The Golden Girls: Mindy Kaling Wants a Reimagined Take, Not a Remake

Posted in: ABC, NBC, TV | Tagged: Golden Girls

The Golden Girls: Mindy Kaling Wants a Reimagined Take, Not a Remake

Mindy Kaling (Not Suitable For Work) is much more interested in developing a series reimagining of The Golden Girls, not a remake.

Published Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:37:09 -0500
by Tom Chang
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Article Summary

• Mindy Kaling says she wants her own Golden Girls-inspired series, stressing it would be a fresh reimagining, not a remake.
• She says no one can replace Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty from the original Golden Girls.
• The beloved Golden Girls followed Dorothy, Rose, Blanche, and Sophia, and ran for seven seasons from 1985 to 1992.
• Kaling shared the Golden Girls idea while promoting Not Suitable For Work and discussing projects like Running Point.

Mindy Kaling is one of the busiest creatives in Hollywood as an actress, writer, and producer, always looking for new challenges. One of them she wants to tackle is her original take on The Golden Girls since no one can ever replace the talent of Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty. While promoting her latest series, Not Suitable For Work, Kaling spoke with Deadline and broke down her work in the Hulu series and her other projects, like Netflix's Running Point and Fox's The Mindy Project.

Golden Girls: Mindy Kaling Wants Her Original Take on Series

When asked about her current ambitions involving certain demographics, Kaling said, "I want to do that, and I want to do my version of 'Golden Girls,'" emphasizing that it would be her original take, "not a remake of 'Golden Girls.'" The Susan Harris-created series centered around three elderly women, Dorothy (Arthur), Rose (White), and Blanche (McClanahan), who live together in Blanche's Miami home with Dorothy's mother, Sophia (Getty). The series lasted seven seasons from 1985 to 1992, spawning a few spinoffs, including Empty Nest and Nurses on NBC and The Golden Palace for CBS, a direct sequel series that featured White, McClanahan, and Getty in the starring roles without Arthur in the main cast, but did appear in a two-part episode of the series.

The Golden Girls premiered during NBC's Brandon Tartikoff era of strong prime time programming that bucked the trend of traditional sitcoms, since it was a rare instance for a series to be led by all older women, not to mention the catchy rendition of Andrew Gold's "Thank You For Being a Friend" by Cynthia Fee. During the first six seasons, the show regularly finished in the top 10 of Nielsen ratings, with its best season three, reaching a peak of fourth place. Viewership plummeted by the final season as it dropped from 10th to 30th in the rankings, but the finale, "One Flew Out the Cuckoo's Nest," was seen by 27.2 million viewers. For more, you can check out the full interview with Kaling.

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