4. Sports Night (1998-2000)
One of the most underrated comedies of the last years of the 20th century was Sports Night. Aaron Sorkin created and developed the series, which was set at a Sports Center-type show, also called Sports Night.
The cast was amazing and not well known at the time. Felicity Huffman starred as producer Dana Whitaker. The anchors Dan Rydell and Casey McCall were played by Josh Charles and Peter Krause and modeled after ESPN anchors like Dan Patrick, Craig Kilborn, and Keith Olbermann. Joshua Malina and Sabrina Lloyd portrayed associate producers Jeremy Goodwin and Natalie Hurley. Rounding out the principal cast was the venerable Robert Guillaume as network honcho Isaac Jaffe.
Sports Night bore many of the hallmarks of its creator’s films and TV series. It was a quick-witted program with fast-paced banter, and Sorkin’s iconic “walk and talk” segments appeared again. Plenty of poignant drama brought depth throughout the show — in fact, it’s better described as a comedy-drama than as a traditional sitcom. During the first season, ABC added a laugh track to the show, but they gradually lowered the volume throughout the season and got rid of it for the second.
The show wasn’t afraid of controversial issues: From the legalization of marijuana to the fight over the Confederate flag to violence against women. Guillaume suffered a stroke in the middle of the first season, and his condition and recovery were written into the storyline.
Sports Night was nominated for eight Emmys and won three. The show’s stars have gone on to other well-known roles. Krause currently stars on Parenthood, while Charles is a member of the cast of The Good Wife. Huffman won an Emmy for her role on Desperate Housewives.
After the second season ABC cancelled Sports Night. Sorkin received offers to relocate the show to HBO, Showtime, or USA, but he declined, choosing to focus on The West Wing. Comedy Central acquired the rights to the show and ran it at least once, and it has appeared internationally too. Fortunately, the series is available on DVD and Netflix, and it’s well worth checking out.
Next we’ll take a look at a trippy, time-bending show…
Categories: Television
Tags: Aaron Sorkin, Ben Stiller, DVD, Gretchen Mol, Harvey Keitel, HBO, Janeane Garofalo, Jonathan Murphy, Judd Apatow, Life On Mars, Michael Imperioli, NBC, Netflix, PBS, Peter Krause, Robert Guillaume, Sports Night
Let me be the first to add two of my own:
Firefly – a space western that had complex interesting characters, fascinating mysteries, and the coolest invented slang ever.
Raines – Jeff Goldblum plays a homicide investigator who (unbeknownst to his colleagues) has only partially recovered from a mental breakdown caused by a shooting that injured him and killed his former partner. As he begins each new investigation, he hallucinates a living version of the murder victim whose personality evolves as he learns more about the victim. Each hallucination communicates something to him that his subconscious has figured out about the crime. But his behavior is spooking his colleagues. Goldblums idiosyncratic acting style was pitch perfect for a brilliant detective teetering on the brink of madness
Both shows cut down before completing even a single season.
I say Firefly as well, for all the reasons you say but you forgot one: its music!
I agree, you can’t do a “Show that didn’t get a chance” list without mentioning Firefly!
We have come to figure, if we really a tv prg., it will be cancelled on the main networks….
also, have found some of the better shows to be “off” the main NBC etc networks..thank goodness for tivo.
There is some DUMBDUMBDUMB tv programming these days, dumb..
“reality”??? like the bachelor?, contrived puke. TV has been dumbed down..
I agree. How xan anyone forget Firefly????
Gross oversite.
Also maybe add to the list Space: Above and Beyond (1995)
lasted only one season but was brilliant (and very pro-military, mostly glorifying the Marine Corps) and deserves another shot
Pro-military, etc., was probably a BIG reason ‘Space’ was cancelled. It was a great show.
Firefly for sure.
Whoever cancelled that show should be banished from the industry for life.
Thank you for adding Firefly. Worst. Cancellation. Ever.
So much wasted potential, so many stories not told.
Absolutely! The first thing that came to my mind when I read the title of this piece was Firefly. Interesting premise, great characters superbly acted, and brilliant writing. After the networks decided to ax the show, at least the creators were able to give us Serenity.
What they said.
Firefly. All time best series.
So glad that Firefly was the first series mentioned in the comments section.
I have The Man They Call Jayne on my iPod.
I have The Hat They Call Jayne on my head.
“A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he’s not afraid of anything.”
I believe the Jaynesville episode is the most entertaining 45 minutes of television I have ever seen.
Just started watching the series from the beginning last night. There is so little to watch on TV nowadays.
I believe the storyline was too close to what was going on in real life. The movie just blew me away the first time I watched it, talk about art imitating life!
Yay! We got another one..
“Nowhere Man”
“Strange Luck”
Damn! I miss those two shows!
“Police Squad”, 1982, with the incomparable deadpan talents of Leslie Nielsen. It lasted only six episodes, but is a cult classic that also spawned feature movies that didn’t measure up to it (“Naked Gun”).
It was only intended to last 6 episodes. It was just a limited series because the producers didn’t want to rub it into the dirt.
It’s gone down in history as a “flop” because it was on such a short time, when that was the plan all along.
Best. Show. EVAR.
/Thread closed.
Still, not bad for a 6 episode show to spawn 3 feature films.
Firefly goes without saying, of course.
But no one but me seems to have seen EZ Streets, a marvelous modern noir series set in a discreetly unnamed but Detroitesque city. It felt like an exquisitely plotted and played novel for television. Ken Olin (the cop) vs. Joe Pantoliano (the mobster), in the able hands of Paul Haggis (the writer). Lasted all of ten episodes before CBS cut its throat. Need I say that the mystery was never resolved?
Yes! EZ Streets was brilliant. I would love to see it get a proper DVD release, with commentaries and a documentary on how it would have ended. Thank you for mentioning it!
I was a big Sports Night fan for Season 1 – Season 2, not so much; quality really fell off that season as Sports Night became the step-child to West Wing.
Firefly, of course, cancelled too soon.
I’d also add Wonderfalls, created by Bryan Fuller & Todd Holland – exec, produced by Tim Minear, who worked with Whedon on Firefly.
I agree with you. sports night lost a lot of steam in season 3 when Sorkin moved on to West Wing.
Sports Night is one of the few series I have on DVD. Well worth checking out.
The origianal Coupling is a great series. The american version was killed by tte casting .
