Stephanie Mills (All in the Family)



Stephanie Mills is a character from season 9 of All in the Family and the follow-up series, Archie Bunker's Place. She's Archie Bunker's grand-niece who's taken in and cared for by the Bunkers after her father, Floyd Mills abandoned her on the doorstep to extort some money.

She was portrayed by child actress Danielle Brisebois, who joined the show in 1978.

Why She's Loathsome

 * 1) She's yet another example of a "pointless child addition towards the end of a sitcom" character - (or a "Cousin Oliver").
 * 2) *To make things worse, Gloria and Mike had a baby named Joey during Season 6 in a similar ratings ploy. This makes her existence even more pointless.
 * 3) Her character can be pretty offensive to Jews, since Stephanie reveals herself to be Jewish, and extremely liberal in her views contrasted to Archie.
 * 4) She seems to only exist to give Archie a reason to grow softer, which the series had never built up on or would have welcomed the change,
 * 5) Her character is also known for placing too much sentimentality on a series that's famous for having realistic, thought-provoking conversations and plots.
 * 6) The show later got a spin-off series where she was the lead for some reason, and Archie's a widow managing his bar. This can easily get longtime fans frustrated if they barely tolerated her in the original series.

Redeeming Quality

 * 1) At least she's a talented very singer and dancer, which does make her a bit interesting.