The set-up of the show was that Gloria had been left with loose ends after her husband, Michael "the Meathead" Stivic, left her for one of his students and moved to a commune. Gloria, to be closer to her now-widowed father, decided to move with her young son, Joey, and pick up the pieces of her life as an assistant to two veterinarians in Fox Ridge, New York. The veterinarians were played by Burgess Meredith and Jo De Winter; the character played by Meredith was also Gloria's landlord. CBS chose not to renew Gloria for a second season, despite the fact that the show ranked 18th for the season, making it one of the few spin-offs of All in the Family not to have a successful run.
Pilot
CBS rejected Glorias original pilot which featured a brief cameo by Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker dropping off Gloria and Joey at Dr. Adams' clinic and residence. It was instead aired as a backdoor pilot episode within Archie Bunker's Place. This pilot was written by veteran All in the Family and Archie Bunker's Place writers Pat Shea and Harriett Weiss and Archie Bunker's Place producer and close Carroll O'Connor associate Joe Gannon who co-created, wrote, and produced the pilot. They were replaced by former WKRP in Cincinnati writers Steve Marshall and Dan Guntzelman. The show's production was moved from CBS Television City to Universal Studios. According to a December 1982 feature interview with Sally Struthers in TV Guide, this did not sit well with Carroll O'Connor who, with the rest of the Archie Bunker's Place production staff, was effectively shut out of the production of Gloria. After this, O'Connor chose to be uninvolved in the retooled pilot and series. The characters of Dr. Jim Waynewrite and Ben the handyman were dropped when Marshall and Guntzelman's second pilot was made, which went to series. In the second pilot, Joey adopted a black dog that he named Archie after his grandfather, which O'Connor was said to be less than thrilled about according to the same 1982 TV Guide article. In the original pilot, actress Jo de Winter's character, Maggie Lawrence, is an assistant to Dr. Adams. In the second pilot and the series, Maggie Lawrence is a veterinarian and Dr. Adams' partner in the clinic.