I have a few more nominees from the nineties: there was “It’s Like, You Know” which was described as being sort of like Seinfeld set in L.A., but which was quirky and very funny. It ran for about a year and a half, if I remember correctly–though maybe it made it for two whole seasons.
Another one from the same time period was “Action” with Jay Mohr, which only ran for a few episodes in 1999 and 2000. It was set in the film industry in Los Angeles, and it was very humorously cynical about the ethics of the film industry.
Finally, there was the even more obscure “Black Tie Affair” in 1993. It was sort of an offbeat detective and comedy combination. It only ran for five episodes, but I remember enjoying the ones I saw.
herndon – funny show, predates Seinfeld, certain the character was stolen for Kramer on Seinfeld.
I am not a TV fan. I was from about 1949 thru sometime in the 70s. Having said that, I have to wholeheartedly agree with the folks here who have mentioned Firefly.
Every couple of months I crank up Netflix on my TRS-80 and spend glorious hours, fueled by cheap gin, marveling at the dialogue and wondering where Josh Whedon was going to take the very promising and intriguing personal stories.
Would the captain and the companion ever get together? Would Crystal and the doc? Would the preacher’s past ever come to light? Would Jayne finally get spaced?
It appears that Firefly is undergoing some bit of a renaissance. I don’t dare hope that it could be recreated but maybe it could influence the production of some more imaginative productions.
While they couldn’t exactly capture the dynamic of the show, several Serenity comics have been published since Firefly’s cancellation, answering a few questions that had been left open, including one of yours. Shepherd Book’s past was finally covered in Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale. Interesting enough story, told in reverse chronological order from the time of the movie back to his youth.
Fascinating. You watch Netflix on your TRS-80? Model 1 or Model 3?
Yeah, I’d like to hear more about Netflix on the TRS-80. Black & white shows would look great, I would think, but wouldn’t color be a bit problematic? And how did you connect the broadband to the Expansion Interface?
I thought, ‘Life on Mars’ was a respectable program as well.
As well as, ‘Better Off Ted’. A real-life Dilbert though Dilbert’s cool. It too lasted only a season, a shame.
‘Game of Thrones’ is a popular, renewed program though unfortunately a similar program, ‘Legend of the Seeker’ lasted but 2 seasons.
Odd how the aforementioned programs had a short lifespan though 2 1/2 Men, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory and other laugh-track ladled, unfunny programs are going strong.
“Brooklyn South” was a David Milch/Steven Bochco cop drama that ran on CBS for only one season. Unlike “NYPD Blue” (their better known older sibling), “Brooklyn South” focused on beat cops. The pilot was one of the most exciting of all time, with one of the precinct’s best-liked cops being gunned down on the streets and a fast-paced manhunt ensuing afterwards. Starring Jon Tenney (who went on to a supporting role in “The Closer”), Dylan Walsh (“Unforgettable”), Titus Welliver, Gary Basaraba, Richard T. Jones, and other first-rate character actors, the short-lived series was perhaps the best police procedural, because the least sensationalistic, ever to appear on TV. Luckily it’s available on DVD from A&E Home Video.
hated sports night.
the 4400, moonlight, painkiller jane and dresden files all good shows.
Firefly was fantastic.
I’d add “Arrested Development” to the list; though the show was given every chance, and was as good as the critical acclaim, it just never found an audience. If you want to know what the boom years of the California economy looked like behind the curtain, this is it; a great send up of Orange County, CA and everything idiotic about easy money.
That was a great series, and holds up well to rewatching, especially with all of the call-forwards that would have been missed the first time. One example being Buster getting his hand chair back and thinking he never knew he could miss a hand so much. Next episode was the encounter with the loose seal.
Still, it felt like it was running out of steam in the third season, although far from bad. Three seasons felt just right for wrapping up all of the long story arcs. Of course, it might not be quite dead yet: http://tv.ign.com/articles/119/1197849p1.html
Firefly should definitely have been on the list. Pushing Daisies also.
Men of a certain age was a recent cut of a fascinating friendship between four lifetime friends, now in their late forties.
They were going through issues familiar to me, such as divorce of good friends, business ownership issues in a family business and bringing up kids.
Brilliant scenes with great music.
The plot lines were subtle and handled topics so well.
My best stories were the ones with the car dealership being handed from father to son and the family business issues around that situation. Being in a family business myself, it was wonderful to watch, particularly as the current US govt. slammed its business owners for greed.
The other favorite story was the road trip for a medical procedure and they end up in a massive bar fight in slow motion with Aga of Acquarius playing. Clever and unique way of showing testosterone surging in the old war horses.
Excellent tribute Canuk fan.
There were three friends, not four, I bet you are including Manfro as friend number four. Please like the MOACA facebook page, we’re still hoping someone will come to their senses and renew Men of a Certain Age.
Men of a Certain Age was a very good show. Too bad it got cancelled.
I’m sorry now, hearing the comments, that I didn’t give “MoaCA” a look-see. Put it down to the HORRID teasers & ads, which made it look like total schlock, not to mention unfunny and uninteresting to any of us *women* of a Certain Age …
Andy Dick was never a “cutting edge” comedian. He was, is, and always will be a dick. Unfunny, uncreative, and untalented is his trademark.
Joan of Arcadia
Arrested Development
Kit and Kath (or was it Kath and Kit?)
What was the show that had the blonde actress as a local morning talk show host, had one of the guys from In Living Color as a co-worker…? They got rid of the baby in the second season which took too much tension away. Too early to get the brain working!
Happy New Year to PJMedia!
I’ll nominate Equal Justice, which ran in 1990-91 and included Sarah Jessica Parker, Joe Morton, and Jane Kaczmarek in its ensemble cast. Fine writing and plotting, with real moral dilemmas treated seriously. No cop-outs. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098789. It is on Hulu.
A Big addition – ‘Max Headroom’.
When it came out, it appeared like a cheesy grasp to capitalize on a “Pet Rock” type pop phenom. Then my friends and I saw the first episode. I literally remember more clearly than the story that we were speechless for about 30 minutes, then started looking at each other like “What in God’s name is this??” It was a truly mind-blowing hour of television unlike anything I had ever seen, certainly on TV.
The biggest mystery of DVD-dom is “WHERE THE HELL IS MAX HEADROOM???” Of course it has to be some damn legal thing, but you cannot find that show anywhere…. and it was brilliant, truly brilliant. I really think if it were seen today, people would be stunned by how prescient it was about reality TV, 24 hour news, the political world and 24 hour media, even the Internet. (I remember one show about politicians being chosen by ratings, that were measured on a minute by minute basis. Now, we see the Nets hooking up crowd meters during speeches to do basically exactly that.)
