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Sam Malone and Diane Chambers, collectively known as Sam and Diane, are fictional characters in the American situation comedy television series Cheers. Sam Malone is a working-class, retired baseball player-turned-bartender played by Ted Danson; Diane Chambers is a college-graduate cocktail waitress played by Shelley Long. Danson appeared on Cheers for its entire run of the series; Long was part of the regular cast from the 1982 series premiere ("Give Me a Ring Sometime") until the fifth-season finale, "I Do, Adieu" (1987). Long returned for a special appearance in the 1993 series finale, "One for the Road." During the first five seasons, Sam and Diane both flirt with and condemn each other as social opposites, repeatedly consummating their relationship and breaking up. When they are not together, Sam has affairs with many women; Diane has relationships with men fitting her upper-class aspirations, such as Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer), a long-running character who initially debuts in the third season as Diane's love interest in the romantic pair's dynamic. Each of the first four season finales ends with a cliffhanger involving the story arc. In "I Do, Adieu" (1987) Sam and Diane are due to marry, but they cancel the wedding when Diane leaves Sam and the bar to begin a career as a writer. In the series finale Sam and Diane are reunited, become engaged and break up again, realizing that they are never meant to be together. The pairing of Sam and Diane has evoked mixed reactions. Some critics disliked the relationship, either for alienating viewers by dominating the show (and removing its original premise) or because they saw Sam and Diane as a mismatch. Others praised the pair, seeing them as strengthening the show. Some writers compared them to couples in later shows, such as Moonlighting, with their sexual tension and intermittent relationships. Development Before the series was produced, the creators auditioned three pairings of six actors, three male and three female, for their respective roles: William Devane and Lisa Eichhorn, Fred Dryer and Julia Duffy, and Ted Danson and Shelley Long. Originally, Sam Malone was "a former wide receiver for the New England Patriots [football team]", and Fred Dryer was initially considered for that role because he was a football player. However, NBC executives praised test scenes between Ted Danson and Shelley Long, so the creators chose this pairing. Sam's character was changed into a former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox baseball team. The creators of Cheers, Glen and Les Charles and James Burrows, originally planned Sam and Diane to be an ex-athlete and an executive businesswoman involved in a "mixture of romance and antagonism" from screwball comedy movies starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn for Sam and Diane, but they decided to modify the competitive aspect. The concept evolved into a "pretentious, college-student relationship with Sam," an ex-baseball player. After Shelley Long's departure from the show and replacement with Kirstie Alley as Rebecca Howe, the original concept was revisited. Heide Perlman said, "It wasn't quite Tracy-Hepburn, because she was a tight-ass, and he was a hound." The creators had intended Cheers to be a comedy about "family" of characters in a Boston bar, but quickly realized that the "Sam and Diane" romance was popular and decided that every episode would depict it. Burrows told the others several weeks after filming began, "Sam & Diane – that's your show." The "Sam and Diane" romance dominated the show for five years. As Burrows hypothesized, the couple would have diminished the importance and relevance of the bar setting if Long had not left the show in 1987. While the writers were developing the sexual tension between the two characters in the first season, the Charles brothers recognized that the relationship had to mature, so they paired them up in the first-season finale. With the exceptions of Long's last regular episode "I Do, Adieu" (1987) and the series finale "One for the Road", every season finale that primarily focuses on Sam and Diane ends with a cliffhanger. With Long leaving Cheers, producers planned to revamp the show without losing its initial premise, and credited Long's departure for saving the series from cancellation. As Les Charles observed, Sam was a "straight man" to Diane; after Long's departure, he became more "carefree" and a "goof-off" in later seasons. Relationship Season 1: 1982–1983 Shelley Long said in January 1983, "the core of the show is Sam and Diane ... the relationship has a wonderful chemistry, although they try to resist each other". She said that the producers felt that they did not want the relationship to proceed too quickly. The creators stated that Long and Danson "were easier to write for and had more potential than [other tested auditioning pairs]." In the series premiere, "Give Me a Ring Sometime" (1982), Diane Chambers, a college student, enters Cheers and meets Sam Malone, a recovering alcoholic and a womanizer. While she waits for her fiancé Sumner Sloan (Michael McGuire), Diane realizes that Sumner has left her, and that she is jobless and penniless with nothing else in her life. Sam offers Diane a job as a cocktail waitress, and she accepts. In the next episode, "Sam's Women" (1982), Diane snootily teases Sam for preferring just beautiful women with below average intelligence. In response, Sam involves his ex-wife, Debra (Donna McKechnie), in a pretend relationship to prove Diane wrong. (In some syndicated prints, Sam's past marriage is omitted.) When Sam and Debra are leaving "for" an opera, Diane retrieves the opera pamphlet from Debra only to find it is two years old, foiling Sam's scheme. Sam blames Diane for making his romantic life less fun, and Diane assures that he would never win an intelligent woman. They argue but then make up. When Sam explains a color of the sky at a ski resort and compares it to Diane's eyes in vivid detail, apparently distracted Diane is nearly touched but then averts herself and treats it as repulsive to an intelligent woman. Throughout the season, Sam and Diane are attracted to each other and trade each other flirts and innuendos, but they never consummate their relationship. In the two-part season finale, "Showdown" (1983), Diane briefly dates Sam's successful, handsome, well-educated brother Derek, making Sam jealous. No longer able to suppress their feelings, Sam and Diane kiss passionately in the bar's office. Season 2: 1983–1984 Throughout the second season of Cheers, Sam and Diane consummate their relationship, which becomes dysfunctional. Sam and Diane love each other but maintain their antagonistic relationship style toward each other. Their pride and jealousy are often the cause of conflict, and their characteristic bickering continues, though often their love for each other overcomes any problems, such as their on-off relationship. Major conflicts arise toward the .... Discover the Diane Craver popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Diane Craver books.