English began her career at WNET, the PBS affiliate in New York City, working first as a story editor for The Theatre in America series, and then as associate director of TV Lab.

In 1980, she co-wrote PBS' The Lathe of Heaven, an adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin's science fiction novel of the same name, and received her first Writers Guild Award Nomination.

During 1986 and 1987, English executive produced and wrote the CBS comedy series My Sister Sam, starring Pam Dawber which lasted for two seasons with 12 episodes that never aired before being cancelled.

Vice president Dan Quayle gave a speech entitled "Reflections on Urban America to the Commonwealth Club of California" on the subject of the Los Angeles riots.

In an aside, he cited the title character in the television program Murphy Brown as an example of how popular culture contributes to this "poverty of values", saying, "It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has Murphy Brown – a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman – mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another 'lifestyle choice'.

This controversy along with the shifting times of that decade touched off a debate over the meaning of "family values" of Americans during that election year in which Bill Clinton and Al Gore ran against George H. W. Bush and Dan Quayle.

The comedy, a remake of the 1939 George Cukor film of the same name, stars Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, and Jada Pinkett Smith.