AHEM
And I didn’t just dislike it, it repelled me. Literally. If I wasn’t careful about keeping my eyes focused on the screen, they would just slide right away from it. You could torture me by forcing me to watch that show…
I don’t need lectures in taste from a man who professes to like John Doe, a show which, while I have not seen it, I have never heard described by anyone who has as other than a fetid heap of rotting donkey cocks (or similar) until now.
Way back in the 1978-1979 timeframe NBC had series called Cliffhangers. It featured three 20 min. shorts: Dracula 79, The Dark Empire, and Stop Susan Williams. Susan Anton was the star in Stop Susan Williams.
How’s this, I can’t remember the the name. I want to think it was called Amber Waves or something like that. (No, I’m not thinking of the movie by the same name starring Denis Weaver)
Maybe you guys can help me figure it out.
It was set in a small town. It was about a family who’s son was a star football player. His dad was a former star football player and had to deal with the politics of high school sports. I want to believe that a former teammate of dads was the main person causing the conflict as he too had a son playing football.
Anybody help?
e3
Yeah, it did, and I liked it. Pity it was cancelled. Then again, when I learned what the big secret was behind John Doe’s encyclopedic knowledge, I reckoned it might’ve been a mercy killing. In case you didn’t know, the secret is:
When you die, as you approach that Great White Light, God gives you all the knowledge in the world to carry with you into the next life. John Doe died and received all that knowledge, but somehow was brought back to life.
Hm, why did I spoiler-box something for a series that’s over anyway? Ah well.
Votes also for Firefly, My So-Called Life, and Clerks TAS. I don’t remember if anyone mentioned it earlier, but I’d also like to add Freakylinks, which deserved a better time slot and a better title (can’t remember why they didn’t stick with Fearsum).
Some minor shows excluded so far, plus a couple more that merit more votes.
Flying Blind with Tea Leoni. Though it might have lasted two seasons.
Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane
Worst Case Scenario
Key west was cancelled (at least in Houston) before the end of the first season.
Lone Gunmen
That 80’s show I know, it didn’t have the That 70’s show personality, but if you don’t compare it to That 70’s show, it was better than a lot of sitcoms that have been running for years.
Or Ally McBeal. That fits your description.
So my mentioning that I was glad to see Firefly go bye-bye won’t help the anti-Firefly cause, just because I’m named after an evil movie character? Are you Firefly fans forgetting that Firefly was the reason Futurama was cancelled? Firefly was entertaining for a bit, but it was nothing compared to Futurama. (And they “stole” a character name of mine: Mal.)
Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were talking about the first few times you tried to post.
Yeah, well, you’re weird.
Both this and my previous post were intended to be read with a 
in case that wasn’t clear. Firefly may have been one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen, but that’s just my opinion. It’s not like there’s a “right answer” about liking a show or movie or whatever. It’s all subjective.
prisoner, in what way was Firefly responsible for the cancellation of Futurama?
Ooh! Ooh! I just remembered one: Maximum Bob! Beau Bridges plays an autocratic Florida judge. Sort of a Northen Exposure, Pickett Fences, eccentric small town comedy drama. I rather like that show, was sad to see it go.
First of all, ditto on EZ Streets, Alien Nation, American Gothic, Strange Luck,and Police Squad.
And thanks ffor reminding me of Shannon’s Deal. A lawyer show that never entered a courtroom. (The hero says if you get to the courtroom you’ve already lost, even if you win.) I loved the actor who played his sidekick - the fellow with the bent nose.
But no one has mentioned The Middle Ages. It starred a wonderful actor - Peter Riegert (Animal House, Crossing Delancey, Local Hero, The Mask) and lasted six episodes one summer.
THe first episode finds Riegert dreaming of an elementrary school classroom. Air raid sirens are going off and the teacher tells everyone to get under their desk. Riegert - an adult - asks “Is this real or is this a test?” (The Baby Boomers mantra, you might say.
We find out he’s a salesman. On the way home he stops at the house where he lived as a young man and tells the stranger who answers the door his life story: how he used to play in a rock band and now he was a depressed married guy in a company that was being bought out by a bigger company.
THe guy he is talking to collapses of a heart attack. Turned out he had just turned forty.
