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For our 250th edition of ‘TV By the Decade’, the Summer months start heating up with several new series including two in different decades from Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television. Even 1953 produced one new, albeit short-lived primetime game show. 1993 gave us a series on one network based on an episode of another series on a different network, and went down in infamy as utterly terrible. 2003 had two reality shows with one of them moderately successful, while 2013 had the lion’s share of new programming including two popular scripted dramas, an imported series, and one survival series that is still going strong today. Read on to learn more and tell us if your favorites are on the list!
1953
- June 20 – Bank on the Stars (CBS/NBC, Two seasons, 23 episodes)
In Bank on the Stars, a primetime game show airing weekly on Saturday night on both networks, two-person teams competed to answer questions about clips shown from recently released movies. In the bonus round, the winning team was quizzed on another clip which they could hear but not see. Jack Paar hosted the CBS run of the show which ended on August 8, 1953. The show returned on May 15, 1954 on NBC with Bill Cullen hosting for several weeks until Jimmy Nelson took over in July. That version ended on August 21, 1954.
1963
- No new series debuted this week in 1963.
1973
- No new series debuted this week in 1973.
1983
- No new series debuted this week in 1983.
1993
Amblin Television
- June 23 – Family Dog (CBS, One season, 10 episodes)
Family Dog was based on an episode of NBC’s Amazing Stories which aired in 1987, one of the most popular episodes of the anthology series. It marked the first collaboration between Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton, and was created by Brad Bird. Bird had no involvement in the series because he felt the short’s premise would not work in an episodic series. The series was panned by critics and called one of the worst animated TV series of all time, mainly because of the big name talent involved and the cheap animation. Many complained the family in the show was so repulsively selfish that audiences just did not care about their adventures. 13 episodes were originally ordered, and the series was scheduled and promoted heavily to premiere on March 20, 1991 but dissatisfaction with the animation forced producers to halt production with the tenth episode and hire a new animation company to finish the work on the episodes already produced. Frederick Coffin was the original voice of Skip Binford, but he was replaced by Spielberg with Martin Mull after animation was completed on the first three episodes. Stan Freberg voiced the character for the Amazing Stories episode.
2003
- June 18 – Paradise Hotel (FOX/MyNetworkTV/FOX Reality Channel, Three seasons, 54 episodes)
- June 18 – Boarding House: North Shore (The WB, One season, 6 episodes)
Paradise Hotel aired its first season on FOX with host Amanda Byram, and consisted of 30 episodes. The 16 episode second season aired on MyNetworkTV and the FOX Reality Channel again with Byram as host. The season concluded with a Reunion episode on May 26, 2008. FOX revived the series in 2019 with Kristin Cavallari as host but it ended after seven episodes.
2013
Amblin Television
- June 18 – Blood And Oil (Discovery, One season, 5 episodes)
- June 19 – Fight Master: Bellator MMA (Spike, One season, 10 episodes)
- June 19 – The Soup Investigates (E!, One season, 7 episodes)
- June 23 – Whodunnit? (ABC, One season, 9 episodes)
- June 23 – Devious Maids (Lifetime, Four seasons, 49 episodes)
- June 23 – Crossing Lines (NBC, One season, 10 episodes / Ovation, Two seasons, 24 episodes)
- June 23 – Naked and Afraid (Discovery Channel, Fifteen seasons, 188 episodes to date)
- June 23 – Morgan Spurlock Inside Man (CNN, Four seasons, 30 episodes)
- June 24 – Under the Dome (CBS, Three seasons, 39 episodes)
The Soup Investigates was a spin-off of clip show The Soup, focusing on news events of the previous week, and was also hosted by Joel McHale.
Whodunnit? was created by Anthony Zuiker, creator of the CSI franchise, and was able to bring crew and set pieces from that series into the production of Whodunnit? The first ‘victim’ was not a real contestant, and each contestant was asked before taping if they would like to be the killer. The one chosen received a guaranteed stipend and their identity was such a well-kept secret that even Zuiker didn’t know until the eighth episode. Each episode had a $750,000 budget, took three days to shoot and employed about 250 people each day, including stunt doubles for the more dangerous ‘deaths’, and a team of Hollywood make-up artists to make the ‘victims’ look authentic. The ‘killer’, Cris Crotz, had no more information than anyone else because she could have rigged the contest if she did. She said the producers asked her to stop winning riddles after she won two in a row, and that there were no real clues to identifying the killer. The killer’s identity seems irrelevant since one contestant correctly identified Crotz each week but failed the final challenge and was eliminated. The winner never once correctly identified the killer.
Devious Maids was created by Marc Cherry following the success of his ABC series Desperate Housewives. It was based on the Mexican TV series Ellas son… la alegría del hogar. The series was originally developed for ABC, but was picked up by Lifetime. The network cancelled the series leaving it with an unresolved cliffhanger. Roselyn Sánchez made a cameo appearance on the final episode of Desperate Housewives as her character Carmen Luna.
Under the Dome was based on Stephen King’s 2009 novel of the same name. King served as an executive producer for the first season. The premiere was the most watched Summer drama premiere on any network since 1992. The series was originally set up at Showtime, but the network didn’t feel it was a good fit and suggested CBS should pick it up. To cover the $3 million per episode budget, CBS struck a deal with Amazon Video worth about $750,000 per episodes to stream the episodes four days after they aired. Foreign markets also played an important role, bringing in almost $2 million, as well as did the $400,000 tax credits from North Carolina where the series was filmed. CBS actually earned back all of the money it spent on each episode before the episode aired, making the show profitable immediately. Stephen King wrote the second season premiere episode and made a cameo appearance.
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