The New TV Season....and a Bunch of Old TV Seasons

Any regular reader of this blog knows I'm a television aficianado and have been since I was a little boy. This past week was "premiere week" on network television, but I must saw there's little to get excited about this year. I'd rate it as the weakest fall season since 2000. I'm gonna watch the new show I've looked forward to most this weekend, ABC's "Flash Forward", give "The Forgotten" a fair hearing, and check out next week's "Trauma" on NBC which reportedly has some great pyrotechnics. But I just can't get excited about any of the long list of new medical dramas on the schedules this fall. Thankfully, things sound better for midseason with some promising new entries on tap along with returning favorites "24" and "Lost", both of which are likely (and mercifully) heading into their final seasons.


Even though I'm lukewarm about this fall's lineup, I continue to praise the medium of television for its relatively impressive body of work this past decade. This season may well turn out to be as ho-hum as it looks now, but it'll still be a far cry better than the bleak 1990s when endless clones of "Seinfeld" filled the airwaves and "Dateline" gobbled up four primetime hours per week. Granted, NBC's "Jay Leno Show" gimmick this season is a scary harbinger of what primetime TV MAY look like a few years down the road, but the difference between Jay Leno today and Dateline 10 years ago is that in the current primetime lineup not occupied by Jay Leno, NBC is making good television (even if I don't personally like all of the shows, they are quality productions). By contrast, in 1999, the hours not occupied by Dateline were by and large just as unimpressive as was Dateline.


I've been following primetime network television since before I started elementary school, so indulge me as I take a trip down memory lane and profile past seasons...


1981


Main Themes--NBC was as down and out as a network could get in the early 1980s and never worse than this season when they didn't have a single show in the top-25 (and this when there were only 75 shows on three networks). They lost tons of money on recent high-profile failures and after Carter pulled out of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the network was on the verge of financial ruin, saved only by the revenue earned by their late-night lineup of Johnny Carson and David Letterman. Beyond NBC's woes, the very early 80s was one of those rare times when primetime TV was diverse, offering a wide breadth of genre TV without any specific genre owning the airwaves, although primetime soaps were really starting to catch fire. CBS ruled the world with ABC in a distant second.


Successful New Shows....The Fall Guy, Simon and Simon, Gimme a Break, Falcon Crest, Private Benjamin, Father Murphy


Flops....Mr. Merlin, The Phoenix, Chicago Story, and NBC's unsuccessful foray into primetime soaps, Flamingo Road........*a little before my time in terms of remembering much about these unsuccessful shows


Midseason Successes....Cagney and Lacey, T.J. Hooker




1982


Main Themes....the networks had a fair amount of success with their large batch of new series in 1982, and NBC was patient with a number of critically acclaimed but slow-starting series that would eventually pay off for them, although not so much this year, save for "The A-Team" which gave the network its first real hit in years when it premiered midseason. In terms of trends, the action show was in ascendancy, the success of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in the box office spawned three unsuccessful small screen adventure series, and the primetime soaps were all really starting to catch fire. Again, CBS completely dominated the ratings race and ABC followed well behind but still light years ahead of hapless NBC.


Successful New Shows...Family Ties, Cheers, St. Elsewhere, Knight Rider, Remington Steele, Newhart, Matt Houston, Ripley's Believe it or Not!, Silver Spoons


Flops...The Powers of Matthew Star, Voyagers!, Tucker's Witch, Star of the Family, Gavilan, critically acclaimed but viewer ignored Square Pegs, and all three of the "Raiders" ripoffs including Tales of the Gold Monkey, Bring 'Em Back Alive, and especially The Quest, the first show of the season to be cancelled.


Midseason Successes....The A-Team, Mama's Family, and The Mississippi




1983


Main Themes--Moving into the year where I was really starting to dig TV, much of the new fall shows were poorly received, especially on NBC where all 10 new shows flopped. Fortunately for the networks, again especially NBC, many of their midseason replacements did prove successful and salvaged the season. With the escalating success of action shows like "The A-Team", "Magnum, P.I." and "The Fall Guy", the lineups of all three networks were being overrun by flamboyant crimefighters by midseason, and the majority of the hours not featuring car crashes and explosions were primetime soaps. The sitcom was becoming an endangered species on the primetime lineup. CBS owned the season again but was starting to become a little stale, while ABC was even more stale in a distant second, and NBC, while still coming in third, really started to find its footing late in the season.


