TV by the Decade :: March 3•9

Cosmos Studios

While the first two decades on this week’s list did not produce any new series, the rest of them did. Some were memorable and continue today, some won awards, and a few were so bad critics felt they should have never aired. The longest running show on the list premiered in 1974 and still airs today. 1984 had a rare flop for Norman Lear. 1994 gave us an animated sitcom about a private eye duck, a series based on a popular John Hughes movie, and two interactive game shows. 2004 saw Stephen King present a series not based on his own work, and gave us that show that should have never aired. 2014 had another critically lambasted series, a Disney game show, and a new edition of a classic scientific docuseries. Scroll down to learn about these and the other shows that made their debuts this week, and tell us if any of your favorites are celebrating milestone anniversaries.

1954

No new series premiered this week in 1954.

1964

No new series premiered this week in 1964.

1974

WGBH-TV

March 3 – Nova (PBS, Fifty seasons, 959 episodes to date)

Nova was inspired by the BBC 2 series Horizon, and early episodes were co-productions with the Horizon team in the UK with narration re-voiced in American English. The practice continues to this day. Only 19 of the first 50 episodes were originals produced by WGBH in Boston. The first episode was a 1972 Horizon episode, ‘The Making of a Natural History Film’. The series has won four Peabody Awards, one for the series overall in 1974, and three for specific episodes. The series has won four Emmys in 1978, 1981, 1983 and 1989. Additional Emmys were awarded for writing (2001), and for eleven episodes between 1982 and 2005.

1984

March 6 – a.k.a. Pablo (ABC, One season, 6 episodes)

a.k.a. Pablo was executive produced by Norman Lear, and was ranked Number 45 of the ’50 Worst TV Shows of All Time’ by TV Guide in 2004.

1994

Jim Henson Productions

March 3 – The Byrds of Paradise (ABC, One season, 13 episodes, 1 unaired)
March 5 – Duckman (USA Network, Four seasons, 70 episodes)
March 5 – Weird Science (USA Network/Sci-Fi Channel, Five seasons, 88 episodes)
March 5 – Secret Life of Toys (The Disney Channel, One season, 13 episodes)
March 7 – Boggle: The Interactive Game (The Family Channel, One season)
March 7 – Shuffle: The Interactive Game (The Family Channel, One season)
March 9 – The Busy World of Richard Scarry (Showtime, Five seasons, 65 episodes)
March 9 – Thunder Alley (ABC, Two seasons, 27 episodes)
March 9 – Turning Point (ABC, 40+ episodes, last broadcast on June 17, 1999)

The Byrds of Paradise was one of the rare series executive produced by Steven Bochco that he did not create. The series was notable for being filmed on location in Hawaii and including the local culture in the lives of the mainland Byrd family, rather than maintaining a mainland lifestyle on the island.

The full title of Duckman is Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man. The series was based on the 1990 one-shot Dark Horse comic book. The series received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Animated Program in 1994, 1996 and 1997.

Weird Science was based on the 1985 John Hughes movie of the same name, although the series is set in a world where the movie exists. The final six unaired episodes from the series’ original run on USA Network were broadcast on Sci-Fi Channel in 1998. The series used the same Oingo Boingo theme song from the movie, but the band received no credit. Hughes had no involvement with the show. Seth Green was in the running to play Gary, the Anthony Michael Hall role from the movie, but lost out to John Mallory Asher. Green appeared as a guest star in the Season 2 premiere.

Secret Life of Toys was based on the 1986 Jim Henson Productions TV special The Christmas Toy. The show was filmed in Monheim, Germany.

Boggle: The Interactive Game and Shuffle: The Interactive Game were hosted by Wink Martindale. Home viewers could call a 1-900 number and play the game on their touch-tone telephone like a round of the studio game. The person with the highest score would receive a small prize and would be entered into a weekly playoff, with that winner receiving a trip.

The unaired pilot for Thunder Alley featured Felicity Huffman as Bobbi Turner, daughter of Gil Jones (Ed Asner). When ABC picked up the series she was replaced with Diane Venora. The pilot was reshot with Venora, who played the role for the first season’s eight episodes. She was replaced with Robin Riker for Season 2. After three small film roles and a handful of guest appearances on TV, a young Haley Joel Osment scored his first series regular role on the show. Actor Robby Benson directed a majority of the episodes. The series did well in its first season slotted after Home Improvement, but faltered when ABC moved it as the lead-in for the Wednesday night schedule, and was removed from the line-up after the November 2, 1994 episode. The remainder of the series was aired between March and May of 1995, with the final episode not airing until July 4 when no one would be watching TV.

2004

March 3 – Kingdom Hospital (ABC, One season, 13 episodes)
March 4 – Pimp My Ride (MTV, Six seasons, 73 episodes)
March 5 – The Help (The WB, One season, 7 episodes)
March 7 – Nickelodeon Splat! (Nickelodeon, One season)
March 9 – Cracking Up (Fox, One season, 12 episodes, 6 unaired)

Kingdom Hospital, like the UPN series All Souls, was based on Lars von Trier’s Danish mini-series The Kingdom (Riget). It was developed by Stephen King as a mini-series, but ABC changed it to a full series. The series went on hiatus following the April 29 episode for the NBA playoffs and returned on July 15. King and producer Mark Carliner discovered the original mini-series in a video store and attempted to buy the rights, but learned Columbia Pictures had already secured the rights for a feature film. The studio eventually found it would not be able to adapt the material into a two-hour film and sold the rights to King in exchange for his story ‘Secret Window, Secret Garden’ from the book Four Past Midnight. King had plans for a second season, but despite having the highest rated debut of the year for ABC, ratings plummeted and the series was cancelled. It did receive Emmy nominations for Visual Effects and Main Title Design.

