Forgotten shows (1 Viewer)

[Dan D.]

Wow, there were some great lost shows mentioned so far. Salvage 1, Manimal, Automan, Streethawk, Probe, Otherworld... I must have seen every episode of those, not that there were many. Airwolf was mentioned a couple of times. Didn't this make it into syndication? I'd think it would stand a decent chance of a DVD release at some point.

To the list I would add:

- The Quest (not the western, the one about the 4 Americans trying to win the throne of a small, European country)

- Q.E.D. (starring Sam Waterston)

- Doctor, Doctor (starring Max Headroom's Matt Frewer)

 

[LizH]

Home video didn't exist back in the 70's.

They COULDN'T have foreseen it. :frowning:

 

[Jason Bennion]

Wow, a lot of shows mentioned that I haven't thought about in years - put me down for Voyagers and The Fantastic Journey, the mid-70s Bermuda Triangle thing.

How about the TV version of Logan's Run with Gregory Harrison as Logan?

Also does anyone remember Tucker's Witch with Catherine Hicks and (I think) Tim Matheson? Or Matt Houston, another variant on the Magnum PI theme with Lee Horsley as a rich Texas playboy who solved mysteries for kicks? Or Riptide, a Simon and Simon ripoff with Perry King?

 

[Rob P S]

Frank's Place

 

[TonyD]

franks place was one of the best written shows on tv.

 

[Linda Thompson]

I was reminded of another great old show last week when TCM aired the movie "The Paper Chase". I had forgotten how much I used to like both the movie and the TV show...

 

[Linda Thompson]

Jason...I used to LOVE both "Simon & Simon" and "Riptide"! (Of course, I love just about anything that Cannell churns out...)

And, on a whole other note...I still miss "Picket Fences"...

 

[Jeff Willis]

Linda, ditto on the Paper Chase movie (I'm a big Lindsay W fan My signature on this site gives a "bionic" hint ) I had forgotten about the TV series.

Anyone remember a series called "The Gangster Chronicles"? Here's another one: "Kings Crossing" with Bradford Dillman.

 

[AnnaMaria]

Does anyone remember a show done about ten or fifteen years ago about a guy in the dark ages with some kids. They lived in a castle and the daughter was as good with the bow and arrow as the sons were. I think her name was Ione Skye (why I would remember that i don't know other than I liked the actresses name). Anyway the show was a comedy although not exactly a sitcom. It only had a handful of episodes. I cannot remember the name of it.

I also wonder why there aren't more shows that take place in a different time. Sure there's future stuff, and there's some stuff that takes place in pioneer times, or some more recent history (that 70's show, Happy Days, American Dreams) but not a lot of historically based shows. Where's a sitcom about life in Elizabethian England? or the Roman days? or Egypt? I vaguely remember a stupid one done in the time of the American Revelution, but it wasn't funny and had only one or two episodes.

 

[Linda Thompson]

The only such other-era fantasies (not future, space, western, pioneer, Depression, or past few decades) I can think of right off the top of my head are HERCULES, XENA, and ROAR, although I'm sure there have been many others... Can't think of any sitcoms, though...

 

[David Lambert]

Put me down for The Paper Chase as well! LOVED that show!




I think Voyagers was brought up in this thread already, or at least one of the similar threads. Logan's Run should have been if it wasn't...*I* hadn't forgotten about it!

But The Fantastic Journey *was* one I'd forgot until you brought it up! Wow, I thought that show was so cool back in the day. It was short lived and all (just the pilot and about 10 eps), but I thought it was a great hour each week to sit down and watch. I loved Roddy McDowell in it!

It came on in the late 70's, as I recall, and I remember being thrilled when I found out that Star Trek's DC Fontana was writing an episode for the show! I was such a Trekkie, even back then!

Give me that along with Otherworld and you've got a theme going here...


That's not a bad idea. Pair up some of these. If a 3rd party could successfully license these and put them out as pairs of series along a theme, those two would go great together. Also Salvage 1 and Quark (the "go get garbage" theme). And Voyagers! and Logan's Run ("past and forward in time" theme). NOW we're cookin'...

 

[Lynda-Marie]

AnnaMaria, one sitcom that I know of set in another era was "When Things Were Rotten" which was a spoof of Robin Hood that Mel Brooks was involved with. It was sometime in the early to mid 1970s, and I don't recall it lasting too long. Pity, really, because that was when Brooks was at the top of his game with spoofs.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Hi, Lynda-Marie;

That series aired in Sept '75 and was cancelled in Dec after 13 eps. I remember that one and I also like it. A "hidden" Mel Brooks jem

 

[AnnaMaria]

Linda Thompson,

Thank you for looking up Covington Cross. I'm convinced that was it. It's too bad it didn't last because it was fresh and different.

And I do remember "When Things Were Rotton".

I think there's a ton of possibilities for new shows by going back in time instead of the same stuff studios always putting out.

 

[Jason Bennion]

AnnaMaria, I think the big obstacle to doing far-back-in-history shows is mainly budgetary. The farther back in time you go, the more expensive it is to film, at least for American productions.

The British have lots of ruins and landscapes that haven't changed much in centuries, so they can do the historical shows fairly cheaply because the locations are all there -- all they need to create is the costumes, and I imagine that with their Shakesperean and theatrical traditions, a lot of that stuff is already available too. An American production company would have to create everything from scratch.

The same thing is what prevents much science fiction or fantasy on network TV -- it's just too expensive to make.

Also, I honestly wonder how much interest the average American really has in history, even our own. Westerns, which are essentially American historical stories, haven't been popular in years. Maybe it's just because no one has really tried with a good historical series, but I don't believe there'd be enough interest to justify the expense. Sad, but true.

Oh, and Linda Thompson, I'm pretty much a sucker for Cannell shows too -- I loved seeing the S&S episode on the Magnum PI set. Hopefully they'll get their own set before too much longer.

 

[LizH]

Not necessarily.

The trend nowadays is to go overseas to film historical epics ("Cold Mountain" was shot in Romania. Hercules and Xena were both filmed in New Zealand.)

Let's face it: The typical American has no interest in watching a turgid, serious historical epic every week (RL is depressing enough.)

Hercules and Xena pulled it off by camping things up to Hell (Tartarus?) and back.

 

[Sebastien S]

Anyone remember "Mathew Star"?

I'd really like to see the late 80's "Head of the Class". I was in highschool at the time and loved this show!

 

[PerryD]

Another fan of the series the Paper Chase. I seem to remember watching it on PBS, then Showtime back in high school then college. This show single-handedly prepared me for the rigors of college. I still hear the theme song in my head... "The first years are hard years, much more than you know..."

 

[Angela_K]

I loved Covington Cross, wish it had lasted longer, it was a good show

 

[Jason Bennion]

Although I agree the typical American viewer probably wouldn't have much interest in a historical series, nobody said it had to be turgid, serious, epic or depressing, but that raises an interesting point. Why is it that a story in a historical setting is so often either deadly serious or a broad farce? Is it so hard to do something light-hearted but which still has something to say?

(Perhaps Covington Cross, the show that started me thinking about this subject, was like that -- I don't remember ever seeing it, though.)