Successful New Fall Shows were few--Hardcastle and McCormick, Webster, Hotel, Scarecrow and Mrs. King


Flops were far more common with some major howlers this year--Boone, Trauma Center, Whiz Kids, Emerald Point NAS, The Yellow Rose, Lottery, Jennifer Slept Here, Cutter to Houston, For Love and Honor, Just Our Luck, Mr. Smith (about a monkey with an IQ of 202), Manimal (about a detective that could turn into different kinds of animals), and the first to go, ABC's It's Not Easy, gone after four episodes.


Midseason Successes--Night Court, Riptide, TV Bloopers and Practical Jokes, Kate and Allie, Airwolf, Mike Hammer




1984


Main Themes--Crimefighters ruled the day with over-the-top and increasingly violent action shows occupying about 40% of the primetime lineup with the primetime soaps (Dallas, Dynasty, Knots Landing) at their peak of popularity. Most of the top-rated action shows got fat and lazy this year and began to hemorrhage viewers, but newcomer "Miami Vice" on NBC added new zest to the genre despite its slow start in the ratings stuck in a show-killing Friday night timeslot. Even more consequential was "The Cosby Show", also on NBC, which shot to near the top of the ratings list and helped usher in what would soon become a new era of sitcom dominance on network TV. These were two of many success stories among 1984's fall shows. Old and tired CBS found itself in a virtual tie with the insurgent NBC for first place this season, while a slate of programming mistakes pushed ABC to a distant third.


Successful New Shows--The Cosby Show, Miami Vice, Murder She Wrote, Hunter, Who's the Boss?, Highway to Heaven, Punky Brewster


Flops--Call to Glory, Jessie, It's Your Move!, Glitter, Partners in Crime, Hot Pursuit, Hawaiian Heat, Paper Dolls (proving the primetime soap audience had reached its saturation point), and the first of the year to be cancelled after two lame episodes, ABC's People Do the Craziest Things (a bloopers show scheduled up against The Cosby Show and Magnum, P.I.)


Midseason Successes--Moonlighting, Mr. Belvedere, Crazy Like a Fox




1985


Main Themes--This was my favorite TV season of all time. Not only did my all-time favorite series "MacGyver" make its debut, it was the last hurrah for the action show golden age, with nearly half of the primetime schedule occupied by flamboyant crimefighters, including the final throes of the lighthearted old guard ("Fall Guy", "Knight Rider") and the introduction of harder-edged newcomers ("The Equalizer", "Spenser: For Hire"). The genre got lazy the season before but had something of a creative renaissance this season, albeit too late to save most of the shows from plunging ratings. The primetime soaps also lost some steam this season. Gaining at their expense was the revived sitcom. Sitcoms were still small players on the 1985 schedule, but their fortunes (and ratings) were rising dramatically as the season advanced. NBC blew away the competition this year and were way out in front with a bullet. CBS fell to a distant second, and ABC pulled up the rear with another weak season.


Successful New Shows--MacGyver, The Golden Girls, Growing Pains, 227, The Equalizer, Spenser: For Hire, Amazing Stories, The Twilight Zone


Flops--The George Burns Comedy Week, Lime Street, Misfits of Science, Hell Town, Our Family Honor, the megaviolent Lady Blue, "Cosby" ripoff Charlie and Company, "Miami Vice" ripoffs Hollywood Beat and The Insiders, and the season's first to go, the angsty middle-aged soap opera Hometown, cancelled by CBS before the end of October.


Midseason Successes--Perfect Strangers, Valerie (later known as The Hogan Family), The Disney Sunday Movie, Stingray




1986


Main Themes--Action shows and primetime soaps were going down and sitcoms were moving up. Generally this was not a trend I welcomed even though there were some pretty good comedies on the air in the mid-to-late 80s. Another pretty impressive year in terms of generating new hit shows (or shows that would become big hits in subsequent seasons). NBC was again way out on top, with CBS a distant second, and ABC sinking to new depths in third. And although it was predictably in fourth place in its infancy, the Fox network was born by midseason.