Pimp My Ride was criticized by several participants for exaggerating or faking several aspects of the restorations and many aspects of the show. On three occasions, the show did not ‘pimp’ the original vehicle, instead replacing the cars with new ones, making extensive modifications for the owner. In other instances, some of the added features to the cars were removed immediately after filming due to state traffic laws. The overhauls appeared to take days on the show but actually took 6-7 months while the owners had to find alternate transportation without any support from MTV. All modifications were cosmetic, leaving the owners to still deal with any mechanical issues of their vehicles. Host Xzibit received backlash on social media for his participation in the show even though he was merely the host and had no input in the vehicle modification.

The Help scored the best premiere performance of the season for The WB in the Friday 9:30 PM time slot, but reactions were harsh with one critic saying the show needed a complete overhaul from the cast to the writing to the set to the premise, and another saying it was a show that never should have aired. Another critic compared it to a school play, while one noted that it was a show that opened with a doggy-doo joke and still managed to go downhill from there. The show wasted its cast which included Al Santos, Brenda Strong, Megan Fox and Mindy Cohn, with Tori Spelling and David Faustino in recurring roles.

Nickelodeon Splat! was a television block consisting of game show interstitials that aired live, with a website that allowed viewers to interact with the program as it aired. It was the last show taped at Nickelodeon Studios at Universal Studios Florida.

Cracking Up was created by Mike White, who went on to create HBO’s The White Lotus. The cast included Molly Shannon, Christopher McDonald and Jason Schwartzman.

2014

Fox Television Studios

March 3 – Southern Charm (Bravo, Nine seasons, 130 episodes to date)
March 3 – Those Who Kill (A&E/Lifetime Movie Network, One season, 10 episodes)
March 3 – Disney’s Win, Lose or Draw (Disney Channel, One season, 40 episodes)
March 5 – Bring It! (Lifetime, Five seasons, 121 episodes)
March 6 – Celebrity Home Raiders (Lifetime, One season, 8 episodes)
March 6 – Chicagoland (CNN, One season, 8 episodes)
March 6 – Review (Comedy Central, Three seasons, 22 episodes)
March 6 – Saint George (FX, One season, 10 episodes)
March 6 – Sirens (USA Network, Two seasons, 23 episodes)
March 9 – Resurrection (ABC, Two seasons, 21 episodes)
March 9 – Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (Fox/Nat Geo, One season, 13 episodes)
March 9 – Lindsay (Oprah Winfrey Network, One season, 8 episodes)
March 9 – Online Dating Rituals of the American Male (Bravo, One season, 6 episodes)
March 9 – Catch a Contractor (Spike, Three seasons, 32 episodes)

Those Who Kill moved from A&E to the Lifetime Movie Network after the second episode was broadcast. The series was based on the Danish series Den som dræber, and filmed on location in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The original Win, Lose or Draw was created by Burt Reynolds and Bert Convy, with Convy hosting. Disney’s Win, Lose or Draw was executive produced by Convy’s daughter Jennifer, and hosted by Justin Willman. The two teams on the new version featured two young contestants with a teenage celebrity from a Disney Channel or Disney XD program, including Peyton List, Cameron Boyce, Garrett Clayton and Dove Cameron.

Chicagoland was a docuseries executive produced by Robert Redford utilizing three camera crews that captured over 1,000 hours of footage. The series was commissioned by then-CNN president Jeff Zucker to make the network’s programming less dependent on the unpredictable nature of the 24-hour news cycle.

Review was an American adaptation of the Australian series Review with Myles Barlow. The mockumentary series was hosted in the US by Andy Daly as Forrest MacNeil.

Saint George was the first starring role in a scripted series for George Lopez since his 2002-2007 ABC series George Lopez. If the series hit certain ratings thresholds during its ten-episode run, that would have triggered an automatic 90-episode renewal, but the series fell short of those thresholds. The series was panned by critics and received scathing reviews, with a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Sirens was based on the British comedy series of the same name. The US version was co-developed by Denis Leary. Leary said he would not star in the series, but would take a small role if necessary. That necessity never arose.

Resurrection was based on Jason Mott’s 2013 novel The Returned. The series was initially announced by ABC as Forever, a title which was given to another 2014 series.

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is a follow-up to the classic 1980 series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which was hosted by Carl Sagan for PBS. The new version is hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, and executive produced by Seth MacFarlane and Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow. The series premiered across ten 21st Century Fox networks, with the remainder of the episodes airing on FOX, with the Nat Geo channel rebroadcasting them the next night with additional content. The show won a Peabody Award and two Critics Choice Awards, and received 12 Emmy nominations, winning four awards for writing, sound editing, main title theme and music composition. The show was criticized by the religious right for using scientific theory that opposed the Genesis creation narrative from the Bible. The Catholic League also said the show smeared Catholicism by focusing on Giordano Bruno, whom the Catholic Church turned over to secular authorities to be burnt at the stake for blasphemy, immoral conduct, practice of hermeticism, and heresy in matters of dogmatic theology. The series was followed by the 2020 sequel series Cosmos: Possible Worlds.

Lindsay is an American docuseries that documents actress Lindsay Lohan’s rehabilitation recovery and work following a public period of struggles in her personal life and career. The series was preceded by a one-on-one interview between Lohan and Oprah Winfrey for the Oprah’s Next Chapter series.

Catch a Contractor scored as the most-watched debut of a Spike original program since March 2011.

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