How about the iconic vision of Edison Carter, intrepid crewcut journalist-star with his own mini-cam on his shoulder. Then, about two years ago, I see a bus drive by with an ad with a picture of an intrepid, crew cut journalist-star with his own mini-cam on his shoulder. I didn’t say “Eddison Carter” though.
It said “Anderson Cooper 360″.
I’m tellin’ ya, if you saw this show today, you would be floored.
OMG, I still have a few pirated episodes of Max Headroom on old VHS tapes I made for myself! That was the truest SF ever on the tube: It threw you into a completely new, yet scarily probable frame of reference, and asked the essential SF question: Technology evolves – then what happens to society? You are right, Andrew: Much of it is coming true before our eyes.
It also had the plus of making its future seem lived-in, with wear and tear visible instead of everything shiny and futuristic. Firefly did that too. Come to think of it, that may be the automatic visual shorthand for good SF today…
Picked up the series DVD set about a year or so ago. Still available and easy enough to find online. (26$ at Amazon)
Save for the 80′s computer graphics Max has held up pretty well. It was a bit odd to see “Oscar Bluth” with a mustache though. In fact, I might just have to watch it again in a week or so when I finish up Red Dwarf.
Well well, Rossignol, I stand corrected. I can say for fact that MH is fairly new to Amazon et al. For a long time there genuinely was some whacked out legality that kept it off the market, as that very thing was a topic of much geek discussion for a some time. But I guess they resolved it, and I shoulda checked first. Thanks for the update, it’s going on my next amazon order.
“Space Rangers”, created by Pen Densham, produced by Trilogy Entertainment Group, and aired (5 episodes) on CBS in 1993. Given a decent time slot and more time, it could have been another “Babylon 5″.
“Sable”, starring Lewis van Bergen and Rene Russo, ABC 1987-88 (only 7 episodes ever aired). Based on the “Jon Sable, Freelance” comic by Mike Grell (that ran for more than 60 issues). Think of “The Equalizer” with a more complex backstory and characterizations. Yes, hard to believe, but Sable was a more complex character than Robert McCall. (For one thing, McCall didn’t write children’s books as a sideline. And yes, Sable doing so under a pen-name was an important plot point, as was his background as a mercenary soldier and Kenyan game officer.)
I suspect that if either series had been in syndication, or on a cable network like USA, they’d probably have run much longer than they did.
cheers
eon
“Firefly” was not listed. The writer seems not to have done his homework.
Firefly without a doubt should have been #1 on the list. As good a series as I have EVER seen on TV.
What about CopRock?
LOL
And Who can forget the Deliciously bizzare Max Headroom, who seems to have foreseen a lot of the nonsense we have going on these days in the states.
I’m unhappy about the way HBO kills miniseries before they’ve finished their story lines: Carnivale, Deadwood, or tries to wrap them up by drastically truncating plots, seasons (Rome) . It’s not just HBO that does this as Camelot got killed, but at least Camelot was a truly wretched program that deserved its demise…Carnivale deserved better. Granted Starz, HBO, etc aren’t quite “network programming”, but still….
Carnivale was a great show. I have both seasons on DVD and I take them out occasionally and run them.
I always wondered what happened; Did Ben recover? Was Sophie pregnant with Ben’s baby? Who did she get the life restoring power from? Ben? though sex? or her father through bloodlines?
Jericho
American Gothic
My So Called Life
Yes. Jericho. Loved that show, despite the fact that they made Cheyenne the capital of the dark side.
I was going to mention Jericho–but admittedly the network did give Jericho a second chance. They were going to cancel it after the first season, but an outcry from fans caused the network to do a partial second season. However, the ratings did not improve, and so that was that.
With sci-fi and fantasy shows in particular, networks ought to give such shows more time to build an audience. The setting and premise are necessarily exotic, and aren’t as easy to just jump into as a cop procedural.
The Twilight Zone, one of the best early sci-fi shows, flirted with cancellation twice, and a hostile reception from TV critics who thought any sci-fi or fantasy show belonged on Saturday morning for kiddies. It’s a good thing that CBS reluctantly decided to stick with it.
“Well, you’re going to be obviously working so hard on The Twilight Zone that in essence, for the time being and for the foreseeable future, you’ve given up on writing anything important for television, right?”
— Mike Wallace interview with Rod Serling, 1959
JERICHO!!! Yes! It is eerily possible these days…I thought a divided gov’t, regardless of disasters, would be impossible in this country, or that any state would ‘secede’ again (though I’m not sure that’s the right term if the voters in a certain state decide that the gov’t they’re living under is illegitimate), and I thought EVERYBODY knew what Texas has! Guess I was wrong. Texas has more military, military retirees & related workers & retired workers than any other state. It has full military capability, land and water international borders, very defensible interstate borders, and is just all around an awesome place. The Lone Star State was the Lone Star Republic first, and there are still people today who think it should be again. Ok, that was mentioned in only one episode, I know. But the whole idea of what ordinary citizens would do in a continuing emergency situation is fascinating to me. Also, the inclusion of sort-of accurate military stuff was interesting. But, alas, any shows which were conservative (is that an oxymoron?), pro military or advocated keeping our country well-prepared for conventional, nuclear or terroristic attacks, etc., were ground into the dust of the end of the 9-11 ‘patriotic boom’. I REALLY think many people could learn a lot from a show like Jericho. I originally thought…what, this is stupid! Then I accidentally watched a whole episode while waiting for another show to come on…and then I had to watch the reruns just to catch all the episodes! Really engaging show. I hate to say it, but Star Trek. Yeah, major trekkie here. Only 3 seasons. I never imagined shows could run for what? Ten plus years? I came in as a fan on the re-runs. I was living at an army base in Italy, and the military broadcast english language network was pitiful, both in content and signal strength, but my Friday evenings were highlighted by wonderful, if staticky, episodes of the original Trek. A little campy, a lot relevant, then, now, and probably tomorrow too. Ok, go ahead, do your worst, fellow tv watchers…….
east side/west side. one season 1963-64., starred george c scott among others.
Whoops. It says at the top that he’s limiting it to shows of the past twenty years. Like most of these “lists” on the internet, stuff that happened before then doesn’t exist.
yeah, i missed that, but he says he is limiting to 20 years. doesn’t say i have to. it was a terrific show.