Successful New Shows--L.A. Law, Designing Women, Matlock, ALF, Amen, Head of the Class, My Sister Sam, Crime Story, Sledge Hammer!


Flops--Kay O'Brien, The Wizard, Together We Stand, Easy Street, Jack and Mike, Downtown, Heart of the City, The Ellen Burstyn Show, the trainwreck Lucille Ball revival Life with Lucy, and the first to go by mid-October, the CBS urban sitcom Better Days


Midseason Successes--Married...with Children, 21 Jump Street, Houston Knights




1987


Main Themes--The networks weren't quite ready to give up on hourlong crime dramas and launched one final batch of new ones this fall, going against the grain of the insurgent sitcoms. While a few of them were modestly successful, sitcoms dominated the top of the ratings list even more this season while the bottom fell out on the primetime soaps. NBC dominated even more this year than the past two seasons while a cratering CBS barely bested a still-low ABC for second place. Fox was still new and untested and in a distant fourth.

Successful New Shows--Full House, A Different World, thirtysomething, My Two Dads, Wiseguy, Jake and the Fatman, Tour of Duty, Beauty and the Beast


Flops--Buck James, Dolly, J.J. Starbuck, The Law and Harry McGraw, Frank's Place, The Oldest Rookie, I Married Dora, Private Eye, Leg Work, and the biggest flop of the year, ABC's Once a Hero, cancelled after only three airings.


Midseason Successes--The Wonder Years, In the Heat of the Night, China Beach, Just the Ten of Us




1988


Main Themes--This season got off to a late start with the summer of 1988 writers' strike delaying the premieres of new shows by at least a month, but the networks held surprisingly strong when the new shows did premiere and avoided losing more viewers to cable as had been the case in the previous couple of seasons. Sitcoms had by this time gained serious traction and were about to consume the vast majority of the primetime schedule, with crime dramas waning and news shows sprouting their wings. This was the last TV season for many years to come that I look back on as generally impressive as TV was about to head into a long drought in terms of my preferred programming. NBC dominated, ABC finally found its footing and shot into a reasonable second-place, while the bottom fell out of CBS' aging lineup of dinosaur programs, ultimately sinking it even lower this year than ABC was in any of its mid-80s downer years. Fox was still a blip on the screen overall but starting to establish a few modest hits.


Successful New Shows--Roseanne, Murphy Brown, Empty Nest, Dear John, Unsolved Mysteries, Paradise, America's Most Wanted, Midnight Caller

Flops--Almost Grown, TV 101, Knightwatch, Annie McGuire, Something is Out There, Murphy's Law, Tattinger's, Raising Miranda, Baby Boom, and the horrific new Dick Van Dyke sitcom The Van Dyke Show, which was the first official cancellation.

Midseason Successes--Quantum Leap, Coach, Anything but Love, Father Dowling Mysteries, Cops

1989

Main Themes--The networks unleashed a widely panned batch of new series this year and a large number of them were early casualties. However, they were seen as redeeming themselves with a number of well-received midseason entries including "The Simpsons", "Twin Peaks", and over the summer, "Seinfeld". While several of these series were fresh and exciting, it was nonetheless discouraging to see the dwindling economics of network television and the inability to continue producing the action-packed hourlong series I was reared on. Furthermore, the sitcom wave continued at warp speed and even though the newer sitcom entries were largely pale imitators of existing sitcom hits, the comedy insurgency on network television was only getting started. This was the first TV season where I began to lose some hope for the medium's short-term and long-term prospects. NBC still won the season but was slipping some, ABC was a strong second, CBS a distant and desperate third, with Fox still last but trending upward.

