The Simpsons introduced a wave of prime time animated shows aimed at adults. Shows like King of the Hill, Family Guy, American Dad, Futurama, and South Park followed on the heels of The Simpsons.
Survivor was the first reality show of its type, and many more came not long after it debuted in 1997.
I believe The Wire had a big influence on the direction of TV. Although it never had great ratings, it was critically successful, and led the way toward shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Deadwood, Weeds, and the like. All were more adult than could be shown on over-the-air TV, and had long story arcs that sometimes straddled more than a single season.
Hell yes. And Hell no. Broke all the rules etc etc but was just so far ahead of it’s time that it had no (at least short term) effect on TV at all - it passed the mainstream by completely. But yes, great show.
Along the same lines (an age for the rest to catch up) you could posit Mary Kay And Johnny, the first mainstream American show to show a married couple who shared a bed and worse, a pregnant wife. The bed thing was so shocking that, according to the lore, the next two mainstream shows to break that taboo were a cartoon (The Flintstones) and the not-exactly-human Munsters. So it fulfills about half the OP. Broke all the rules*; but had no general effect at all at the time,
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OK, you could argue that it predated the rules. But I say pshaw!
Something recently reminded me of The Avengers. The show started out relatively serious and hit its peak in the Patrick Macnee/Diana Rigg years. It indulged in eccentricity without overdosing on it. I’m not sure if I’d call it revolutionary, though; I can’t think of another show which took up that mantle and ran with it.
I used to work in the same office park where, according to rumor, Northern Exposure had converted a building into a sound stage. I saw some things stored around the building that made me believe it. And that was only about ten miles from where the exteriors were shot for Twin Peaks.
It doesn’t seem to be as remembered as others, but Moonlighting used to break the fourth wall as well. Another series that was innovative but didn’t inspire other shows to follow it.
The Cosby Show was the first show to show a “normal” African-American family doing normal things, and not making their skin color the focus of everything.
In retrospect, casting Bill Cosby as a respected OB/GYN may not have been the best move in TV history.
This has nothing to do with the thread, but what the hell, I love it: for France, The Avengers was dubbed into French and retitled Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir (Bowler Hat and Leather Boots).
As much as I hate, hate, *hate *the genre, I’d have to say that Alan Funt’s Candid Camera was the most revolutionary, as it’s considered to be the progenitor of the modern Reality TV show.
As long as we’re hijacking, it’s a fun drive east from Seattle through the towns that were locations for Northern Exposure and Twin Peaks.
Back on topic, it’s interesting that some of the “revolutionary” TV shows hold up better than the safer shows. I just got a box set of Avengers:The Diana Riggs Years. And every season of the Superman show with George Reeves… winking at the camera at the end of many episodes.
Two shows that were so revolutionary that it was years before the rest of TV caught up:
Police Squad!. A comedy without a laugh track? How will the audience know what’s funny? Today a sitcom with a laugh track is an anomaly (or on the Disney Channel)
(I know MAS*H had no laugh track in the OR scenes, but it did everywhere else.)
Murder One. One storyline carried over an entire season. Today season-long story arcs are the norm.
Another Larry Gelbart sitcom, the virtually forgotten United States from 1980, also ran without a laugh track, two years before Police Squad! Some industry folk thought this was why it wasn’t a hit.
I liked Pushing Daisies too, but even without the writers strike, I didn’t think it was getting good ratings. And as far as ground breaking, it was enjoyable to watch and was a pretty cool concept; was it really ground breaking?
When I think of ground breaking, I think of shows like All In The Family which covered racism every week, but even the famous episode where Edith Bunker got raped.
The success of The Big Bang Theory is partly due to Chuck Lorre’s revolutionary concept of showing nerds as they really are, not as some stupid Urkle/Screech caricature. The initial reviews for this nerdy guy falls for hot blond were it was too worn out an idea to work.
Game of Thones, eh? Then let me nominate another HBO series, “Band of Brothers” (BoB) which took the idea of a realistic look at WWII combat as introduced by “Saving Private Ryan” (same producers as BoB) and expanded it out, way beyond SPR and into a better work overall. Better character development, more variety in events, and a full-sweep view of the US experience in the European theater of WWII.
For a while, BoB was one of the highest rated works on imdb. After this, super high quality miniseries that might as well be thought of as 10 (or 20 or 30…) hour movies became common. IIRC, “The Wire” and “The Sopranos” etc. all came after BoB.
Seinfeld was revolutionary in being a sitcom that never aimed for poignancy or delivering a moral, or doing one single solitary thing that was in any way an attempt at a serious comment about anything. Oh, God I wish another sitcom would come along to match Seinfeld’s first 5 seasons…
Writer, to producers at a pitch meeting: "Got this great idea for a crime/mystery show. The main character is a schlumpy, rather slovenly guy, and seemingly a bumbler, who as a homicide detective slogs through each episode in an attempt to discover who the murderer is. Now, here’s the kicker. The murder is always shown at the beginning, and the audience knows who did it all along!
Producers, to the writer: "Get the hell outta my office, you stupid fuck."
Thankfully this never happened, otherwise we never would have had Columbo, the greatest cop show of the seventies.