I miss Greg the Bunny
Such a great show! Still hoping for the DVD
Covington Cross
It was about the funny and complex things that can happen to an aristocratic family in medieval england… What?
It’s available on DVD, as still every bit as fantastic as it ever was.
Now I’ve found a page with bunches of MSCL quotes, many of which I’ll have to reproduce here:
Angela: “I had my hair dyed.”
Patty: “Oh, you had it dyed. I thought it had died of natural causes.”
Rayanne: “I think part of him is partly interested in you. Definitely. I mean, he’s got other things on his mind.”
Angela: “But that’s the part that’s so unfair! I have nothing else on my mind. How come I have to be the one sitting around analyzing him in like microscopic detail, and he gets to be the one with other things on his mind?”
Brian: “I’m just wondering when all this happened, you know?”
Rickie: “Do I.”
Brian: “I mean, people pairing off…into couples. It’s like, I wasn’t expecting it or something, like, like, did we cover this? Was I absent that day?”
Rickie: “You know I was.”
Danielle: “Mom, Sharon Cherski and I exist in like, two different worlds, okay? I can’t just hand her a dish, okay? I mean it’s just not that simple. [pause] I’m doing Angela. Pretty good, huh?”
Rickie: “Now she hates me.”
Rayanne: “So, she never liked you that much to start off.”
Rickie: “No, but now she really hates me.”
Rayanne: “Look, do you think it’s possible to please that woman? Do you think she’d actually give anyone a break? I mean, have you seen her vegetable bin? I rest my case.”
Jordan: “See, I have this philosophy.”
Angela: “You have a philosophy?”
Jordan: “Well, if I go somewhere and someone I know is there, then cool, there’s something…natural about it. But once you start making plans, then you have, like, like, obligations. And that basically blows. So my feeling is, whatever happens, happens.”
Amber: “Angela is so cute you could smack her. Her mom is like from a commercial for something really clean.”
I thought of that, too, but it actually ran for two seasons. And how could I not have mentioned Freaks and Geeks? Shame on me.
Fortunately, these fine shows are on DVD (or coming, as with F&G). And yes, My So-Called Life absolutely holds up over the years. In fact, I think it is even better now, now that I am far removed from my own teenage agnst and can actually laugh at what happens.
I’d have to say The Critic, although I believe it was on the air for two seasons.
Ahh. Space: Above and Beyond. I thought they made it to season 2, but it may have been they just made more episodes. One of the first shows I knew and loved to get FOXed.
I agree with The Job. Although it was short-lived, it still remains one of my favorite shows.
I am still mourning the death of Boomtown. It had one of the best casts on TV (most of whom were in the excellent HBO miniseries Band of Brothers). The plots were innovative for a cop show, it stood far above most primetime dreck. Apparently the network demanded changes for the second season and the results were uniformly awful.
Laugh if you must, but Donnie Wahlberg will be recognized someday as an excellent serious actor.
Intro voiceover : “An ordinary man, insurance executive 45 years old stumbles to his death on a subway platform in New York City. Or does he? Unbeknownst to his wife or child his brain is rescued from the accident scene by a secret branch of the United States government and put into the body of an artificially produced 26-yead man with the strength of Superman, the speed of Michael Jordan and the grace of Fred Astaire. The only catch-- under penalty of death he can never let anyone from his past know he is still alive and that, my friends, is a problem for this man is desperately in love with his wife his daughter and his former life.”
Alien Nation - the made-for-TV movies were a nice followup, but I would’ve preferred a few more full seasons.
Freaks and Geeks baffling decision to cancel this one.
Firefly without a doubt. Man, Fox has a long record of great cancelled shows.
On the Air, from Lynch/Frost!
It didn’t even last a full season, damn it.
Great cast, great scripts. Unevenly directed, and it seemed like different folks wanted to take it in very different directions-- but, do you know what? That was fine. One week it felt like a mildly tweaked Dick Van Dyke, the next week it was clear that whoever was spiking the water cooler slipped a bit and dropped the whole phial in. The week after that, you were wondering where the hell it went. Just like life!
American Gothic - Only one series, starring Gary Cole as the sherriff who may or may not be the devil and his illegitimate son, played by Lucas Black (One of the best child actors I’ve ever seen.)
Big Apple - Similar to The Wire in some respects, but with a more known cast (Michael Madsen, David Strathairn, Donny Wahlberg, Ed O’Neill.)
Brimstone - A man sent back from hell to kill 127 of the worst sinners who escaped. Great series, with the most distinctive look of any show I’ve seen (The entire thing looked like a B & W Film, tinted blue.)
And Mick Foley plays the The Egg Man’s accomplice! Enough said!
Dark Shadows
Ended with an unresolved cliffhanger. I loved the show and NBC killed the damned thing!
The 1991 Series
Dark Shadows crawled back to life(briefly) on NBC in a completely new series with a new cast which took many plot elements from the original series. However, this incarnation of Dark Shadows was darker, and the production was more extravagant than the original series. After a very short run, the series was canceled. Dark Shadows aired on NBC From January 13th to March 22nd 1991.
Best of the West which starred Joel Higgins and Leonard Frey.
From the 60s was My World and Welcome to It with William Windom, and somewhat based on the works of James Thurber. It won an Emmy for best comedy series, but that wasn’t enough to bring it back for a second season.
Definitely Freaks and Geeks and its sister show Undeclared.
Didn’t Andy Richter actually last two very very short seasons?
Firefly and Lucky.
I’m never going to get over it. The Firefly DVDs help…a little.
Witchblade, starring Yancy Butler. I thought it felt about the same as Highlander: The Series, which starred Adria Paul, another favorite of mine. I was all set for a second season when production ended, due to Butler’s drug problems. Man, I was steamed about that.
Andy Richter Controls the Universe had 14 episodes aired over the space of two seasons (it was a midseason replacement twice); there’s also 5 more unaired episodes, for a total of 19 half-hour morsels of comic genius.* Since a “season” is typically defined as 22 episodes, it counts.
I also nominate Bakersfield PD. Fortunately, it is currently airing on the Trio cable/satellite network, as part of their “Brilliant but Canceled” series. Word is also that Andy Richter will be coming to that same series. I’ve also heard that it might be aired on the high-definition network HDNet, but I don’t have confirmation of either (I assume Google doesn’t count).
Of course, nobody gets either Trio or HDNet. I sure don’t.
I also nominate Boomtown. Talk about a series absolutely ruined by network meddling. God Damn all network executives who fear series that require just a little bit of intelligence from their viewers, God Damn them to hell.
- Source: www.epguides.com