Right on bout Life on Mars. I was so disappointed when the last episode took place in the future, and they mentioned that President Obama’s granddaughter was now President. It was like some Hollywood dick head just reached in and squelched a show that showed how good life was before the ’80s, back when rent was cheap, men were men, and women were all natural. Enjoyed that show greatly!
As to the Ben Stiller Show, I went to camp with that guy. Let’s see, he always got what he wanted. He’s somewhat funny in an honest every man kind of way, but he’s just playing himself in every movie. It’s amazing what having a famous mom and dad can get you. No loss.
My four are: 1) Deadwood; 2) Freaks and Geeks; 3)Arrested Development; 4) Dead Like Me
Good call on Dead Like Me. Truly quirky and odd, but perhaps not one of the greatest ever.
I guess “Firefly” is the elephant in the room. One more vote from me. Is it too late for another movie? They could throw in all kinds of “Castle” and “V” and “Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles” references….
My other favorite cancelled series: “Life”, starring Damian Lewis (now of “Homeland” fame). Lewis play Charlie Crews, a detective released from prison after serving 12 years for a murder he did not commit. It pushes all the right buttons: Crews is fabulously wealthy, because of a hefty settlement with the government for his wrongful imprisonment. He has overarching mystery to solve (who killed his partner and framed him?) and vengeance to wreak. He pines for his gorgeous ex-wife, who has moved on. His partner is the sultry Sarah Shahi. Anyway, I watched the two seasons that were produced on (free) Hulu and wanted more.
Another favorite, though not quite as strong, was “John Doe”, starring Dominic Purcell. He plays the title character, who wakes up naked in the forest and can’t remember anything — but he knows everything. That is, he finds he is apparently a savant who mysteriously has the capability to recall the sum total of human knowledge, everything from the population of Morocco to the climatology of beef-producing regions of the world to all the information that sets tomorrow’s closing stock index price(!). Also watched this on Hulu.
No one’s yet mentioned some of my favorite “cancelled too soon” shows. The fast paced “UC: Under Cover” police drama, for example. “New Amsterdam” and “Journeyman” both involved time, but in a different fashion. The first was especially creative in is use of historic “flashbacks”, while the second involves a man “unstuck in time” (inspired perhaps by “Slaughterhouse Five”). I’d add the off-beat “Pushing Daisies” to the list.
I only discovered “Firefly” after its cancellation. But at least they cared enough about the fans to provide a follow-up movie (“Serenity”) to resolve some of the shows underlying mysteries. The same can’t be said about “Flash Forward”. All that viewing time wasted… If there’s one consolation to the Firefly cancellation, at least it gave us Nathan Fillion, one of the stars of ABC’s popular “Castle”.
Yeah, Flash Forward was an excellent show…which deserved to live on. But it did end fairly well, IMO.
Hmmm… I think I’m seeing some candidates in this thread for next year’s Christmas list.
People still watch network TV?
Yes, but we wait until it comes out on hulu, or just watch in in one shot on Netflix.
I loved Sports Night. I bought it as soon as it came out on DVD. I may just have to dig it out and watch it again.
better off ted, sooooo good. and of course Firefly
With regards Life on Mars, the US version really doesn’t hold up against the original UK version.
But it does have a happier ending!
So true.
Same for US rip offs of Top Gear and What Not to Wear
What not to Wear is a US ripoff of a UK show? I had no idea.
I haven’t watched a show on network TV since Seinfeld. It’s all garbage. I’ve never even seen more than 12 seconds of Idol. No one believes me when I tell them that.
Cavemen, however, was hilarious. Very short-sighted that they cancelled after 6 episodes. The Geico commercials always crack me up.
Gonna add “Stargate Universe” that was really getting rolling when it was canceled. Shame, that. Could’a done without the lesbian sequences as it added zero to the show but the characters were developing nicely and the episodes were interesting. Perhaps what scared the producers the most was the fact that it required some thinking to put the pieces together, or at least that you had to watch all the episodes to get the full impact of the sequencing.
I have to agree. Stargate Universe did have some potential. It wasn’t nearly as corny as the other Stargate variants and it’s premise seemed much more intriguing .
And I’m with you on the gratuitous lesbianism – two thumbs down on that totally unnecessary garbage.
Have to disagree, characters were just not very well written, especially the Captain. A ship needs a captain, not a social worker/buddy.
I agree. SGU was really a shock- it was a BSG wanna-be in a Stargate wrapper, but not as endearing as SG-1 and a much poorer drama than BSG. Thus the major fail.
Stargate Universe!
The Stargate universe (small u) is really interesting when taken seriously.
(And I must mention Firefly, of my daughter will kill me.)
“Profit” with Adrian Pasdar as a smooth-talking psychopath who sleeps in a cardboard box as he schemes his way up the corporate ladder, meeting monsters even worse than he is along the way. Buy the DVD, which has one or two episodes that weren’t aired.
Equal Justice was a fine show, of course, but I’d like to offer up Reasonable Doubts, starring Mark Harmon and Marlee Matlin. Only two seasons, but it was truly outstanding.
And oh yeah, I hope that whoever was in charge of Firefly on Fox suffers from a permanent, irritating rash.
I would also vote for Firefly. I found it after it was cancelled via Netflix. I ordered the first season dvd, was shocked to find that there were only five (I think) delightful episodes and was gutted to learn that that was it.
I would like to add Prime Suspect. I thought that Maria Bello was brilliant in the lead role. The supporting cast was good as well. Yes, it was yet another police procedural, but I think the show was trying to do acheive a higher quality of writing for the genre that should have been given a decent chance succeed. I think viewers would have come to love the Bello character, like I did, given the chance. NBC lost faith in the series ridiculously early and yanked it after a handful of episodes. For shame.
Cheer up. There are actually 13 episodes of Firefly plus the movie Serenity. I suspect you just got Season 1, Disk 1 from Netflix. If you have a good local library, check there.
“Ed” on NBC, late 90′s.
Key West w/ Jenn Tilley & Northern Exposure were two of my favs.
Life on MArs was ok, but I won’t miss it. Don’t know the others.
The only way I watch network TV is w/ a DVR or Tivo.
Caprica deserved to finish its second season. But of course, SyFy Channel (stupid name for a stupid channel) cancelled it. That show had plenty of potential. Then they cancelled Stargate Universe, another mistake. But hey, the kept the wrestling!
Network executives are a plague on the creative community.
