The Jim Henson Company
The first four decades for this week didn’t produce any new TV series, but the two that did had some shows that have gone on to develop cult status in the realms of science fiction and sitcoms. Let’s take a trip down memory lane and celebrate the shows that debuted this week through the decades.
1959
- No new series premiered this week in 1959.
1969
- No new series premiered this week in 1969.
1979
- No new series premiered this week in 1959.
1989
- No new series premiered this week in 1959.
1999
- March 19 — Farscape debuts on the Sci-Fi Channel. The series revolved around the human John Crichton (Ben Browder) who is pulled through a wormhole into another universe during an experimental test flight, picked up by the living spacecraft Moya, which has also picked up another new passenger, Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black), a Peacekeeper. Moya had been a used as a prison ship by the Peacekeepers and was attempting an escape. Crichton’s arrival coincides with the death of the ship’s captain, and his brother Bialar Crais believes Chrichton is responsible, setting up the show’s intial conflict. Passengers (former prisoners) on the ship include Zhaan, D’Argo, Rygel, and later Chiana joins the crew while Moya is pursued through the Uncharted Territories by Crais and Scorpius, while John continues to try to find a way back to his own universe. While on Sci-Fi, the series had a deveoted following despite the network’s erratic scheduling, often dividing the show’s season into two parts with up to six months between the first and second half of the season. This may have contributed to a decline in ratings during the fourth season, leading Sci-Fi to abruptly cancel the series, which had originally been intended to run for five season. The outcry from fans led to the show’s producer The Jim Henson Company to secure funding to produce a finale movie event, The Peacekeeper Wars, that wrapped up the Season 4 cliffhanger. After the series ended in 2003, there have been many attempts to bring it back as a webisode series, a reboot series and a feature film but none of those efforts have moved forward. The characters have lived on in print (novels and comics) and videogames, and stars Browder and Black joined the cast of Stargate SG-1 for its final two seasons, with one episode directly referencing Farscape as Black’s character Vala Mal tried to pitch an idea to a movie producer for a series that sounded suspiciously like Farscape. Brian Henson still keeps hope alive that he can get a feature film made, but now concedes a film may not be the right vehicle to tell the next chapter of the Farscape story. Calling Netflix!
2009
- March 18 — Satirical comedy Better Off Ted premieres on ABC. The series revolves around Ted Crisp (Jay Harrington), head of a reasearch and development department at the fictional Veridian Dynamics … which experiments on its employees and will stop at nothing to achieve its goals. Most of the characters are aware of Veridian’s insidious nature and attempt to manipulate the system to keep bad things from happening. The character of Ted often breaks the fourth wall to give viewers inside information and observations on the action around him. The show also included mock commercials for Veridian products. The series also starred Portia de Rossi, Andrea Anders, Jonathan Slavin, Malcolm Barrett and Isabelle Acres. While critical acclaim for the first season was high, viewership was low and the series was not expected to get a renewal. But it did to even higher acclaim in the second season, and even lower ratings which led to the cancellation on May 13, 2010 with two of the show’s 26 episodes unaired. Those episodes were finally made available when the series was released to DVD and streaming platforms.
- March 19 — Documentary series Dhani Tackles the Globe premieres on Travel Channel. Hosted by NFL linebacker Dhani Jones, the series traversed the globe as Jones learned how to play international sports and explored the culture of each location. Among the countries Jones visited during the series’ two seasons were Thailand, Switzerland, Singapore, Spain, Cambodia, England, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Russia, Italy, Iceland, Coatia, and Nepal. In all, 20 episodes were produced.
- March 19 — Musical reality series Taking the Stage debuts on MTV. Produced by Nick Lachey, the series is set at the School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, Ohio, and followed the lives of five students and their friends as they trained for careers in the arts. The series ran for two seasons, but MTV cut the show’s length from an hour to 30-minutes for season two and ran the show Thursday nights at 11 PM, probably not the best time for the target audience.
- March 20 — Comedy series Party Down premieres on the Starz premium cable network. The series followed a Los Angeles catering team, all aspiring actors and writers working small-time gigs while hoping for their big breaks in Hollywood. The cast included Adam Scott, Ken Marino, Lizzy Caplan, Ryan Hansen, Martin Starr, Jane Lynch, Megan Mullally and Jennifer Cooldige. Recurring cast members included J.K. Simmons, Joey Lauren Adams, Ken Jeong, Kristen Bell, and June Diane Raphael. The series had a loyal fan base but ratings were never stellar, and after the loss of Scott to Parks & Recreation and Lynch to Glee, the series was cancelled after two seasons and 20 episodes.
- March 21 — Proferssional wrestling series Ring of Honor Wrestling debuts on HDNet. Each episode typically features three or four matches and interviews with the wrestlers. The series ran on HDNet for a total of 100 episodes between 2009 and 2011. The show was picked up by Sinclair Broadcasting in 2011 to run on its CW and MyNetworkTV stations across the country. The series was syndicated in 2014 to non-Sinclair-owned stations, and on May 27, 2015 a 26-week deal with cable network Destination America was announced. On December 2, 2015, Sinclair began broadcasting the series on the Comet channel, then moved it to the Charge! channel in 2017. The series was also made available to stream on FITE TV through various digital media players like Roku and Chromecast. After 11 seasons, the series has produced 390 episodes as of March 9, 2019.
- March 23 — Sitcom Roommates debuts on ABC Family. The series focused on a group of twentysomethings who move in together after college: Mark, a struggling actor; Katie, his high school crush; her ex Ben; Hope, who is looking for an upscale job after being fired from a television studio; James, who enjoys watching Mark attempt to woo Katie; and Thom, who feels its his destiny to help Mark with Katie. Tim Reid, Marilu Henner and Felicia Day made guest appearances. The show was ABC Family’s first scripted comedy and was an attempt to draw an older audience to the network but was cancelled after six episodes. The network did air all 13 episodes, which concluded on May 4, 2009.
- March 23 — Reality series Table for 12 premieres on TLC. The series followed the Hayes family from Morganville, NJ, which had two sets of twins and a set of sextuplets. Dad Eric is a police officer and Betty is a stay-at-home mom. Episodes featured the family’s lives as they dealt with back to school, birthdays, a road trip and more. The family was first introduced in a one-hour TLC special Twins, Twins and Sextuplets. While the second season ended on December 22, 2009 after 29 episodes, the cancellation wasn’t formally announced until October 12, 2010 by Eric on the show’s Facebook page.
Do you remember any of these shows? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!
Share this post
