We haven’t seen the last of Christy and Bonnie Plunkett. The mother-daughter duo are set to return for a sixth season on “Mom,” The Hollywood reporter confirms. Anna Farris and recent Oscar winner Allison Janney topline the CBS sitcom, which recently wrapped filming on its fifth season.
Farris plays Christy, a single mom who moves to Napa, California to start over with her two children. Still working on addressing her past of drug and alcohol abuse, she lands a job as a waitress and attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Bonnie, who is portrayed by Janney, is also a recovering addict. Janney’s taken home two Emmy Awards for her role on the series, which just celebrated its 100th episode.
“‘Mom’ has been a linchpin comedy for us over the last several years,” CBS Entertainment president Kelly Kahl said Sunday in a statement. “It’s a fearless series that tackles provocative social issues with laughter and grace, and a large, loyal audience has followed. With gifted talents like Anna and Allison leading a great ensemble cast, and a production team headed by Chuck Lorre, Eddie Gorodetsky, Nick Bakay, and Gemma Baker, this series just keeps getting better.”
Averaging more than 11 million total viewers during its fifth season, “Mom” is the third-most-watched comedy on broadcast, according to THR.
While “Mom” is co-created by a woman (Gemma Baker, “Two and a Half Men”) and its pilot was helmed by a woman (Pamela Fryman, “How I Met Your Mother”) the female-led series has a poor track record when it comes to inclusive hiring.
The DGA’s 2016-17 Episodic TV Director Diversity Report found that “Mom” hired exactly zero women directors and/or minority directors during that time period. Fryman and Betsy Thomas (“My Boys”) were the only women hired to direct in the show’s first season, and the second, third, and fourth seasons included exactly zero women-directed episodes. Actress and director Lea Thompson (“American Housewife”) helmed an episode for Season 5.
We can’t determine who directed the final two episodes of this current, ongoing season, but if they are men, Thompson, Thomas, and Fryman remain the only three women ever to sit in the director’s chair during the show’s run, which kicked off in 2013.
It’s worth noting that “Mom” has an above-average number of eps written by women, and that Seasons 3, 4, and 5 were directly primarily by one man — so it’s not as though the show is hiring individual directors for every ep.
“The House Bunny,” “Just Friends,” and the “Scary Movie” franchise are among Faris’ credits. She stars in the upcoming “Overboard” reboot. Janney’s credits include “Masters of Sex,” “The Help,” and “The West Wing.” She won an Oscar this year for her supporting role in Tonya Harding biopic “I, Tonya.”