I’m going to have to disagree – neither one of these shows had much appeal to me. Stargate Universe was dark, the characters were pretty unpleasant, and it didn’t seem to have a sense of direction. Caprica suffered from some of the same problems that plagued later seasons of Battlestar Galactica – just didn’t grab my interest. To me Battlestar Galactica started fabulous and then just went straight downhill.
I struggled to stay with BSG also, but at least the acting was very good. I guess the fact that I haven’t gotten around to buying season 4.5 says it all. On the other hand, I only watched four eps of SGU and gave up. Maybe I’d have stuck with it if I wasn’t a fan of the old Stargate.
Life On Mars – The original shorter series on British TV was much more interesting and involving and actors John Simm and Phillip Gennister (sic) were great as the two leads. And the six to eight segments per season kept the story line much tighter and more coherent.
I’m thinking that “Square Pegs” was one also.
Multiple references to Firefly but not WHY it should have been retained:
1) Wonderful historical references–the Browncoats are “Rebs” and the galactic environment is the American West post-Civil War. Conversely, the Alliance is the “Union”–so all the North/South animosities and tensions will continue to play out.
2) Malcom Reynolds is both a criminal and an entrepreneur, the former due to his thumb-nosing the Alliance and its regulatory (and even wicked) approach to galactic administration (the Serenity movie clarifies this theme and should be viewed after the TV episodes). The entrepreneurial aspect is a former soldier purchasing an outmoded space vehicle to salvage, transport (mostly smuggle), and pull heists (for a percentage of the haul) in order to survive.
3) Family/buddy orientation: by marriage, military experience, sibling ties, and genuine affection towards a diverse set of characters thrown together and battling whatever they are confronted by as a team. The fact that each character is defined (although set up to develop in future) and is unique makes the ensemble melding even more impressive. And they are believable persons one might meet in a cosmos inhabited by human beings and not paragons of virtue or cliches.
4) Given a TV budget, sets, costumes, locales, and props all provided a reasonable & believable picture of a future Universe inhabited by humans (see #3
And they swear in Chinese. There is a book that translates the Chinese dialogue – it is a hoot.
IMHO, your #1 & #2 probably had a lot to do with it being cancelled.
Can’t let show those ‘rebels’ being successful against almighty Washington (I mean Alliance)
And wrt #3, the cast probably wasn’t viewed as being “diverse” enough in one particular category.
And having a religious guy who wasn’t a secret pervert or a hypocrite, Puh_leeze
Well, those & not enought Yosafbridge
The real hook for me in Firefly was the absolute loyalty of Mal towards his crew when the crap was flying out of the reciprocating fan blades.
Nobody who has never ridden a submarine can understand that as clearly as I remember it, but Firefly was close.
“I intend to misbehave”. Best line ever.
If there’s one consolation to the Firefly cancellation, at least it gave us Nathan Fillion, one of the stars of ABC’s popular “Castle”.
Nope! Nathan Fillion came from One Life to Live before Firefly. Yeah, soaps are easy to ridicule but Fillion really stood out even then.
So many shows listed here for me to check out.
Nathan Fillion also played a very bad guy in the last season of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. Josh Whedon seems to have a loyalty to many of his actors.
Gina Torres (Zoe) appeared in “Angel”, as did Summer Galu (River) and Adam Baldwin (Jayne).
Alan Tudyk (Wash) later appeared in “Dollhouse”.
Eliza Dushku (star of “Dollhouse”) was in many “Buffy” episodes and the “Angel” was a spinoff from “Buffy” with several of the main actors.
I first saw Adam Baldwin as Colonel Dixon in Stargate SG-1. Though he was only onscreen for a bit, his monologue about kids (the character had four) was simply one of the most memorable rants I have ever heard on a TV show.
So glad to see Homefront mentioned. I would also add Keen Eddie to the list. Loved that series. The acting, writing, music. Everything. Still miss it. But at least I got the DVD set.
Under One Roof with James Earl Jones. I think it only ran for five or six episodes in 1995.
Firefly … naturally!
Frank’s Place with Tim and Daphne Reid … can someone get them to put it out on DVD??
Frank’s Place was awesome! I read somewhere that it is not on DVD—perhaps never will be—largely because of the potential royalty costs for the great music used.
The usual “too good to last” candidates have all been mentioned by previous posters, but I’d like to add HBO’s Rome. It was originally intended to run 5 seasons, but ended up being too expensive to produce. The second season was to end with the death of Brutus and all of the Antony/Cleopatra Egyptian story would have been the focus of the third and fourth seasons. Instead they ended up having to compress all of that into the 2nd season causing some goofy chronology.
I’ll throw in another nod for “Firefly”. What was the author thinking missing that one? But since we’re already talkin’ Adam Baldwin, I’d like to mention “The Inside”. Originally a “21 Jumpstreet” clone that was completely retooled by Time Minear before air. It was about an FBI spec investigation unit but the personnel in the unit were all seriously messed up. Adam played the gung-ho muscle of the team. Maybe it got canned cause every week the blonde heroine of the series was getting kidnapped.
Favorite line “You pulled a gun on a 10 year old? Hardcore.”
Its a shame that reality doesn’t allow us to have put the following shows onto the list:
CSI / CIS LA / CIS Miami / CSI where-ever
Survivor et al
Ghost Whisperer
Seinfeld
Friends
Those were good for 1 or 2 seasons. You can only retell the same story with the same people so many times.
Robbery Homicide Division, it just seemed better than all the other cop/crime stuff out there at the time.
With Tom Sizemore (!), produced by Michael Mann
Sizemore gets busted for drugs, for real this time, which didn’t help
Also, more recently “The Eleventh Hour” (18 episodes, 2008-2009) with Rufus Sewell. Definitely more interesting than “The Mentalist”, which got tiresome pretty quickly. And like “Life on Mars”, it was based on a BBC series, that happened to star Patrick Stewart of “Star Trek; The Next Generation”.
cheers
eon
Here’s one last one some readers might remember although it goes back 40 years:
“My World And Welcome To It” with William Windom, Joan Hotchkis and child actress, Lisa Gerritsen. It was based upon James Thurber cartoons. It was a very funny show. Gerritsen character had some kind of crazy braces on her teeth. She was truly charming. Lasted only one season despite being a hit.
Wow, My World and Welcome to it.
I was just a kid when this show came on. Yes, it died way too soon.
But at least the show turned me on to the work of James Thurber
Since no one else seems to have mentioned it, I would like to add Boomtown.
