Shows you think deserved one more season (1 Viewer)

[B-ROLL]

I forgot another one Mel Brooks' :When Things Were Rotten" ... I don't think it even had a full first season ...

 

[bmasters9]

I forgot another one Mel Brooks' :When Things Were Rotten" ... I don't think it even had a full first season ...
View attachment 79163

Neither that then, nor Future Cop on ABC in 1977, or Blue Thunder on that same network in 1984.

 

[Al.Anderson]

The Fiona Dourif (daughter of Brad) character, Bart, is one of my GOAT TV characters. My wife and I still paraphrase her line, "There are two Kens?!?!?!" on occasion.

Couldn't agree more! She was outstanding. I didn't realize she was the daughter of Brad Dourif until about season 2 (I know, I know; it was kind of obvious and I'm dense), but then it made perfect sense. (I've only seen the father in Cuckoo's Nest and LOTR; but that was enough, he's also amazing.)

 

[BobO'Link]

I forgot another one Mel Brooks' :When Things Were Rotten" ... I don't think it even had a full first season ...
View attachment 79163

13 episodes - and, IMHO, the unofficial test run for the feature film, Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Had this been released in the 60s it'd likely have run 2-3 seasons. In the mid 70s people just didn't seem to want this type of silly period comedy - bummer.

 

[JamesSmith]

I forgot another one Mel Brooks' :When Things Were Rotten" ... I don't think it even had a full first season ...
View attachment 79163

Excellent choice, Bret. I should have included it in my list.
--james

 

[jcroy]

I thought for sure they'd put out an all-in-one, especially since that series only ran 24 episodes combined.

Not entirely clear why season 2 was never released. (IIRC, the season 1 dvd set was released by Artisan/Lionsgate).

At time circa late 2003, Lionsgate had just purchased Artisan.

With Acquisition, Lions Gate Is Now Largest Indie (Published 2003)

Canadian-based Lions Gate Entertainment, one of Hollywood's leading independent studios, acquires ailing Artisan Entertainment for $220 million, including assumption of $60 million in debt; photo (M)

www.nytimes.com

 

[jcroy]

Oddly enough around a decade ago, the season 1 dvd set of Boomtown was very common dump bin fodder at local discount outlets. (IIRC, I picked it up for $5 back in 2011 or 2012).

 

[Steve Armbrust]

Everwood -- I know they ended it, but it deserved another season
Friday Night Lights -- I hated the way they ended that series.
Andy Richter Controls the Universe -- The only show I've ever seen where the lead was a tech writer, and we need more love.
Primetime Glick -- I hated the movie, but I loved the TV show.

 

[sjbradford]

100 was considered the minimum for a successful strip (5 days per week) back in the 80s. There were exceptions, of course. 125-130 was even better. Once you started getting close to 200, the law of diminishing returns kicked in, unless you were talking about a blockbuster hit like Lucy or Three’s Company. 65 was the standard for a kids’ show - kids are considered more tolerant of repeats, and you also had to factor in them outgrowing the show and younger viewers starting to watch.

In the 1990s, we started seeing more shows enter syndication after the fourth season, rather than the fifth.

From a business standpoint, WKRP, I Dream of Jeannie, The Brady Bunch, and F-Troop would have all benefitted from having another season. F-Troop only had 65 episodes - had they gotten 100 in their package, they would have been more like Hogan’s Heroes - an evergreen title - rather than seasonal filler. Gidget should have gotten another 2-3 years rather than a single season - we would have seen it run in syndication forever rather than be relegated to occasional summer runs in most markets.

 

[MatthewA]

I wonder what was going to happen with Soap if it got one more year. Would Corrine be allowed back on? Would any of the characters with

Spoiler: yeah, I know it's been 40 years, but not everyone has seen it

guns pointed to their heads in the last episode survive?

And what would become of Jodie Dallas? Would he be stuck in his proto-Miracle-Max-from-Princess Bride limbo forever? Considering the way the 1980s played out, would they have kept playing the same games with his sexual orientation that ABC would go on to play with Steven Carrington on Dynasty?

 

[Matt Hough]

I wonder what was going to happen with Soap if it got one more year. Would Corrine be allowed back on? Would any of the characters with

Spoiler: yeah, I know it's been 40 years, but not everyone has seen it

guns pointed to their heads in the last episode survive?

And what would become of Jodie Dallas? Would he be stuck in his proto-Miracle-Max-from-Princess Bride limbo forever? Considering the way the 1980s played out, would they have kept playing the same games with his sexual orientation that ABC would go on to play with Steven Carrington on Dynasty?