Our hero goes home and walks into a surprise party. He just turned forty too.
The show is filled with great lines. In the last episode Riegert has a heart attack and a friend from the rock band brings him a present: an LP of Sgt Pepper.
“You borrowed this thirty years ago! I don’t even have a record player now.”
“I meant to give it back but there was the energy crisis, and then Watergate. Everything after that is a blur.”
And his father-in-law, offered his old job as a salesman back, says the hell with it. He tears off his tie, throws it in the customer’s lunch and stalks off, reciting his boss’s mantra: “Remember, the coast is watching you!”
Unfortunately, the Nielsen families weren’t.
Fifteen Iguana
I just want to add another vote for EZ Streets. It was literally the best television I’ve ever seen. That scene where the (corrupt) mayor is reliving giving a speech to factory workers during his first run at city council talking how he will fight for them, and they pull back to show him standing in a now derelict factory. Man, that was powerful.
And luckily they broadcast the last episode here in SA (which they didn’t in the US, deciding to air Walker, Texas Ranger instead) but the last 2 seconds of the last episode of the 1st season literally had me falling off my chair going “HOLY S%&%!”. I’d buy this season on DVD and I don’t even own a DVD player…
Also put me down for Bakersfield P.D. That was a fantastic, hilarious show.
Woo, old school one season classic!
That was a great show- you hit the way back machine with that one.
Sadly, it took 'til the end of page 2 to get a mention, but I’m tossing in another vote for Sledge Hammer.
Cracked me up, it did.
I just thought I’d chime in, I’m also a huge fan of Freaks and Geeks. I also caught every episode that played on TV. I’m really looking forward to buying the DVD. I’m one of the nerds who signed the online petition to get the set released!
I forgot, when I was in college in or near the fall of 1997. There was a TV show that I watched a couple of times. I want to say it was called Time Cop. It was a favorite of mine the couple times I caught it, but I only saw it 2 or 3 times.
I’m sure it only lasted 1 season…
Does anyone else remember it?
Didn’t Sledge Hammer get a second season (albeit a very short one)? I seem to remember that the writers thought they were getting cancelled, and thus decided to detonate an atomic bomb and kill all the characters on the last episode, but then had to write a way out when it got renewed.
The one-season shows I wish had lasted longer: Firefly, Flying Blind, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. , Andy Richter Controls The Universe, Jack of All Trades, Partners, and Woops!
There was definitely a TimeCop series based on the van Damme movie. However, you may or may not be thinking of Time Trax, another show from about that period that was quite interesting.
Once & Again (note: NOT Now and Again)
Push, NV
The Maxx, which came out well before The Tick, and was much more dark and bizarre, just like the comic it was based on.
It’s Like…You know?
Firefly
Sportsnight
Andy Richter Rules the Universe
The Tick
The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
(Boomtown, which I only caught a few of)
(The Job, which I only caught a few of)
Cupid
Undeclared was fun, too.
I was 13 at the time and my very goody goody baptist mom (who loved the original series) got me watching it. I liked it alot especially the part where the main vamp was trying to becom human-ish again!
Kindred is better though.
It aired one season and revealed a lot of things (the photo was actually of four senators), but didn’t quite wrap things up. (Check TV Tome for verification.) The writer/producer/whoever said in an interview after the show was cancelled that he had originally planned for four seasons and was hoping to get the chance to make a two-hour TV movie to wrap everything up. Never did.
There’s another show in the back of my memory, but the only details that I can remember is the main character always holding his gun sideways and him finding a cache of video tapes near the end of the show that completely turned everything he thought was happening to him upside down. Maybe I just have two different memories of Nowhere Man? I don’t know.
I was a big fan of Spy Groove, but apparently only me and three other people on the planet fully appreciated its playful and sharp humor (Agent #1: Do you have an obsession with size? Mac: Obsession? I’d call it a preference.). And those three people didn’t watch MTV. I keep bugging Adult Swim so I might be able to see the unaired episodes…
Clerks (obvious)… oddly enough, though, I found the commentary to be even funnier than the show. But that’s just me.
Has anybody mentioned Slap Maxwell? One of the occasional shows that are allowed to demonstrate that a good comedy doesn’t need a laughtrack. (So why do we keep getting the same old crap?)