vocalizations and the line "Living underneath one roof, no it won't be trouble-proof" dropped in season 2, though the short instrumental and vocalizations were restored in season 3. An updated version of the theme song was used starting in Season 5, composed by Heintz, Petersen, Quinn and Kurt Farquhar, who composed the music score for most of the series, and performed by Tia and Tamera Mowry; this version used the same tune, but a slower tempo and lyrics that emphasized the two characters' differences and increased maturity. The season 5 version of the theme began with the end of the original theme prior to the start of the theme song. An instrumental version of the final theme was used as a closing theme for the final two seasons, though with the exception of the episode "Designer Genes", it was generally played over a blooper reel during the closing credits.

Opening titles

The opening sequence used in the first two seasons, designed by Twin Art, opens with the sound of two spanks and crying babies over a black screen as animated crying babies appear with the word "separated" between them, then showing Ray and Lisa each holding babies representing Tamera and Tia with the word "adopted" appearing between both. The main cast are shown in front of a white background with various animations around them, ending with Tia, Tamera, Ray and Lisa at a couch with an animated roof over it, which morphs into the title logo. The sequence was shortened with the theme song in season two and modified to include Marques Houston as Roger, who became a contract cast member that season.
Seasons 3 and 4 used a computer-animated sequence by Pittard-Sullivan, with the main cast's video headshots in a stop-motion effect, opening with two babies drifting away from each other into two backgrounds: one, the city and the other, a country road with the word "separated" between them, then showing Ray and Lisa each holding babies in a similar manner as the previous sequence with a rotating "adopted", then showing the cast in front of different backdrops. It ends with the cast walking into each other, then getting themselves together over changing cloud backdrops, one which features two roadsigns, before the title logo appears. The cast's surnames are animated and in a variant of the show's logotype. This was the only time the intro remained exactly the same, though by season four, the intro became a bit outdated as Tia and Tamera dropped the wavy hair, tams and plaid outfits for straight hair and trendier fashions, and Roger stopped wearing braids.
The final two seasons used a music video-style sequence, designed by Paramount Digital Design; Marques Houston remained in the sequence despite his appearances on the series decreasing midway through the fifth season, and Houston was replaced in the sequence by RonReaco Lee and Deon Richmond for the sixth season. Because virtually the same sequence was used as the season before, viewers may notice that in the final part of the second version of the sequence before the title logo when the cast dances together that Richmond and Lee do not appear in the black-and-white shots and are digitally inserted in the regular shots with Tia and Tamera Mowry, Tim Reid and Jackée Harry.

Syndication

U.S. broadcast and cable syndication

After being picked up by The WB in 1995, reruns of the first two seasons of Sister, Sister were broadcast in early primetime as part of the network's then-newly launched Sunday night lineup during the 1995–1996 season, in addition to the first-run episodes of the series that aired on the WB's Wednesday night schedule. The series has been aired on various broadcast television networks in the U.S. after the series finale on The WB Television Network. From September 1998 to September 1999, Paramount Domestic Television distributed the series to Fox, The WB and UPN network affiliates, such as WWOR-TV around the United States, airing depending on market. In some markets such as New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Bakersfield, reruns of Sister, Sister were replaced by reruns of The Hughleys in September 2002.
The series formerly aired reruns on The N, Disney Channel, ABC Family, BET, WGN America, Up, Centric, and Hub Network. It currently airs reruns on Fuse.
Disney Channel airings had most episodes edited for content deemed by the channel as unsuitable for its pre-teen audience; the edited Disney Channel versions were also the syndication package of the show that aired on sister network ABC Family, with the exception of the season two episode "Tattoo" that was omitted from Disney Channel airings. GMC also airs episodes with content the channel deems inappropriate usually muted or removed entirely, ranging from mild suggestive dialogue said by Roger to tame phrases such as "shut up", "butt", "dumb" and "pervert"; whereas the airings on other channels were the original syndicated prints.

International syndication

In Australia and New Zealand, the series was aired on Nickelodeon and the Seven Network; in the United Kingdom, Sister, Sister was aired on Nickelodeon, and on Channel 4 between 1995 and 2000 as the channel had the terrestrial rights to the show. In the UK, Nickelodeon aired Sister Sister again in 2009 but only showed episodes from the first four seasons. It currently airs on Trace Vault in the UK, which also shows classic Teenage comedies like Kenan and Kel and Moesha in addition to music videos. It also aired in Ireland, on RTÉ2.
In Latin America, Sister, Sister used to air on Nickelodeon in the late 1990s and early 2000s. On October 21, 2009 it debuted on open television Rede Record, but was taken off on October 30, 2009, the cause for this is unknown.

Home media

released the first and second seasons of Sister, Sister on DVD in Region 1 in 2008 and 2009. As of September 2014, these releases have been discontinued and are out of print.
On May 4, 2015, it was announced that Visual Entertainment Inc. had acquired the distribution rights to the series for Region 1. It was subsequently announced on December 28, 2015, that VEI would release a complete DVD set of the series, Sister, Sister: The Complete Collection, in Region 1 on January 19, 2016, the release date was then pushed back to March 18, 2016. The Mowry twins 2000 television film Seventeen Again is also included as a bonus disc on the Complete Collection set. On May 26, 2017, VEI released separate Seasons 1–3 and Seasons 4–6 sets of the series.

Revival

In June 2012 interview with TV Guide, both Tia Mowry and Tamera Mowry have said they would like to reunite the cast for a reunion film. They were thinking of doing a "Twins in the city" plot, like the twins in New York City.
In 2017, rumors started developing about a potential continuation of Sister, Sister, both Tia and Tamera have confirmed that talks are ongoing and that a sequel series is very close to happening.
In October 2017, Tia Mowry stated in an interview with Entertainment Tonight that a revival of the series was "definitely closer than ever" and that she is "getting excited" about the possibility. She also said that she believed Jackée Harry and Tim Reid would be a part of the revival if it were to take place.
On January 16, 2018, while appearing on Steve, Harry confirmed the revival, stating that "it's happening".
As of 2019, the reboot has been put on hold indefinitely. Tia has commented that "To be honest with you, I hate to pop the balloon." "Sister, Sister kind of looks dead right now."

Awards and nominations