Successful New Shows--Doogie Howser M.D., Life Goes On, The Young Riders, Major Dad, Family Matters, Rescue 911

Flops--Free Spirit, Homeroom, Sister Kate, The Famous Teddy Z, Chicken Soup, Wolf, Island Son, The Nutt House, Top of the Hill, Peaceable Kingdom, Hardball, Living Dolls, and the first to be cancelled, The People Next Door, a sitcom about a cartoonist whose animated figures came to life.

Midseason Successes--The Simpsons, Seinfeld, America's Funniest Home Videos, Wings, Twin Peaks

1990

Main Themes--A season hailed as fresh and innovative at the outset didn't turn out to be my cup of tea, nor the cup of tea of viewers for that matter as network TV audiences dipped dramatically downward this year, more so than any previous season. Sitcoms were taking over more and more hours of primetime, and the insipid new genre of "reality crime shows" was insurgent. Meanwhile, the crime drama/action show was fast becoming an endangered species with only a handful of the genre's 80's-era mainstays still on the air and few viable replacements for them. Despite some huge holes in their lineup, CBS came out of nowhere to shock the world with a revival and won a season that more or less turned out to be a three-way tie, with ABC narrowly behind, and a sinking NBC right behind them. Fox thought this was gonna be their year after some significant growth the previous year and some bold programming moves, but they actually stalled this season and remained a distant fourth.

Successful New Shows--The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Law and Order, America's Funniest People, Beverly Hills 90210, Evening Shade, Parker Lewis, Top Cops

Flops--Hull High, Lifestories, The Fanelli Boys, WIOU, Lenny, Over My Dead Body, Going Places, The Family Man, Babes, TV versions of Uncle Buck, Ferris Bueller, and Parenthood, the environmental police on E.A.R.T.H. Force (the first of the year to be cancelled), and one of TV's biggest howlers of all-time, Cop Rock, a crime drama/musical.

Midseason Successes--Dinosaurs, Northern Exposure, Blossom, Sisters

1991

Main Themes--It was the last chapter of a TV era with a long list of classic series entering their final seasons, including The Cosby Show, MacGyver, The Golden Girls, Night Court, Growing Pains, Who's the Boss?, and Perfect Strangers. For all intents and purposes, this was the last TV season for many years I had any genuine and overarching interest in as my old favorites went by the wayside while a new wave of lame sitcoms and even lamer reality crime shows (most ripoffs of Cops) cannibalized the airwaves, along with the ultimate spawn of Satan, the faux news series Dateline NBC which would bow midseason. It was also the last season I paid close attention to the network standings, with CBS having another strong year and finishing first place, a still-strong ABC in second, a fast-dying NBC in third, and a stagnant Fox finding little traction in last place. Strangely, even with only a few breakthrough hits, overall ratings for the networks actually saw a slight uptick this season.

Successful New Shows--Home Improvement, Step by Step, The Commish, Nurses, Reasonable Doubts, Homefront

Flops--Man of the People, Pacific Station, Eerie Indiana, The Adventures of Mark and Brian, Sibs, Good and Evil, The Royal Family, Teech, Pros and Cons, Drexell's Class, Princesses, Flesh 'N' Blood, The Torkelsons, an updated Carol Burnett Show, and the first of the year to be cancelled, the CBS crime drama Palace Guard.

Midseason Successes--Civil Wars, Room for Two

1992

Main Themes--A pretty dreary state of affairs and the least exciting new season of my lifetime up to that point. While the reality crime show wave was past its peak, a disgusting glut of tabloidy news shows were replacing them, and sitcom mediocrity reigned supreme. The few new action shows and crime dramas that saw the light of day were fairly uninspired and scheduled for timeslots set in quicksand. Thankfully I had the Presidential election of 1992 to fill my downtime hours because the fall TV schedule surely wasn't getting the job done.

Successful New Shows--Mad About You, Melrose Place, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, Hearts Afire, Love and War, Picket Fences, Martin

Flops--Great Scott, Laurie Hill, The Hat Squad, Delta, The Heights, Camp Wilder, The Round Table, Frannie's Turn, Angel Street, Crossroads, Here and Now, the medieval-themed Covington Cross, and Fox's Woops!, a COMEDY about the few survivors of a nuclear holocaust. Seriously!

