Sheryl J. Anderson gives friendship enough time to become a reason to keep watching. We like the undemanding company of Sweet Magnolias, though the programme’s determination to reassure can leave its drama short of bite.
Fi1m perspective
In Sweet Magnolias (2020), friends give ordinary personal difficulties their full attention. Sheryl J. Anderson makes that attention a reason to return: the programme is good company because its people are willing to listen to one another. We found its central friendship comforting because nobody’s trouble seemed too modest to deserve a hearing. The small-town setting suits this approach, keeping the drama on an ordinary, recognisable scale. It is undemanding television, but the people give us a reason to stay.
Anderson wrote for the half-hour comedy Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990), then worked as writer and producer on the supernatural drama Charmed (1998). She went on to create Ties That Bind (2015), before developing Sweet Magnolias from Sherryl Woods’s novels. The move from comedy into hour-long drama gives some context to a programme that wants laughter alongside its personal difficulties. Community, female friendship and second chances are recurring concerns in her writing, and here they are enough to sustain an evening without much urgency.
Anderson’s work as creator, writer and showrunner also involves protecting character arcs within a collaborative writing process. That is a useful priority when the chief attraction is spending more time with the same people. Her collaborators include producer Dan Paulson and actor and executive producer JoAnna Garcia Swisher; the pleasure of an ensemble programme cannot be credited to its scripts alone. What we value in the writing is its willingness to take these lives seriously without inflating every difficulty into a crisis.
The weakness is Anderson’s determination to make Sweet Magnolias reassuring. Some conversations have little fresh to offer, and its manageable troubles can leave the drama short of bite. The friendships would be more involving if we were less certain that comfort was the priority. Try it when good company matters more than being kept in suspense.
Biography
Sheryl J. Anderson is an American television writer, producer and showrunner. She studied playwriting at the College of William & Mary and began her career as a development executive before writing for half-hour series including Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990) and Dave's World. She later worked on hour-long dramas such as Charmed (1998), where she served as producer and writer, Flash Gordon (2007) and When Calls the Heart (2014).
Anderson created the UPtv series Ties That Bind (2015) and developed and served as showrunner on the Netflix romantic drama Sweet Magnolias (2020), for which she also wrote episodes. She has written television films for Hallmark and other networks and is the author of the Molly Forrester mystery novels beginning with Killer Heels (2004).
