The Haves and the Have Nots (TV series)

The Haves and the Have Nots is an American crime drama and soap opera created, executive produced, written, and directed by Tyler Perry. The premise of the series is based on Perry's 2011 play of the same name. The series premiered on May 28, 2013 on the Oprah Winfrey Network; It is the first scripted television series to air on the network.
OWN renewed the series for a 16 episodes second season midway into the first season. The network later ordered 16 more episodes, bringing the total to 32 total episodes, however on August 21, it was announced that the network had ordered 4 additional episodes. Production of season 3 began in August 2014. On October 24, 2019, a seventh season was announced, which premiered on January 7, 2020. On August 4, 2020, OWN announced the second half of Season 7 and it premiered on August 25, 2020. On October 27, 2020, OWN announced that the series was renewed for an eighth and final season, which premiered on November 24, 2020.
Cast and characters.
The series follows three families and their lifestyles as they coexist in Savannah, Georgia: the rich, powerful, and locally very public Cryer and Harrington families (dubbed "The Haves") and the poor and destitute Young family (dubbed "The Have Nots"). The Young family is headed by Hanna, a single mother who works as the Cryer family's maid and also serves as the best friend and confidante of the lady of the house, Katheryn. Included as part of "The Have Nots" is another maid of the Cryer family's, Celine Gonzales. While the Young family versus the Cryer and Harrington families lead polar opposite lifestyles in terms of social class, economics, social status, and surroundings, they are each similar in that they lead exceedingly dysfunctional lifestyles.
The show's cast is multiracial: one of the upper class families are Caucasian American and the other is African American; the poor family is also African American; in addition to this, there is a poor maid who is Hispanic. To that end, when Angela Robinson (the actress who plays Veronica Harrington) was interviewed about her new role on the series in late June 2013, she stated, "This is one of the only shows on television with a diverse cast that looks like America: Black, White, Latino, straight, gay, rich, and poor."
Tika Sumpter is the only cast member who appeared in every episode.
Reception.
Ratings and broadcast history.
"The Haves and the Have Nots" premiered on Tuesday, May 28, 2013, at 9/8c on the Oprah Winfrey Network. "The Haves and the Have Nots" is the first scripted television series to air on OWN. Both the show's first and second episodes aired back to back on its premiere night. Each episode of the series runs for an hour (42 minutes plus commercials).
"The Haves and the Have Nots" set a record for OWN, scoring the highest ratings ever for a series premiere on the network. During the show's first season, "The Haves and the Have Nots" received numerous widely publicized series highs in ratings, including with its July 30 episode, its August 6 episode, its August 13 episode, its August 27 episode, and most notably with its season 1 finale on September 3. The season 1 finale of "The Haves And the Have Nots" was the third most watched telecast in OWN history, bested only by an interview with Whitney Houston's daughter Bobbi Kristina and episodes of "Oprah's Next Chapter" featuring Lance Armstrong.
Within its first season alone, "Variety" had recognized "The Haves and the Have Nots" as "OWN's most popular series to date." Also within only its first season, "The Haves and the Have Nots" had been critically acclaimed as being "one of OWN's biggest success stories with its weekly dose of soapy fun, filled with the typical betrayals, affairs, manipulations and a bitch slap or two."
Season 2 of "The Haves and the Have Nots" premiered on Tuesday, January 7, 2014. Continuing on with its ratings records from season 1, the show debuted its 2nd season with series and network high ratings. Throughout season 2, the soap has achieved several more series highs. On February 4, 2014, for example, the drama series came in as the most watched television program in all of cable television with an estimated 3.4 million viewers. Among all of OWN programming since the network's January 2011 debut, only a March 2012 "Oprah's Next Chapter" interview with Bobbi Kristina has drawn more viewers (3.5 million) than the February 4, 2014 episode of "The Haves and the Have Nots". The "Haves and the Have Nots" episode in question is "Why Didn't You Tell Me?" On Tuesday, March 11, 2014, however, the mid-season 2 finale of "The Haves and the Have Nots" set a record for all of OWN programming, scoring the highest ratings in the station's history. The record-breaking episode brought in 3.6 million viewers, surpassing the 3.5 million that tuned in for Oprah Winfrey's interview with Bobbi Kristina. Not only was the episode the most watched broadcast in all of OWN history but it came in at number 1 among all of cable television and number 4 among all shows on television for its airing night.
In May 2015, it was reported that the 3rd season of "The Haves and the Have Nots" was primetime's #1 original cable series among African-American women and total viewers, regularly attracting more than three million viewers.
On August 25, 2020, when the second part of the seventh season began airing on OWN, the series moved from 9/8c to 8/7c. When the eighth season premiered, the series maintained that time slot.
Angela Robinson (Veronica Harrington).
As a central and very one-of-a-kind antagonist in the program, the "Veronica Harrington" character has drawn increasing attention in the media, promoted as "the ice queen with ice water running through her veins." An NBC News article characterized the character as an "insecure woman that everyone loves to hate" and "a bougie buppie, diabolical diva who slept her way to the top of Savannah's high society."