Midseason Successes--Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Walker, Texas Ranger, Eye to Eye with Connie Chung

1993

Main Themes--Another generally dreadful new season with only a few bright spots easily overshadowed by a relentless barrage of increasingly inane sitcoms and an even more merciless onslaught of tacky newsmagazines occupying key primetime hours previously available for crime dramas and action shows. Perhaps a slight better effort than the season before, however, and much more effective in the creation of new hit shows.

Successful New Shows--The X-Files, NYPD Blue, The Nanny, Grace Under Fire, Frasier, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, seaQuest DSV, Boy Meets World, Living Single, Dave's World, The John Larroquette Show

Flops--Daddy Dearest, Phenom, The Second Half, Thea, Joe's Life, Moon Over Miami, Missing Persons, The Sinbad Show, Against the Grain, The Paula Poundstone Show, Harts of the West, The Mommies, George, one-episode wonder South of Sunset, and the season's first well-deserved casualty, The Trouble with Larry, a howler (no pun intended) of a sitcom about a young man returning to his family after spending his childhood raised by wolves.

Midseason Successes--Homicide: Life on the Street, Diagnosis Murder, The Critic

1994


Main Themes--I'll give the networks a little more effort for trying this year and producing a fall schedule with more hourlong shows than sitcoms. Still, most weren't my speed and my personal disconnect with primetime TV continued. It wouldn't be until years later that I would discover Fox's "New York Undercover", which in retrospect would have been reason enough for me to get excited about this season had I been able to watch it at the time. Sitcoms hit a bit of a speed bump by this season, but the wretched primetime news shows were at or near their peak in terms of primetime hours they occupied.


Successful New Shows--ER, Friends, Chicago Hope, New York Undercover, Party of Five, Touched by an Angel, Due South, My So-Called Life


Flops--Earth 2, On Our Own, Fortune Hunter, Wild Oats, Blue Skies, Me and the Boys, The Boys Are Back, Daddy's Girl, Models Inc., McKenna, M.A.N.T.I.S., The Five Mrs. Buchanans, and the unimaginably awful Cosby Mysteries.


Midseason Succeses--Ellen, NewsRadio, Cybill, The Marshal

1995

Main Themes--Yet another crummy year with the same general trendlines as the year before with wave upon wave of "hip, urban sitcoms" emulating Friends and Seinfeld, ever-proliferating newsmagazines (Dateline in particular), and new hourlong shows that were typically X-Files wannabes. The one genuine bright spot was the uber-dark spook drama "American Gothic" on CBS, far and away the best new series of the fall. Of course, it was cancelled by January. But lack of success was a common theme here as there were VERY few breakthrough hits.


Successful New Shows--The Drew Carey Show, JAG, The Single Guy, Caroline in the City


Flops--Space: Above and Beyond, Can't Hurry Love, Hudson Street, John Grisham's The Client, Central Park West, Courthouse, Charlie Grace, The Monroes, New York News, The Home Court, critically acclaimed but viewer-ignored Murder One, and the Andrew Dice Clay family sitcom Bless This House.


Midseason Successes--Nash Bridges, Third Rock from the Sun, High Incident, Sliders




1996


Main Themes--A few signs of improvement here with the best batch of new shows in several years, but most of them slotted in Saturday night or some other kamikaze time slot. The fundamentals were still troubling though....endless lookalike sitcoms all set on the west side of Manhattan, and Dateline and 20/20 broadcast multiple nights a week. It wasn't yet to the point where the worst was behind us, but this was at least the first baby step in the right direction.


Successful New Shows--Everybody Loves Raymond, Spin City, The Pretender, Profiler, Promised Land, Suddenly Susan, Cosby, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Early Edition, Millennium


Flops--Ink, Mr. Rhodes, Something So Right, Townies, Dark Skies, Common Law, Relativity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, critically acclaimed but cancelled after two airings EZ Streets, and not to be outdone and cancelled after only one broadcast, the vulgar Public Morals. Also worthy of this list was just about every entry on the fledgling UPN and WB networks, with a specific dunce cap to Homeboys in Outer Space


Midseason Successes--King of the Hill, The Practice, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Just Shoot Me!




