CBS
It’s the dead of summer, July 4th has passed, but there were four new shows that debuted this week across three different decades — a soap opera, two scripted dramas, and one reality that has become a summer staple and is still going strong after 20 years on the air. Let’s take a look at this week’s TV premieres.
1950
- No new series premiered this week in 1950.
1960
- July 11 — Soap opera The Clear Horizon premieres on CBS. Created by Manya Starr, the series revolved around the lives os astronauts and their wives at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first episode introduced Roy Selby and his wife Anne following a move from Selby’s post in Alaska to the Pentagon. Wile adjusting to their new lives, Anne developed an attraction to another man. The show was presented live and was one of the first soaps to originate in Los Angeles, and one of the first to shoot on location. But the show was not successful and CBS cancelled it in March 1961. However, it returned in February 1962 finding Anne on her own while Roy was trapped behind enemy lines. There was also more emphasis on Sgt. Harry Moseby and his wife Frances. The second season was pre-taped but never caught on with viewers. CBS again cancelled the series with Anne and Roy being reunited in the final episode broadcast on June 15, 1962. Notable cast members included Beau Bridges, Lee Meriwether and Ted Knight. A total of 254 episodes were produced.
1970
- No new series premiered this week in 1970.
1980
- No new series premiered this week in 1980.
1990
- No new series premiered this week in 1990.
2000
- July 5 — Reality series Big Brother premieres on CBS. Based on the Dutch TV series of the same name, the show puts a group of contestants, or House Guests, together in complete isolation from the outside world with dozens of cameras and microphones recording their every move 24 hours a day. Each week during the game, House Guests compete for Head of Household (the person who will select the week’s nominees), while the nominees and select House Guests will then compete for the Power of Veto in order to save themselves, one of the nominees or keep the nominations the same with one of the nominees, or a replacement nominee should one be removed, evicted from the house during a live vote. Over the years, other elements have been introduced with various twists in the game, competitions for luxury items, and competitions for evicted House Guests to return, fulfilling the show’s motto, ‘Expect the unexpected.’ The first season followed the Dutch format and was broadcast five nights a week. Competitions were minimal, focusing on the social aspect of the game. HGs were not allowed to discuss anything about the nomination process and there was no Power of Veto. Voting for the eviction was done by the TV viewers with the final three facing America’s vote to determine the winner. The show received negative reactions from viewers and critics so CBS revamped the show to bring in the competition aspect and placed the evictions in the hands of the HGs after viewers kept voting out the more interesting and engaging players. The Power of Veto was introduced in Season 3 and was infamously not used by the Veto holder, Marcellas Reynolds, resulting in his eviction. A number of other twists and advantages have been added to the game over the years including Pandora’s Box, the Den of Temptation, the Coup d’Etat, the Diamond Power of Veto, Haves and Have Nots, Battle of the Block, Battle Back, and America’s Vote. While what is seen on TV is highly edited to create a narrative, live feeds have been available to viewers since the first season when they were initially free. From Seasons 2-14 a paid subscription was required through RealPlayer. Beginning with Season 15, the feeds have been available to subscribers of CBS All Access. With the 24/7 access, fans have been able to see game play and alliances not shown on the broadcast episodes as well as instances of violent behavior and offensive language, often racist or homophobic, that the broadcast episodes rarely acknowledge. For those not subscribing to the live feeds, Big Brother After Dark was added to Showtime 2 in 2007, which offered three hours of unedited broadcast usually beginning at midnight every night. BBAD moved to TVGN (now Pop) in 2013. The move to a commercial broadcast network had censors busily bleeping out foul language but often obscured important dialog between HGs as well. With the show airing after midnight, the censorship was relaxed and nothing is bleeped now. Due to the show’s quick production schedule requiring hundreds of house of video to be edited into one-hour episodes broadcast three days a week (originally 30 minutes for Season 1), plus a live weekly broadcast that includes pre-taped footage, the show was the last network primetime series to broadcast in standard definition through Season 15. The show finally converted to HD for Season 16. Julie Chen has been the host of the series since it debuted but is now generally seen only during live eviction episodes. While the HGs are completely sequestered from the outside world, the September 11 attacks during Season 2 forced producers to notify the HGs of what had happened as one of them had a relative who worked at the World Trade Center. There have been a couple of other instances where the producers have had to break protocol to deliver real-world news to the HGs — notably this year during international versions to deliver news about the pandemic which shut down Big Brother Canada mid-prodcution — but for the most part they do not know anything going on outside the walls of the Big Brother house. There have been two spin-offs of the show. For the launch of CBS All Access original programming, a special streaming-only edition of the series, Big Brother: Over the Top, premiered in October 2016 and ran for 10 weeks. There have also been two Celebrity Big Brother seasons in 2018 and 2019. CBS used the 2018 edition as counter-programming against the Winter Olympics on NBC instead of airing reruns. The 22nd season of the show was due to premiere at the end of June 2020, but production was put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic shutdowns. Construction is said to be underway on the interior of the house for the season but it is still unclear when television production will be able to begin safely. To date, there have been 746 episodes produced and broadcast. Every season is currently available with a CBS All Access subscription.
2010
- July 9 — Supernatural drama series Haven premieres on Syfy. Emily Rose stars as FBI Special Agent Audrey Parker who is dispatched to the small town of Haven, Maine on a routine case. There she finds herself becoming involved in the return of ‘The Troubles’, a plague of supernatural afflictions that have occurred in the town at least twice before. She also finds a personal link in Haven that may lead to the mother she never knew. Parker eventually quits the FBI to join the Haven PD and begins to realize her arrival in Haven may have been pre-determined, and that her name and memories may not even be her own. In addition to Rose, the main cast included Lucas Bryant, Nicholas Campbell and Eric Balfour. Recurring cast members included Richard Donat, Stephen McHattie, Jason Priestley, The Edge, Bree Williamson, Steve Lund, Colin Ferguson and William Shatner. The series was originally put into production for ABC and is based on the Stephen King novella ‘The Colorado Kid’. Because of the King connection, the series made many allusions to King’s works including ‘Misery’, ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘It’, a personal favorite of the writers. While set in Maine, the series was filmed on the Southern Shore of Nova Scotia. The series’ final episode was broadcast on December 17, 2015 after five seasons and 78 episodes.
- July 11 — Crime drama The Glades premieres on A&E. Matt Passmore stars as Jim Longworth, a Chicago police detective who becomes a state police detective in a Florida Everglades community after being shot in the buttocks by his captain, who thought Jim was sleeping with his wife, and receiving a large settlement from the city of Chicago. He’s expecting golf and an easy life but soon discovers his new home town is more complex than he imagined. Regular cast members included Kiele Sanchez, Carlos Gomez, Jordan Wall, Michelle Hurd and Uriah Shelton. The series was originally titled Sugarloaf and was set in the Tampa Bay area. Unfortunately, A&E cancelled the series at the end of its fourth season, ending on a cliffhanger in which Longworth was shot. The final episode was broadcast on August 26, 2013 after 49 episodes.
Did you or do you watch any of these shows? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!
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