Every time I see Neal McDonough, I say, “There’s the guy from Boomtown!” Excellent show.
Also, “Touching Evil” w/ Jeffrey Donovan.
Here’s one. I’m surprised that nobody on this conservative-leaning site mentioned The Goode Family. Kind of like King of the Hill but it poked fun at our politically correct liberal friends. I thought it was hilarious.
I’d say none of the above were very good, and deserved early cancellation.
The real list, in no particular order would be:
Life … as others noted, fantastic performance by Damien Lewis as a man driven to revenge, but with limits. The zen focus, innate toughness of the character, resulting distrust and loner-dom, comedy by Adam Arkin, and in the second season, the fantastic Donal Logue, deserve your viewership on Hulu.
Max Headroom … “remember when we told you there was no future? Well, this is it.”
The Eleventh Hour (American Version only) with Sewell. As noted by Eon above, the hard “science plausible” moral dilemmas and performance by Sewell as a man who still has faith and decency made it a stand-out.
The Slap Maxwell Story, with Dabney Coleman as a sports writer who annoys lots of people, each episode opens with someone slapping him. Hilarious comedy.
Buffalo Bill, again with Dabney Coleman and Geena Davis. The one with the Jerry Lewis impersonators was hilarious.
Terriers, with Donal Logue. Down and out private eyes dealing with little cases that turn big.
Veronica Mars, see Terriers.
The Good Guys, see Veronica Mars.
The Misfits of Science, a young Courteney Cox and the late Dean Paul Martin, who had every bit of his father’s charisma, as a goofy scientist doing goofy experiments on goofy super-powered people. Think Max Headroom only funny.
The Big Apple, Ed O’Neil being not a bit funny, and every bit of compassion and toughness as an honest cop. Also starring Michael Madsen, Titus Welliver, and David Strathairn. How the hell did this one fail?
Brooklyn South, with Titus Welliver (who played a villain on Life) and Gary Basaraba.
Space, Above and Beyond, amazing and Fox of course killed it.
American Gothic, also amazing with Gary Cole.
Babylon: Crusade, again Gary Cole.
Cupid, the 1990′s version with Jeremy Piven. Perhaps the greatest performance Piven will ever give, and when the guy is on, he’s on.
Finally,
Vengeance Unlimited. Imagine the Equalizer played by … Michael Madsen. Someone asks his character why he helps out, he tells them he once had a very bad Monday. Perhaps the best ever of “Vigilante helps out the hopeless” genre.
Agreed. I was going to say that anyone who nominates “Sports Night” – I’ll second that, despite its cloying dialogue – might want to mention “Buffalo Bill”.
I know that Aaron Sorkin got the idea for “Sports Night” after he’d spent a year watching ESPN – as a way to avoid writing the script “The American President”, I understand – but “Buffalo Bill” was arguably that show’s precursor, though with a much smaller ensemble.
Bill Bittinger is one of TV’s all-time great jackasses. His narcissism is commonplace on TV now, but at the time it was spectacular.
I was prepared to like Life on Mars, but from the first episode, it depicted the 1970s through the cartoonish lens of the most juvenile stereotypes. Only if you didn’t live through the Seventies as a sentient being could you accept the series’ characterizations (a lot of them, anyway). It was a nice premise for a show, and had some good character actors, but I couldn’t stay with it because it was so heavy-handed with the stereotyping. Life has not actually ever, anywhere, fit the parameters of the modern ideology of social discontent.
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
YESSSSS! Brisco County Junior AND Due South! Both were wonderful, good, clean fun that we could watch with the whole family. Almost slap-stick humor! Boy, I really miss them!
Sorry to be redundant, but I have to say it. Firefly: the BEST tv show of the last twenty-years.
Every last one of the shows on this list was a the typical leftist drivel that they love to produce so they can impress other leftist fools.
These shows sucked. And that’s why they got canceled.
Simple as that.
Can’t say that about “Firefly” though.
You can’t have watched Firefly if you are including it.
My first WTF moment of this article was “30 Rock” being considered a “prestige show”. The folks at NBC are clearly more deluded than I thought. Then comes “… a veritable who’s who of cutting edge comics: Stiller, Bob Odenkirk, Janeane Garofalo, and Andy Dick…”. Seriously? Someone actually thinks Stiller, Garofalo and Dick are funny? We have no common point with which to form the basis of a discussion.
Next you’ll try telling me (again) that Franken’s “Late Line”, Asner’s “Lou Grant” and the “Smothers Brothers” were all canceled because of right-wing hate groups and not their dreadfully low ratings. The entertainment “elite” are clueless.
“Back to You” and “Armed and Famous”.
Firefly of course. Naturally I would have loved another season or two of the show. But I’m also glad it didn’t go on too long. It will never be stale. Never overstay its premise.
I maybe going back too far, but WKRP in Cincinnati deserved waaaay more credit for a sitcom. The folks at CBS and MTM productions moved it around to much and when it did get a following it was axed. That show had a lot of plot lines that were ahead of its time. The cast was perfect and they all were just as important as the next guy when it came to their scenes. I compare it to early M A S H and Seinfeld. Who can forget the episode where a camera crew followed Herb & his family around. Again, waaaaay ahead of its time.
Finally WKRP in Cincinnati…CHI CHI Rodrigueez…
I’m delighted to say I never saw one of them. Some I never heard of.
DEADWOOD…..best show evah
I have to mention the Jay Mohr series Action. Probably one of the most brutal, pointed and hilarious looks into Hollywood ever broadcast. Such a shame this wasn’t on HBO or Showtime. It might have lasted more than 13 episodes.
Jericho was great.
Firefly, again. How can you write a list like this and forget Firefly.
Cupid. The original one with Jeremy Piven in it. That was lost too quickly and never put on DVD as far as I know.
Legend. With Richard Dean Anderson and John Delancy chewing up scenery in the old west. It has a lot of potential.
“Pushing Daisies,” “Wonderfalls,” “Arrested Development,” “Firefly,” and “Freaks and Geeks” all deserved better than they got.
Hi PJM & Fans,
Some interesting series’ here already mentioned, but my pick was the FOX (?) version of the Terminator (Sarah Connor), w/ Lena Heady. Lots of room there to grow the backstory of the movies.
YT
Niall
COP ROCK!!
That’s a joke.
Actually I enjoyed the Ben stiller show a lot. I have it on DVD now and it holds up pretty well. Though I’m sure younger people wouldn’t get the Wilson Garden Hose commercial. It’s based on that jeans commerical (I believe it was).
