The season finale of the 2023 revival of Night Court saw an original cast member making her return to the fan-favorite sitcom.
Marsha Warfield, who played the no-nonsense bailiff Roz in the original Night Court series, reprised her role in the revival’s season finale on May 9. In the episode, Roz finds herself in court after a rowdy bachelorette party in New Orleans. When she sees that Dan Fielding (John Larroquette) is the judge, Roz is in disbelief but doesn’t hesitate to tell the bailiff, “Take me back to jail.”
Warfield told Variety that she initially didn’t see herself returning to ‘Night Court’.
Warfield, who played Roz from 1986-1992, recently told Variety that she had not planned to reprise her role, but didn’t want to pass up the opportunity when it presented itself.
“I didn’t have that on my bingo card,” she said. “But I was excited, an opportunity to work with John again and to get back on the set. It’s kinda like reliving old memories, while you make new ones. And that was very interesting. And it was kind of surreal, in a good way.”
She the compared her return to receiving “an opportunity to try on your prom dress and see if it fits. To realize it might look a little better than it did 50 years ago. The only hope I have is that people give the new show a chance for what it is. And not what it was. So I wish him all the best. I’ve wished him all the best from the beginning.”
Though she was excited to return to ‘Night Court’, Warfield called the experience “bittersweet” seeing as several of her former co-stars have since passed.
“You can’t deny that you look over at on the set where people were when you were there and say, ‘they’re not there,’” Warfield said. “Yeah, John and I discussed that, had a moment, raised a toast with our water bottles and acknowledged that.”
But despite this feeling, Warfield continues to cherish the series for the impact it has had on her life.
“I went from being a stand up, which is what I did for 12 years before I got ‘Night Court.’ I had limited experience and I was thrown into a top four TV show. People don’t realize just how big Must See TV was,” she shared. “Everybody’s TV in the country was tuned to NBC from 8 to 11. It was very, very beneficial for me, but it took some adjusting to get used to. I told Lacretta that I hope that the show does for her, what it did for me.”
