Good times lie ahead on what is the last of seven nights that I’m scheduling for my week on NBC. We have one more round-one evening to cover after this (ABC Saturdays is next), and then it’s off to the finals. I can’t wait!
8:00-8:30 Gimme a Break! was a sitcom that drew the line between generations of viewers — apparently we expect more than our predecessors. The girls on The Facts of Life grew up with me, but I was always playing catch-up. 227 put together a great ensemble, but nothing more than a general good vibe remains with me today. The original Parenthood was no better than the remake, Here and Now was Malcolm-Jamal Warner trying to stay visible, and Dark Skies was about aliens living among us. Sleepwalkers cast Naomi Watts to observe sleep patterns, and I don’t get the obsession people have with Freaks and Geeks. Meanwhile JAG is safe on my CBS Fridays, and Diff’rent Strokes is secure on my ABC Fridays. Which leaves me with a fan favorite that I do understand — I might prefer the show in moderation, but I believe that The Golden Girls deserves a place here.
8:30-9:00 We’ve covered Gimme a Break!, The Facts of Life, and 227 above, and Silver Spoons is safe on my Sundays. I loved Deacon Ernest Frye on Amen, but the show was beyond me a bit. Working It Out failed worse than the subject couple’s marriage, Out All Night starred a lost Vivica A. Fox, and Café Americain took place in France of all places (France!). I actually have very solid memories of a show that barely survived a season. It was about an unusual family, a bit unruly, but even as a kid I enjoyed all their various quirks. I’ll take The Torkelsons with Connie Ray, Olivia Burnette, and Lee Norris (Minkus on Boy Meets World).
9:00-9:30 We can dispense with Gimme a Break! and The Golden Girls, and The John Larroquette Show is slotted on my Wednesdays. The Rousters was about a traveling carnival, Partners in Crime made Loni Anderson one half of a private detective agency, and The Pretender sounds like a cross between everything from Quantum Leap to Dollhouse. I think I’m going to stick with laughs here — let’s move on over next door from The Golden Girls and have us a visit with their friend Harry Weston on Empty Nest. It was a lot funnier, and more clever, than you think you remember.
9:30-10:00 We’ve already got 227, Amen, and Empty Nest covered. Love, Sidney was about an unusual living arrangement, The Home Court featured a judge who struggled to lay down the law at home, and I don’t think I can ride the Harry Weston train one more stop to Nurses. I’m actually going to do something unconventional here. There was a show on during the 1992-1993 season on NBC that we’ve yet to come across. For all that I can remember about it I believe it aired on Saturday nights, but no source that I can unearth will confirm or deny that. So instead of going with the other option of free play here, I’m instead going to use this last 30 minute slot in my week on NBC to give time to a show that was absolutely incredible, albeit short-lived. The series came to us from the likes of David Crane and Marta Kauffman (Friends). It starred actors like John Forsythe, Holland Taylor, Peter MacNicol, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. And it had a memorable scene where yet another star, David Hyde Pierce, tried to hang himself with the chord of a window shade. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Powers That Be.
10:00-11:00 The Devlin Connection was surely not what Rock Hudson wanted to be remembered for, The Yellow Rose helped make Cybill Shepherd a household name, and Hot Pursuit taught us that it’s tough to run from the law with your spouse. Carol & Company paled beside other Carol Burnett vehicles, American Dreamer searched for escape in Wisconsin, and Profiler was one of the first of many semi-successful procedurals for the network. And then there’s Sisters — my own sisters were once watching an episode of the show where someone was in the hospital. Sela Ward’s Teddy dropped her coffee cup and started bawling after hearing some news, and I started making the most fun of the show. In a monotone I said something like: “Oh no. I dropped my coffee. What am I to do? I am so sad.” (I was young). And my sisters started screaming, and calling for my parents, and yelling at me for ruining the show. To this day I can still get them going with that one. The moral is I’ll pass. Anyway, a while back I promised that I had a place for this next series, and that I do. I loved watching Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer dish out their own brand of justice, and whenever I used to read one of Faye Kellerman’s Peter Decker novels, Rick Hunter is who I saw. So Hunter it is.
This is what NBC once was, folks. Can you believe it’s fallen so far? What do you think? What does your dream Saturday night on NBC look like?
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Apr 16, 2010 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
They used to have TV on Saturdays? Wild.
As lovely as The Golden Girls was, I’ve got to do with Dark Skies — man, I loved that show! I’ve since discovered and loved Freaks and Geeks, so you’ve put me in a quandry!
Pretender, Aryeh, Pretender … sigh….
Hunter is probably the winner there, but Sisters and The Profiler are really, really close. I loved and watched all three of those shows regularly.
Wow, this was a tough one for me!
*POST AUTHOR*
I’ve actually seen a number of episodes of The Pretender, but thinking back on what it was about, I was just stunned at how many times pieces of it had been done. But I think it was the escapee angle of the show that I didn’t like. As a result, there was too much of The Fugitive mixed in with what could have been really enjoyable on its own.
I usually don’t care for these giant evil conspiracy shows, but you really grew to care for the main bad guys that hunted Jarod, and their crazy workplace politics were far more interesting than Dollhouse. I did like how he utterly outclassed and was rarely ever in real jeopardy from the Centre. And Andrea Parker is breathtakingly gorgeous. My female friends all liked the show as well, for reasons made obvious by the above picture.
The Pretender/Profiler was a great, dark and darker, double feature every week, and I wish the latter had never written out Ally Walker. But you’re right that nothing can compare to Hunter.
Debbie, I’ve been watching for Eric Close and Jeri Ryan ever since Dark Skies. It was why I knew she could actually act before Voyager stuck her in a silver catsuit.
*POST AUTHOR*
I think I always wondered how the show might play out were he not being pursued, constantly feeling under-the-gun. Everything felt a bit too rushed and short-changed for me as a result.