Townies

Network: ABC
Episodes: 15, five unaired (half-hour)
Seasons: One

TV show dates: September 18, 1996 — December 4, 1996
Series status: Cancelled/ended

Performers include: Molly Ringwald, David Cromwell, Jeff Doucette, Eric McCormack, George Jefferies, and Heather Matarazzo.

TV show description:
Friends since childhood, Shannon (Jenna Elfman), Carrie Donovan (Molly Ringwold), and Denise Rivaldi (Lauren Graham), went to the same school, hung out together, and now work together. As waitresses at The Pelican in their Gloucester, Massachusetts hometown, the girls can’t help but wish their twenty-something lives were different.

The sitcom centers on anxious Carrie, the peacemaker of the trio who still lives at home with her parents — Mike (Dion Anderson) and Kathy (Lee Garlington) — who often try to steer Carrie toward a more grown-up career.

Also complicating things for Carrie is best friend Mark (Ron Livingston), who wishes they could be more than friends, and the diner’s grouchy boss, Marge (Conchata Ferrell). Shannon lives alone but is rarely lonely for male companionship. She isn’t about to settle down like Denise, who married Ryan (Bill Burr), the unemployed father of her young child.

Though the three friends often dream of making their escape from the place they’ve always known, events usually conspire to keep them right where they’ve always been.