1997


Main Themes--Not a bad season compared to where we had been. Granted most of my favorites never made it to a second season, but at least I was able to tune in my TV most nights of the week and find something watchable. For that matter, the fall schedule produced very few breakthrough hits of any kind. We weren't yet to the point where copycat sitcoms and Stone Phillips' mug on Dateline NBC exited stage door right as those shows continued to hijack the vast majority of primetime hours. The endurance of sitcom dominance in primetime TV, at this point a decade old, is nonetheless pretty impressive in the context of primetime trends, which usually run their course in about two or three years before audiences burn out and crave something different.


Successful New Shows--Ally McBeal, Dharma and Greg, The Wonderful World of Disney, Working


Flops--Jenny, Timecop, George and Leo, Brooklyn South, Hiller and Diller, Michael Hayes, Dellaventura, The Tony Danza Show, Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel, Nothing Sacred, Cracker, 413 Hope Street, Union Square, You Wish, Meego, The Gregory Hines Show, Players, C-16, Total Security


Midseason Successes--Dawson's Creek is about it




1998


Main Themes--Things descended back into the early-to-mid 90s funk with a weak batch of new shows saved from being the worst TV season of my lifetime almost exclusively by the hilariously dark short-lived Michael Madsen crime drama "Vengeance Unlimited". Overall, little progress in driving a stake through the heart of the sitcoms and newsmagazines and replacing them with intelligent dramas and action shows.


Successful New Shows--That 70s Show, The King of Queens, Will and Grace, Sports Night, The Hughleys, Jesse, Charmed


Flops--Holding the Baby, The Brian Benben Show, L.A. Doctors, Conrad Bloom, The Secret Lives of Men, Maggie Winters, Vengeance Unlimited, Two of a Kind, Brimstone, Fantasy Island, Wind on Water, and the horrific Buddy Faro.


Midseason Successes--The Family Guy, Becker, Providence, Futurama, Whose Line is it Anyway




1999


Main Themes--I said in the previous season that "Vengeance Unlimited" saved it from being the worst TV season of my lifetime. Unfortunately, there was no "Vengeance Unlimited" this season, and it WAS the worst TV season of my lifetime with few new shows that interested me, and the last hurrah of sitcom and newsmagazine dominance apparently wearing as thin with viewers, finally, as it was with me. Fortunately, better times were soon to come as TV was soon to get interesting again.


Successful New Shows--Who Wants to be a Millionaire, The West Wing, Third Watch, Law and Order: Special Victim's Unit, Judging Amy, Once and Again, Family Law


Flops--Snoops, The Ladies Man, The Mike O'Malley Show, Oh Grow Up, Work with Me, Action, Stark Raving Mad, Daddio, Now and Again, Harsh Realm, Ryan Caulfield: Year One, Cold Feet, and the sometimes amusing Freaks and Geeks


Midseason Successes--Malcolm in the Middle, My Wife and Kids, Titus, Norm, and over the summer of 2000, Survivor




2000


Main Themes--One final shitty season of mostly ho-hum new shows, but with a high-profile newcomer named "CSI" that, while overrated even in its prime, set the stage for a tectonic shift in network television. CSI made crime dramas, and ultimately action shows, cool again, and subsequent seasons in the decade ahead would bear that out. Even the less admirable trendlines, reality TV and game shows, the product of the successes of "Survivor" and "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" and the imitators they would soon spawn, were still by and large a welcome relief from a decade of tiresome sitcom and newsmagazine dominance. The beginning of this season was boring business as usual, but by season's end it was clear times were a-changin'...and for the better.


Successful New Shows--CSI, Yes Dear, Boston Public, Dark Angel, The District, Gilmore Girls


Flops--Tucker, Deadline, DAG, The Geena Davis Show, Bette, The Street, The Trouble with Normal, Madigan Men, Cursed, the sometimes impressive remake of The Fugitive, and the dreadful flop The Michael Richards Show.