Many excellent selections particularly “Life”, “Pushing Daiseys”, and “Better Off Ted”. I’m surprised no one’s mentioned “Journeyman”.
The Good Guys, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., John Doe, and Martial Law starring Sammo Hung. That show was lightning in a bottle; getting to see a martial arts master doing his thing every week. And even though people are begging for it, they still won’t release it on DVD.
Journeyman was a fantastic short-lived series that had tremendous potential. It had three things going against it though…1)being on NBC, 2)2007 Writers Strike, 3)Ben Silverman. 1 and 3 kinda go together. NBC President Kevin Reilly brought Journeyman in and really believed in it and really wanted to push it. He then abruptly left NBC, leaving Ben Silverman as his replacement. Silverman, right from the start, didn’t want the show to air. He was big on having NBC Universal-produced shows…and Journeyman was 20th Century Fox. He, thankfully, couldn’t just outright cancel the series and the 13 episode order had to run, per their agreement with 20th Century Fox. NBC barely promoted it, they put it on Monday night at 10, against stiff competition. And they moved the final episode to another night, and didn’t even bother to inform viewers. Meanwhile, NBC focused their efforts on promoting Bionic Woman, which was a flop.
As for the series itself…it was created by Kevin Falls (Sports Night, West Wing) and Kevin McKidd (Rome, Grey’s Anatomy) played the lead character, Dan Vasser. And he was phenomenal in this series. Dan travels back in time to “put right what once went wrong” (ala Quantum Leap) in some random person’s life. The main difference between this series and QL is that Dan doesn’t just stay in the past and keep traveling. He instead, returns to his present time, where he’s married with a kid and is trying to hold a job at a San Francisco newspaper. When he arrives back his present time, he’s able to research the specific person he’s “tracking” in the past. There are some great twists, including his run-ins with his fiance who supposedly died in a plane crash 10 years prior. It’s really an interesting story and they’ve basically taken this story and tried to make it as believable as possible. You actually feel like this could happen in reality.
This show was built very well…from the writing to the acting to the soundtrack. It was one of those great shows that nobody watched. There were a few attempts to try and save the series, but NBC couldn’t wait to can it and it’s pretty difficult for another network to pick it up. It worked for Friday Night Lights…which was also on the chopping block at the same time Journeyman aired…but it would eventually be saved by the partnership between NBC and DirecTV. But seriously, if you haven’t seen Journeyman, check it out. NBC and 20th Century Fox have had no desire to put this series on DVD…but I know it’s still available on Hulu.
James Doohan in The Ben Stiller show (1992)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeUhpLdmhQs
Firefly, natch, Life, Life on Mars (UK)…Gene Genie, baby! and the magnificent Carnivale.
Maybe it’s better that they went too soon instead of staying too long and becoming tiresome–House, Bones, Burn Notice, geez, give it a rest!
Must add Standoff to the list. Great chemistry between the real-life husband and wife, Ron Livingston and Rosemarie Dewitt. Plus Gina Torres (Zoe from Firefly) as their boss.
I was just starting to watch and enjoy “The Single Guy” when it was cancelled. There, I said it.
The best show since 1980 to be cancelled with hardly a chance to succeed: Goodnight, Beantown.
I agree. I loved Firefly. You can watch it again at hule.com.
Sorry, that’s hulu.com
They ran long, were not cut off short, but Gunsmoke and The Sopranos were my favorites. Both evoked that “willing suspension of disbelief” essential to great drama, and a feeling that one was interactively involved in the action on the screen. Not a TVer, I never even heard of the five cited programs.
It seems there used to be time for recreational viewing; but no more. We are under attack both from within and without and nine out of ten could care, or do, less. Lets see… who can I convince today that the CFR is our enemy, with its plan for a New World Order?
“Drive” another Tom Minear vehicle, tightly plotted, compelling charaters, interesting premise, ran only a couple of episodes before being cancelled.
The networks really seem to hate the guy.
Whenever this subject comes up I harken back to Star Trek (the original). Only three years on network television now 40+ years in syndication. That doesn’t even begin to address the movies, other series’ and fan base with conventions, books other merchandise available. Millions and millions of dollars not going to the network. Good job dude.
I wonder if the guy who axed this show was ever held accountable for his lack of vision of if he’s still perpetuating that lack today?
Television-America’s vast wasteland. Brought to you by (large) corporate/government America with no taste, no morals and no respect.
Oddly enough it was a victim of poor network research into demographics. Star Trek was an expensive show to produce and was way down the list in viewers. What they missed back then was that amoung those with color television (still a minority then) it was number 1! The group with the most disposable income wan’t taken advantage of.
Prior to 1970, Nielsen rated shows by total number of households viewing the show, regardless of the demographics of the household. So shows watched by lots of elderly retirees, like Lawrence Welk, were still considered hits. CBS in particular had a whole bunch of shows that skewed older.
It was only starting in 1970–one year after Star Trek was canceled–that the networks began rating shows more heavily by how many viewers in the 18-49 year old demographic were watching the shows. As a result of that, shows that skewed older were canceled, and TV started offering more youth oriented fare. Star Trek was definitely doing well among younger viewers. Had the networks gone to demographic ratings just a year or two earlier, Star Trek might not have been canceled.
Interestingly, the same arguments still apply to scifi in general- they’re expensive shows and their audience has moved on to the next big technological thing. They’re past the sit-down-and-watch-TV demo that Nielsen measures and which advertising supports. Scifi fans watch more online and Tivo’d than any other set of viewers.
Which is one reason why there is no space-based scifi on TV right now, and I doubt there will be until they can figure out how to distribute it online at a profit.
Yes! Star Trek slipped from its futuristic alternate universe (in which people actually acted according to their principles, right or wrong) and snuck (yes, it’s a word, I’m an English major, and I say so. lol) into the ‘real’ world. Using the ‘Enterprise’ heritage was a stroke of genius that made it seem like a continuation of a real life tradition. Sadly, the follow-up shows (spinoffs, I know) were infected by political correctness, an apparent writing crew who all belonged to debating societies, and an absolute crusade to pursue every avante gard social issue in existence. Plus, they made it too real. I wanted to keep the kitsch!
