Hollywood Q&A

Q: Why didn’t the original Mandy come back to “Last Man Standing?” She had such natural comedic timing.

A: The short answer is the actress who played daughter Mandy Baxter in the first six seasons of “Last Man Standing” was one bit of the fallout from ABC’s decision to cancel the show. The show got the ax by ABC in the spring of 2017, and everyone (the cast included) assumed the show was dead until Fox swooped in to revive it in 2018. As you say, Molly Ephraim, who played Mandy for the ABC run of the show, has a lot going for her and so didn’t have much trouble finding new work. “When the show was canceled, everybody figured, ‘OK, we gotta move on’,” “Last Man Standing” executive producer Matt Berry said after the revival was announced. “[Molly] got involved in some different things, so when we came back she was not able to do it.” Among those other things was a role in the high-profile big-screen drama “The Front Runner” (2018), a leading role in the web series “Parked,” and a recurring arc on the critical hit “Halt and Catch Fire.” Lots of luck for Ephraim, but it left “Last Man Standing” in a tough spot. “It’s unfortunate,” Berry said. “We love her deeply, and she’s a big part of who we were.”

Q: In “Matlock” Season 2 Episode 8, where exactly is the building that was used as the Los Angeles Superior Court location?

A: The history of “Matlock’s” filming locations is both simple and very complicated — extra complicated in this case. It’s simple because it was mostly filmed on a few different studio lots. It’s complicated because it depends on which season you’re talking about, and the show’s shifting location was part of a lot of behind-the-scenes strife (when the show was canceled by NBC and picked up by ABC, the producers basically demanded that filming be moved to star Andy Griffith’s native North Carolina). For your question, we can at least narrow it down to say that it was actually filmed in Los Angeles, but beyond that we can’t even guess, really. The episode you refer to was called “The Network,” and it offered a fun (and network-friendly) twist: Ben Matlock leaves Georgia to visit Los Angeles and gets wrapped up in a TV-biz murder case, which meant that a lot of other NBC stars could appear as themselves. This is where it gets extra complicated. The first six seasons of “Matlock” were filmed in L.A., though the show was set in Georgia. So the Georgia courthouse where Matlock did most of his litigating in those seasons was actually the Second Church of Christ, Scientist in L.A. (well, the exterior was — again, the interior scenes were all filmed on custom-built sets). But for the episode in question, which was supposed to be in L.A., they needed a different exterior to serve as the L.A. Superior Court. It’s presumably also in L.A. (obviously), but there seems to be no record of what location they used.

Q: Have they ever tried remaking the British sitcom “Yes Minister?” I loved that show.

A: The adaptations have gotten looser, but the DNA of “Yes Minister” has continued all the way into the recently departed HBO comedy “Veep.” “Yes Minister,” a satire of backroom British politics, ran from 1980 to 1988 (though two of those seasons were called “Yes, Prime Minister,” to reflect the lead character’s promotion to the top job — note that “Veep’s” title character got a similar promotion, but the show didn’t change names). A direct remake came in 2013, though that only lasted a few episodes. However, before that was “The Thick of It,” a slightly darker and much more foul-mouthed take on the subject matter. Creator Armando Iannucci admitted he was trying to do his own version of “Yes Minister” with that show, which lasted for four hit seasons on the BBC, the same network that gave us “Yes Minister.”