Good ratings will apparently keep even the most trite TV-movie idea alive. Last season, Children of the Bride, with The Golden Girls' Rue McClanahan as a woman with a quartet of troublesome but lovable grown-up children, scored solid ratings, so now McClanahan is back in Baby of the Bride as Margret Becker Hix. In this one, Margret finds she's pregnant by her new husband, John, played by Ted Shackelford of Knots Landing.
There are lots of pregnant-older-woman and morning sickness jokes, but writer Bart Baker has a canny strategy: He crams this movie with so much plot, so many characters, that you barely have time to complain about the foolishness of the humor — you're too busy keeping track of McClanahan and all her adult babies, including Empty Nest's Kristy McNichol, as an ex-nun who's also pregnant, and John Wesley Shipp (The Flash), as an incorrigible womanizer who's just been fired from his job.
Baby of the Bride is such a chipper no-brainer that you can't be too annoyed with its resolute mediocrity. Actor Bill Bixby has directed Baby with brisk efficiency, McClanahan offers a nice combination of warmth and firmness in dealing with her large family. And they just don't make light comedies like this for theatrical release anymore, so I wouldn't be surprised if Baby does just as well in the ratings as its predecessor, and inspires yet another sequel. Grandkids of the Bride? C
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