TV by the Decade :: May 17•23

Promotional still for Season 1 of "Preacher" featuring the cast in a field, an old country church with trees to the left and right in the background. From left to right: W. Earl Brown as Hugo Root, in a beige police officer's uniform with hat and black necktie, a gun on his right hip. Ian Colletti as Eugene 'Arseface' Root, his face deformed around the mouth, wearing a gray hoodie, a T-shirt with colorful print, and blue denim jeans. Lucy Griffiths as Emily, with long brown hair, wearing a white sweater over a pink patterned dress. Ruth Negga as Tulip, sitting on the bench of a red picnic table, with short, curly dark hair, a zipped green leather jacket and blue denim jeans. Dominic Cooper, with short, spiky dark hair and cropped beard, sitting on the corner of the red picnic table, wearing black clothing with a white priest collar visible, and silver metal tips on the shirt collar. Joseph Gilgun as Cassidy, standing, holding an umbrella over his head, with short, dark spiked hair, brown leather jacket, white V-neck T-shirt and brown denim jeans. Derek Wilson as Donnie Schenck, with short brown hair and beard, blue plaid buttoned shirt and blue denim jeans. Anatol Yusef as DeBlanc, with a close cropped beard, a white cowboy hat, beige blazer over a white buttoned shirt with bolo tie, dark blue pants, holding a gun in his right hand. Tom Brooke as Fiore, in a beige cowboy hat, light brown blazer over a white buttoned shirt with a dark brown tie and pants, holding a gun in his left hand.

AMC Studios

As the TV season comes to an end for broadcast networks, this week offers little in the way of new series premieres in most decades. But May is still a month to generate ratings, and both 1976 and 1986 hoped to cash in with high concept TV movies, one a rip-off of the first true summer blockbuster from 1975, one another adaptation of a literary classic, and one based on a popular novel top loaded with a stellar cast. Skip ahead to 2016, and only one broadcast network rolled out a new series, this one a dating reality show. Cable and streaming saw most of the action — with one TV movie based on a play, a nature reality series, and two scripted series, one based on its star’s life, and the other based on a popular series of comic books that was deemed too violent for a prestige cable network. Scroll down to see all the programs that premiered this week, and tell us if any of your favorites are celebrating milestone anniversaries.

1956

No new shows premiered this week in 1956.

1966

No new shows premiered this week in 1966.

1976

May 20 – Shark Kill (NBC, TV movie)
May 22 – The Call of the Wild (NBC, TV movie)

Shark Kill was one of the first films released to capitalize on the success of Jaws.

The screenplay for The Call of the Wild was written by James Dickey, and was produced following the success of Deliverance, which was adapted from Dickey’s novel of the same name. Dickey’s son described this film adaptation of the Jack London novel as ‘Deliverance in the Klondike’.

1986

May 18 – As Summers Die (HBO, TV movie)

As Summers Die was the last film produced by HBO Premiere Films before it was folded into HBO Pictures. The film had in impressive cast including Scott Glenn, Jamie Lee Curtis and Bette Davis.

1996

No new shows premiered this week in 1996.

2006

No new shows premiered this week in 2006.

2016

Still from "Lady Dynamite" featuring Maria Bamford leaning into a white room from a doorway, a white, textured wall behind her. She has bleached blonde, shoulder-length hair parted in the middle, pink lipstick, gold double-hoop earrings, an orange blazer over a low-cut red top, with a wild expression on her face.

The Hurwitz Company

May 17 – Coupled (FOX, One season, 11 episodes)
May 20 – Lady Dynamite (Netflix, Two seasons, 20 episodes)
May 21 – All the Way (HBO, TV movie)
May 22 – Preacher (AMC, Four seasons, 43 episodes)
May 23 – Mygrations (National Geographic Channel, One season, 6 episodes)

Coupled was a reality dating show hosted by Terrence J.

Lady Dynamite was loosely based on the life of star Maria Bamford, who was involved in the writing process but did not write any episodes herself. The cast also included Fred Melamed, Mary Kay Place, and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, with Ana Gasteyer, Ed Begley Jr., Bridget Everett, June Diane Raphael and Jenny Slate among the recurring cast.

All the Way was based on the 2012 play of the same name, with Bryan Cranston reprising the role of Lyndon Johnson in the film. The movie earned four Primetime Emmy Awards nominations, including Outstanding Television Movie and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie, and four Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards nominations. Cranston also received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance.

Preacher episodes were followed by aftershow Talking Preacher, which was hosted by Chris Hardwick. The series was originally pitched by Mark Steven Johnson to HBO in 2006, producing adaptations of all 75 issues of the comic book, exactly as written, that would run for six years. The head of HBO at the time felt the show would be too violent and ordered a revamp of the pilot screenplay. Johnson refused and HBO cancelled the production. The film rights were then purchased by Sony in 2008 for Sam Mendes to direct, but he left to do Skyfall. D.J. Caruso replaced him, but the project was shelved when Caruso began work on another Sony project. AMC announced development of a series in 2013, with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg developing the pilot, and the series was officially ordered on September 9, 2015. Ruth Negga and Joseph Gilgun were the first actors cast in 2015, as Tulip and Cassidy, respectively. Dominic Cooper, who played the titular character, was cast in April 2015.

Mygrations followed a human herd of Americans joining the great wildebeest migration across the Serengeti.