Night Court aired the fall finale of Season 3 just a few episodes after arriving in the second half of the 2024 TV schedule, with Melissa Rauch previewing fellow Big Bang Theory stars appearing as part of the 2025 TV schedule. Since I was still in a Night Court kind of mood after the fall finale, I decided to make the most of my Peacock subscription and rewatch the Season 2 finale that involved a lovely storyline about Dan's feelings for Christine Sullivan from the original series, played by the late Markie Post.
I'd spoken with John Larroquette during NBC's Night Court Season 3 press junket about the Season 2 finale, in which Dan encountered Christine's sister Katie (Gigi Rice) and finally confessed how deeply he'd felt for Markie Post's character and why he seemingly skipped her funeral. With references to the original series relatively few and far between other than mention's of Abby's dad (played by the late Harry Anderson) and Marsha Warfield reprising her role as Roz, seeing the revival dedicate a full finale storyline to Christine Sullivan and Markie Post packed an emotional punch back in the spring.
When I had the chance, I asked John Larroquette – who is an executive producer as well as star of Night Court – about how involved he was in the storyline and how it came together, and he shared:
How can I talk about this without being too emotional? You know, I wanted to pay homage to Christine Sullivan, the character, and figure out how best to do that, because – not to take up too much time on too much history – the original show was never allowed to do a true end episode. There were feelings that maybe it could be sold somewhere else. I wasn't a producer then, I don't know all the ins and outs, but we weren't allowed to do a true goodbye episode like Cheers did, etc. The one thing that happened in the episode was that Christine Sullivan leaves [and] Dan Fielding says, 'I'm following her. I gotta be with her.' And Harry goes, 'What do you mean? My Christine?' And so there's this triangle. It was there for a while.
Night Court's NBC revival in 2023 wasn't designed to pick up where the original left off, but rather reboot a new era with an almost entirely new cast of characters. So, the nods to the original haven't been too frequent, although Melissa Rauch has shared that fans of the original often attend tapings. The new show hasn't been a sequel to tie off any loose ends; the Season 2 finale's storyline about Christine Sullivan did just that, in a very sweet way. Larroquette went on:
Anyway, we find out that Fielding indeed did follow her, and Fielding indeed did begin a relationship of sorts with her, that her heart softened some toward him, and that Fielding himself comes to realize he's not good enough for her and leaves. And so in the final episode, we see Christine's sister show up, because she's a friend of Roz's as well, and it's Roz's wedding. There's a confrontation between the two of them. I helped build that response very diligently, because I wanted to honor both Christine and Markie.
Larroquette has been candid over the years about seeing "ghosts" while filming Night Court because so many of his former castmates have passed away, so the Season 2 storyline really feels all the more impactful to me in knowing that the actor was so involved in making the tribute happen. He went on to share that there were even more connections than fans could have known when last season's finale first aired, saying:
[We cast] Gigi Rice, who, in a previous incarnation, actually played Markie's sister in another movie. They're very close, and so we talked a lot about it. I even talked to Markie's widower about it, Michael, to get his permission to even bring her up. I wouldn't do it if he thought that it would have been in bad taste. So there were a lot of wheels turning in order to have those moments to allow Fielding to express his love for Christine Sullivan. It was a collaborative effort on a lot of people's parts to get that storyline done.
I would say that all the work to making the storyline a tribute in good taste paid off, because Dan's emotional words about Christine Sullivan provided some of the best dramatic moments in what is otherwise a pretty silly show. The reveal that he did go to Christine's funeral but didn't feel that he could attend openly was a standout moment of the finale on the whole. It's also very sweet to know that Larroquette involved Markie Post's widower in the conversations.
If you, like me, want to rewatch the Season 2 finale now, you can find it streaming on Peacock. If you'd also like to check out the original series that starred John Larroquette, Markie Post, Harry Anderson, Marsha Warfield and more, you can find the first version of Night Court streaming with an Amazon Prime Video subscription. As for the revival, the winter premiere will air on Tuesday, January 14 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.