Midseason Successes--Temptation Island, Fear Factor, The Weakest Link




2001


Main Themes--That was fast! Usually it's a slow process moving towards respectability after one has been down for so long, but after a decade of stinky TV lineups, the networks redeemed themselves with a strong batch of newcomers that included some high-profile new action shows, with "Alias" and "24" being the cream of the crop and the WB's "Smallville" also vastly exceeding expectations. Even some of the less successful new attempts like "UC Undercover" were impressive. The timing for the action show's comeback, however, was unfortunate as audiences recovering from the September 11 attacks probably weren't in the mood for the level of violence being broadcast. Still, plenty of new hits this year so the networks apparently got away with it. The best TV season in about 15 years.



Successful New Shows--24, Alias, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Crossing Jordan, The Guardian, Scrubs, According to Jim, Smallville, The Amazing Race, The Bernie Mac Show, The Agency


Flops--The Education of Max Bickford, What About Joan, Philly, Undeclared, Wolf Lake, Inside Schwartz, Thieves, Pasadena, The Ellen Show, Danny, Citizen Baines, the megaviolent but consistently entertaining UC Undercover, the howler of a Jason Alexander sitcom vehicle Bob Patterson


Midseason Successes--The Bachelor, The George Lopez Show, and over the summer, American Idol


2002

Main Themes--Not quite as good as the year before, but still an impressive batch of new shows that included an abundance of new crime dramas and action shows, most with at least a modest level of success that helped the last them full season ("Boomtown", "Fastlane", "John Doe"). Sitcoms were still a factor on the primetime schedule but about to plunge to levels not seen since their mid-80s nadir. Meanwhile, the merciful saturation of tabloidy newsmagazines was exiting stage left, replaced by often tacky reality shows, but at least several of them had impressive production values a la Survivor and The Amazing Race. And the once-mighty Who Wants to be a Millionaire franchise which ABC greedily exploited four nights a week at its 2000 peak, was now gone from primetime for keeps. Network TV continued to move in the right direction.

Successful New Shows--Without a Trace, American Dreams, CSI: Miami, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, Boomtown, Still Standing, Hack, Less than Perfect

Flops--Life with Bonnie, Presidio Med, Push Nevada, Good Morning Miami, That Was Then, Robbery Homicide Division, Firefly, In-Laws, Hidden Hills

Successful Midseason Shows--Joe Millionaire, Star Search


2003

Main Themes--Another decent season even though nearly all of my new favorites got cancelled before season's end, including Threat Matrix, The Handler, and Line of Fire. This was perhaps the peak of reality TV mania and they all seemed to outperform the season's slate of hourlong dramas and adventure shows, which was frustrating, but still better than seasons in decades past when most well-made shows never got a chance to get cancelled because they were never made in the first place. The networks were at least trying at this point, and had a number of hits, several of them worthy.

Successful New Shows--Cold Case, Two and a Half Men, NCIS, Arrested Development, Las Vegas, Joan of Arcadia, The OC, Hope and Faith

Flops--10-8, The Lyon's Den, Skin, I'm with Her, Whoopi, The Tracy Morgan Show, Karen Sisco, The Brotherhood of Poland New Hampshire, A Minute with Stan Hooper, Threat Matrix, Miss Match, Luis

Midseason Successes--Extreme Makeover, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, The Apprentice


2004

Main Themes--With a couple of high profile exceptions that turned out to be the biggest hits of the year, I wasn't as impressed with this season's batch of new shows as I had been with recent seasons, but the general direction was still the right one with a diverse abundance of hourlong dramas and crimefighter shows, a diminished sitcom presence which helped keep the ones that were on the air from seeming stale, and a barrage of reality shows, most of which had at least a modicum of entertainment value and were acceptable insofar as their low budgets helped the networks afford to make quality shows in the slots not occupied by reality shows.