Please! 1st of all, no matter what kind of makeup you put on it, it’s STILL only TV. 2nd and you can’t really forget this because it “IS” what TV is all about, it’s all about $$MONEY$$. 3rd you can’t forget that it’s considered a ‘creative’ form of expression for the producer and director. And there fore “IS” a tool for indoctrination (ie All American Muslim… yeah, right). 4th If you want to work in this town you WILL parrot MY beliefs is the ‘corporate’ philosophy. And that philosophy “IS” communism. (Review your history if necessary on hollywood). 5th and finally, TV is also considered a social mirror, by those that bring this trash to life. HoW (Hell on Wheels) is a good example of how hollywood thinks of America. You didn’t think they were trying to be historically accurate, did you? Like reality, it’s got to have MORE DRAMA, MORE DRAMA!
It broke my heart when ABC cancelled “The Double Life of Henry Phyfe.”
Doesn’t anyone remember”Remember WENN” about a radio show in the early 1940′s? Great comic cast about the goings on both on and off the air. A running gag was Mr. Foley the sound effects man who you never heard except with his sound effects.
That was when American Movie Classics was the best place to see the oldies. That entire channel was well run, and worth watching. Then Ted Turner launched his own TCM channel, and AMC lost all MGM, RKO, and Warner movies. If you liked “Remember WENN”, you probably liked “A Nero Wolf Mystery.”
I think “Journeyman” was cancelled too soon, which was on NBC for 8 episodes (I think), and I also think NBC didn’t give “The Cape” a chance last year. ABC didn’t give “No Ordinary Family” a chance last year either.
I was only able to watch a couple episodes of “Firefly,” so I’d have to agree with everyone else. I also think Fox ended “Dark Angel” too soon, they didn’t even give it a proper ending.
SyFy didn’t give “Caprica” a chance, but then again, I only was able to see three episodes.
Another vote for “Action” here. If it had been on HBO it might still be airing today.
This scene is probably the best ever (though they inexplicably left out the part where Mohr calls Scott Wolf “Simon Birch”):
http://www.spike.com/video-clips/44k2q6/action-the-complete-series-episode-2-twelfth-step-to-hell
“Odyssey 5,” starring Peter Weller, ran only one season (19 episodes) 2002-03. The world EXPLODES in the opening episode; the sole survivors are the 5 crew members of an orbiting shuttlecraft. They’re offered the chance to travel back in time 5 years, to find out and, perhaps, prevent the sequence of events that led to the disaster. There is a lovely interplay between their terrible knowledge of the coming catastrophe, and the comparative innocence of their past; each episode is briliantly constructed, and the ensemble cast is magnificent.
I’ve always loved historical drama’s or series that despicted parts of American history. Our family was glued to the TV to watch the series “Christy” which aired on the Family Channel and was based on the harsh and brutal life in the Great Smokey Mountain community of Cutter Gap. My mother grew up in this area during the 1920′s and 30′s and her stories of childhood coincided with a lot of the plot lines of this series. Alas, I could hear the taps and knew this series was doomed as soon as the network was sold to ABC. If you watch the last episode with the original crew, it’s painfully apparent that the series was axed without warning since there was no “closure” to the series. Later on a few shows were created to bring that closure but were without most of the original cast. This was good family TV, suitable for all agea.. something hard to find today.
Terriers! Damn it.
And, sure, Firefly.
FARSCAPE
It was gaining in popularity and building a large fan base and scifi cancels it to save money for Star Gate. Then they have the nerve to hire several of the main characters from Farscape in hopes of pulling in the people they abandoned.
I’m glad someone mentioned both ‘Action’ and ‘The Good Guys’, but the show I felt was never given a chance was ‘Andy Richter Controls the Universe’…VERY funny show, it needed a bit more time to find its audience.
Boomtown! Brilliant non-linear plotting of an LA-based crime drama, seen from different character viewpoints, ruined by NBC then cancelled six eps into its second season. Criminal. Wondrous cast.
High Incident- ABC, two years, exec produced by Steven Spielberg and Ann Donahue, again, great casting of a ‘localized’ cop show, with great Spielbergian ‘BOO!!!’ moments. This show often had more action before the opening credits than other shows could accomplish in a half hour.
Southland Shows NBC execs spinelessness… cancelled because it was ‘too gritty’… eeeewww! Became a hit on TNT where gritty is good.
Definitely Life on Mars and Firefly. We own the latter on DVD and also watched the recent marathon on SciFi over the holidays.
Don’t let the fact that it is on PBS keep you from Downton Abbey, whose second season starts tomorrow night, and whose first season (four of five episodes) just got replayed and may be on “On Demand” on your cable system. We must gird our loins for WWI, a nasty war, if there ever was one.
Downton Abbey is a lovely period piece with interesting characters one can care about. But it doesn’t fit the premise – TV series that were unjustly axed. The House of Elliot may come closer, in that it ended abruptly, with rumors that this was because of a fire that burned the props and sets.
I would add AMC’s Rubicon to the list.
As myriad others said: Firefly.
And I’ll add: Freaks and Geeks.
Stumbled into I’ll Fly Away one evening by accident and was hooked for the entire two seasons–best drama ever! Nailed the period. Nailed the conflicts, the accents, the everything…..was heartbroken when it stopped running. But I’m delighted to read it’s out there on the web–time to get reacquainted. And now my son is old enough to understand it.
Sports Night was right up there till it took a turn into left field.
The U.S. version of “Life on Mars” was a terribly pale and weak version of
the stellar BBC original.
“Firely”, surely you jest?, what a bunch of fanbois!
I don’t know about best overlooked shows, but I do know what is the WORST overlooked show: The Ugily Family, which I believe lasted one episode.
The premise of The Ugily Family (which, as the viewers are reminded in the opening credits, is supposed to be pronounced “Yoo-Gee-Lee” but which everybody on the show pronounces as “Ugly), is: How can a family of truly ugly Italian-Americans survive living in middle-class California?
The show survived only one week on TV, I think, but it is more familiar to Californians as the “pilot” that was shown to people who showed up for product testing consumer panels. The participants were told that they were there to rate the pilot, as a test audience, but in fact they were really there to give their opinion on the freebie handout gifts that were part of the enticement to join the panel. For some sophisticated marketing reason, the facilitators chose the absolute worst TV show they could find, to get the participants in a certain frame of mind — like, how much do you like these potato chips when you’re really pissed off, as opposed to feeling happy? Something like that.
And The Ugily Family was just the ticket to piss everyone off. Agonizingly unfunny, and insulting at the same time. I think more people saw it in these “test audience” marketing panels over the years than actually saw it on TV.