It's the reason I stopped watching Soap and the reason I quit Dynasty after the Moldavian Massacre. As I understand, both men (Jodie and Steven, I mean) became basically asexual so the writers wouldn't have to deal with pesky sexuality limitations from the network censors and advertisers.

 

[Rob P S]

Speechless
The Kids Are Alright
Cold Case
The Closer
Enlisted

 

[Tino]

Twin Peaks
Battlestar Galactica (1978)
Star Trek (original series)

 

[sjbradford]

I’m still in mourning about The Kids Are Alright. I can’t believe ABC let it go with all its potential (it could have been the next The Middle), yet kept Schooled.

 

[JamesSmith]

One thing I've learned. I lean more to the broad comedies like, Get Smart, When Things Were Rotten, F Troop, etc than other kinds.
--jthree

 

[darkrock17]

One thing I've learned. I lean more to the broad comedies like, Get Smart, When Things Were Rotten, F Troop, etc than other kinds.
--jthree

Those were all spoofs, not sure they count as broad.

 

[MatthewA]

It's the reason I stopped watching Soap and the reason I quit Dynasty after the Moldavian Massacre. As I understand, both men (Jodie and Steven, I mean) became basically asexual so the writers wouldn't have to deal with pesky sexuality limitations from the network censors and advertisers.

They did worse than that to Jodie Dallas.

Spoiler: how ABC crossed the line

They actually had him have sex with Maggie after she helped him find his daughter and rescue her from kidnappers. That was what prompted him to go into therapy and the past-life regression he got stuck in when the series ended.

 

[bmasters9]

They did worse than that to Jodie Dallas.

Spoiler: how ABC crossed the line

They actually had him have sex with Maggie after she helped him find his daughter and rescue her from kidnappers. That was what prompted him to go into therapy and the past-life regression he got stuck in when the series ended.

Horrible writing, if you ask me, reading that spoiler (then again, I haven't been that big a fan of Soap anyway).

 

[Matt Hough]

Horrible writing, if you ask me, reading that spoiler (then again, I haven't been that big a fan of Soap anyway).

I agree. Writers who were completely detached (maybe by network or advertiser pressure; maybe just their own inhibitions) from reality. Of course, such decisions weren't uncommon in the day. Remember the horrendous movie A Different Story where they not only heterosexualized a gay man and a lesbian, but when they had the man cheat on his wife, it was with a woman rather than reverting to his original orientation.

 

[MatthewA]

What was most disappointing about seeing Soap fall apart like that was when they had shown some much better writing when Jodie went to court for custody of Wendy just a year earlier.

100 was considered the minimum for a successful strip (5 days per week) back in the 80s. There were exceptions, of course. 125-130 was even better. Once you started getting close to 200, the law of diminishing returns kicked in, unless you were talking about a blockbuster hit like Lucy or Three’s Company. 65 was the standard for a kids’ show - kids are considered more tolerant of repeats, and you also had to factor in them outgrowing the show and younger viewers starting to watch.

In the 1990s, we started seeing more shows enter syndication after the fourth season, rather than the fifth.

From a business standpoint, WKRP, I Dream of Jeannie, The Brady Bunch, and F-Troop would have all benefitted from having another season. F-Troop only had 65 episodes - had they gotten 100 in their package, they would have been more like Hogan’s Heroes - an evergreen title - rather than seasonal filler. Gidget should have gotten another 2-3 years rather than a single season - we would have seen it run in syndication forever rather than be relegated to occasional summer runs in most markets.

Columbia still managed to get more mileage out of short- and mid-run shows than other studios. Ironically, The New Gidget lasted twice as long as the old one. Between the two series, there were a handful of movies with a revolving door of actresses in the title role. What's Happening!! got a reprieve in the 1980s, but what if they had run to, say, 1982 on ABC? That would have ended it with Raj graduating from college and before he met or married Nadine. And what would have become of Rob, the owner of Rob's Place? His fate was left up in the air even though Earl Billings, the actor who played him, was still alive at the time. The New Monkees were not so lucky because CPT underestimated how popular the old ones still were in MTV reruns.

Another season of The Brady Bunch and Robert Reed would not have been a part of it. Even with "only" 5 seasons, it outperformed expectations in syndication based on bad reviews and middling radings, and Reed begrudgingly came back for the reboots while he was still alive.

The 65 episode rule is mainly a Disney thing, and a post-DuckTales, post-Gummi Bears development, and IIRC some shows had untied ends because of it (Gargoyles might have been one of them). Nickelodeon is the opposite: they ran SpongeBob and Fairly OddParents into the ground while other shows never got a chance to hit their creative strides.

TV shows are making fewer and fewer shows a year with each new generation. From 39 shows a year in the 1950s to 25 shows a year in the 1970s and 1980s to 13 shows a year now.