Successful New Shows--Lost, Desperate Housewives, Boston Legal, House, Wife Swap, CSI: New York, Veronica Mars

Flops--The Benefactor, Listen Up!, LAX, North Shore, Hawaii, Medical Investigation, Clubhouse, Life as We Know It, Complete Savages, Dr. Vegas, Quintuplets, Method and Red, Center of the Universe, Committed, and the post-Friends epic fail Joey

Midseason Successes--Grey's Anatomy, NUMB3Rs, Medium, The Office, American Dad


2005

Main Themes--This was the season of "Lost" imitators....some good ("Invasion"), some mediocre ("Threshold"). Still, better for a batch of new series to be imitators of "Lost" than "Friends" as was the case 10 years earlier. In general, another above-average crop of newcomers with none more compelling than the new Fox action thriller "Prison Break", which would have made this a fun TV season even if it was the only good show on the air. This was the fifth consecutive year where there were more good things to say about network TV than bad. I knew I was living on borrowed time before things go crummy again, but amazingly, TV has yet to plunge back to where it was 10 years ago qualitywise.

Successful New Shows--Prison Break, How I Met Your Mother, My Name is Earl, Criminal Minds, Bones, Supernatural, Ghost Whisperer, Close to Home, Everybody Hates Chris

Flops--Out of Practice, Kitchen Confidential, Surface, Four Kings, Commander in Chief, Freddie, E-Ring, Apprentice: Martha Stewart, Hot Properties, Head Cases, Threshold, Inconceivable, and a remake of the 1974 cult favorite Night Stalker

Midseason Successes--The New Adventures of Old Christine, The Unit, Deal or No Deal


2006

Main Themes--While there was little that blew me away this year (or anybody else either it seems) it was nonetheless an above average crop of new shows, several of which were taken before their time ("Vanished", "Smith"). Part of the problem was that the networks spread themselves far too thin with serialized shows after the successes of shows like Lost and 24, but viewers were unwilling to commit to that many series that required mandatory weekly viewing. For a medium never known for being too ambitious, TV got that way in 2006. For my taste, not a bad problem to have, particularly compared to the laziness of TV in the 90s or the worrisome existing institution that is the nightly "Jay Leno Show".

Successful New Shows--Heroes, Brothers and Sisters, Friday Night Lights, 30 Rock, Ugly Betty, Jericho, Shark

Flops--Vanished, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Smith, Kidnapped, The Class, Help Me Help You, Standoff, The Nine, Justice, Six Degrees, Happy Hour

Successful Midseason Shows--Rules of Engagement, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?


2007

Main Themes--The season cut short right in the middle by the writer's strike. There were once again a fair number of shows worth checking out but only a couple that made the cut, with others that were dealt a blow by the writers' strike and likely lost the kind of momentum needed to survive into a second season (the vampire thriller "Moonlight" comes to mind). Given as many high-profile failures the previous TV season generated, and with a pending writer's strike to boot, I'm surprised the networks made as worthy of an effort as they did with this fall's new entries.

Successful New Shows--The Big Bang Theory, Samantha Who?, Private Practice, Life, Chuck, Pushing Daisies

Flops--Journeyman, Cavemen, Carpoolers, Cane, Kid Nation, Kitchen Nightmares, Bionic Woman, Big Shots, Nashville, Women's Murder Club, the very underrated New Orleans police action-drama K-Ville, and one of the biggest howlers of my lifetime, Viva Laughlin, cancelled after two episodes.

Midseason Successes--Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Eli Stone, Flashpoint


2008

Main Themes--The last year I'll profile. While there were still a few ambitious projects like Christian Slater's "My Own Worst Enemy" and the fantasy-adventure "Crusoe", most failed to live up to expectations in both my eyes and in the majority of viewers as most of the new shows were failures. NBC has to be given a hand for their efforts with as many big-budget action series on their lineup this year, but overall this struck me as the season where things started to trend the other direction and mediocrity would again be celebrated by viewers far more than ambition.

Successful New Shows--The Mentalist, Fringe, Gary Unmarried

Flops--Worst Week, My Own Worst Enemy, Life on Mars, Knight Rider, Kath and Kim, The Ex-List, Crusoe, Do Not Disturb, Opportunity Knocks

Midseason Successes--Castle, Dollhouse, Parks and Recreation


So there you have it. The last 28 primetime fall schedules and corresponding analysis. Hopefully it is as fun to read as it was for me to write.