Lou Grant. Really big in the seventies, horribly dated and almost forgotten today.
I read all the 5-6 page posts on each episode of the last season of Lost. Perhaps you were just skipping them…
Picket Fences Multiple Emmy winner, great combination of comedy and drama and social issues (and not dated, either), but even Kelly’s Ally McBeal is better remembered.
Hill Street Blues. Groundbreaking show when it came out, but it didn’t catch on in reruns due to the fact it used story arcs.
Nobody raves about Thirtysomething anymore.
Both of these are rerun multiple times per day:
on GSN
on American Life (which I only know about because it also reruns Remington Steele.
ER
Used to be “must see”, high profile. Now it’s not even easy to find reruns on thirdrate cable channels, and despite repeated attempts to regain viewers in its last season… nothing much.
Just got the collected series DVD. Love it.
The problem with Ally McBeal is not only is it not out on DVD in the US due to music licensing issues (which were somehow avoided in the UK) it’s not in syndication any more, either. You can’t even buy episodes from Amazon, like you can a lot of other expired series. I loved the show, but as of right now there’s no (legal) way to watch it, so how could it remain popular?
My first thought was MASH, but then my second thought was, “I don’t have cable”, so…
I saw the first season DVD at Wal-Mart yesterday.
Sorry; it wasn’t quite the first season after all, but [another compilation](You definitely get a different spin on the book after you have kids.). My bad.
SHows still on the air - ER and Desperate Housewives. Both of them were the watercooler show when they first appeared - now, I forget ER is still on.
It might be more edifying to ask “what TV shows are still on the cultural radar screen?”
Other than some long-running comedies and game shows (plus the shows you were addicted to as a kid), I don’t think there are many.
Anyway, my own additions to the thread:
LA Law
Married With Children
Roseanne
Moonlighting
Maybe among adults, but Power Rangers is still a huge franchise that sells boat-loads of toys and video games.
[Zed]You wish, bring a sponge.[/Zed] There many, many depth of suckiness the can still drag that franchise through. what they don’t seem to be able to do is make it better.
As for the OP, I would say Chico and the man. It was groundbreaking in opening up lead roles for minorities, but all anyone remembers about it is Freddie Prinze’s suicide.
It played into a final Jeopardy answer last night, so that counts for something.
Do lesbians still dig Xena or have they moved onto something else? I just remember a Xena convention next to a convention I was attending a few years ago, and it was wall to wall lesbians.
Pretty much every show shot in black and white has dropped off the cultural landscape, simply because even channels like TVLand normally stay away from b&w programming.
For examples of huge, HUGE sitcoms (sitcoms normally play better in reruns than dramas) that’s pretty much dropped off the cultural radar entirely, look at Three’s Company, Mork and Mindy, *One Day at a Time *and Laverne and Shirley.
Heh…this is funny. Final Jeopardy the other day was “Actors”, and the clue was “This actor won Emmys for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy, and Best Actor in a Drama, playing the same character.” I sent a cat flying in startlement when I shouted “Ed Asner!”
Happy Days, for that matter. Actually, most of the 70s sitcoms have been reduced to camp fodder for TVLand and their schlocky street art.
I’ve only seen the pilot, but Dirty Sexy Money fills this bill. Brothers & Sisters is another.