# What series succeeded with an unpromising premise? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 20, 2009, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146 "2009-03-20T12:46:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/21 "2009-03-20T16:00:59Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The title sums up what it’s about on the surface, and I didn’t watch it for years because it sounded incredibly stupid but the subtext is much deeper, with many of the situations and monsters acting as metaphors for growing up. Not to mention it was based off of a stupid movie staring Luke Perry and Kristy Swanson. > [@Bijou Drains](#): > > Hogans Heroes. I doubt anyone thought a comedy about a WW II German prison camp was going to be good. How about M.A.S.H.? A comedy about a combat hospital during the Korean War? ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/22 "2009-03-20T16:02:46Z")
Battlestar Gallactica - a remake of an incredibly cheesy, short-lived 1970s sci-fi show about a band of humans running away from a race of killer robots. This could have been a major disaster. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/23 "2009-03-20T16:03:15Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Not to mention it was based off of a stupid movie staring Luke Perry and Kristy Swanson. > > How about M.A.S.H.? A comedy about a combat hospital during the Korean War? Well, it was based on a hit movie, based in turn on a best-selling book, so by that point it was no longer an unpromising. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/24 "2009-03-20T16:06:51Z")
How about The West Wing? Who would have thought that a wordy, wonky show about politics would have succeeded? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/25 "2009-03-20T16:18:04Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Hogans Heroes. I doubt anyone thought a comedy about a WW II German prison camp was going to be good. Ed Begley Jr. played a TV executive in the movie _Auto Focus_, about Bob Crane’s sex-crazed secret life. Begley’s character, when told the premise for _Hogan’s Heroes_, snapped, “Oh, so it’s about the _funny_ Nazis!” Pitching _The Mary Tyler Moore Show_ might’ve been hard, even given the star’s relative fame at the time: “It’s about a single woman in Minneapolis, struggling with her career. And she has some wacky friends and coworkers. People are gonna love it!” :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/26 "2009-03-20T16:33:16Z")
_Northern Exposure._ Spoiled Mahattan Brat pays for Med School by accepting money from Rural Alaskan town, in return for a promise to practice there for 2-3 years. (#?) Then he’s shocked to learn that his lawyer buddy can’t get him out of fulfilling his end of the deal. Go -\> What makes it work, I think, along with a few others I’ve seen, is that it is a non-judgemental society with some fringe-type personalities. Jump-the-Shark extra: I’ll vote for the Cow-Flinging episode. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/27 "2009-03-20T16:43:40Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Not to mention it was based off of a stupid movie staring Luke Perry and Kristy Swanson. No, Joss Whedon’s premise was turned into a stupid movie staring Luke Perry and Kristy Swanson. He sat at home for a couple of years moping about how his movie script was stupidified, then decided to try to redo his original premise as a TV series. ---
**Author:** ![Mahna\_Mahna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47c2d/32.png) [@Mahna\_Mahna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahna_Mahna)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/28 "2009-03-20T17:24:28Z")
**The Wire**. Like TV needs another cop show… don’t we have enough Law & Order spinoffs? I absolutely refused to watch until I’d been badgered into it by friends, coworkers, and various SDMB threads singing the praises of this show. Also: **Dexter**. A show where the main character is a serial killer? And he’s a _good_ guy? Yeah, that’ll fly. **Six Feet Under**. How could a show about a family-run funeral home possibly be any good? ---
**Author:** ![Saltire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saltire/32/553_2.png) [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/29 "2009-03-20T17:32:47Z")
Two series that had lousy premises, questionalble writing, and so-so supporting casts: _Bosom Buddies_ and _Perfect Strangers_. Both were made watchable by amazing comedy teams in the lead: Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari, and Mark Lynn-Baker and Bronson Pinchot. You tuned in knowing that most of the show would be lame, but that there’d be at least one sequence with the two guys that was just golden. It’s a shame neither team ever did comedy together after those shows. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/30 "2009-03-20T18:05:01Z")
Well, heck, it took Siegel and Shuster six years to get somebody to buy their Superman character. You can pick just about any successful piece of entertainment and list the difficulties it faced early on. It might be harder to find something every producer from day one was confident would actually be a hit, and actually was (as opposed to some focus-group-driven mediocrity). Who’s got the best record? Pixar? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/31 "2009-03-20T18:35:57Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > All of Whedon’s shows, for that matter. “A cheerleader who fights vampires!” A Detective who is a Vampire!" "Cowboys in Space!"One of the many things I admire about Whedon is his ability to turn an incredibly stupid sounding premise into art. Well, the first, certainly, but the 2nd was “a spin-off from a successful show!” and Firefly wasn’t successful. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/32 "2009-03-20T20:26:51Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > **Twin Peaks** - beautiful teenage girl is found on shore, washed up from the river, brutally murdered, wrapped in plastic, in a backwoods town in Washington state. > > Must’ve had execs going “😕:eek:😕” As well as the audiences. This wasn’t really a successful show once it got rolling (IIRC, ratings continued to drop once people realized how much effort it would take to keep track of what was going on, and never recovered) although I loved it up until the last couple of episodes. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/33 "2009-03-20T20:35:42Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Well, the first, certainly, but the 2nd was “a spin-off from a successful show!” and Firefly wasn’t successful. I started to make the same comment re: Firefly, but then I had to pause. AFter all, the series mentioned most frequently in the other thread was Star Trek: Voyager, which lasted SEVEN SEASONS. And yet most of us would call it a failure, by which we mean an artistic or dramatic failure. Firefly, for all its brevity, was an artistic success… in my opinion, of course. Others may vary, and probably do. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/34 "2009-03-20T21:21:28Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I started to make the same comment re: Firefly, but then I had to pause. AFter all, the series mentioned most frequently in the other thread was Star Trek: Voyager, which lasted SEVEN SEASONS. And yet most of us would call it a failure, by which we mean an artistic or dramatic failure. Firefly, for all its brevity, was an artistic success… Seems silly to say “cowboys in space” is an unpromising concept though, since the pitch line for the Original Star Trek was “Wagon Train in space”. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/35 "2009-03-20T21:33:18Z")
**Smallville**. Kevin Smith based a stand-up routine on how awful the premise was, based on a similar proposal for a Jon Peters film: He doesn’t wear a costume, he doesn’t fly, and he FIGHTS A GIANT SPIDER! Okay, the spider went to a different Jon Peters project. And it came in on the heels of an abysmal **Superboy** series and an underwhelming **Lois and Clark**. How did they succeed where others had failed? By loading it up with sexy, sexy teenagers. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/36 "2009-03-20T21:55:00Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Seinfeld. A show about nothing. A summer replacement show about nothing. A summer replacement show about nothing that went nowhere at first. More accurately, it was a show about _assholes_. Which was still an unpromising premise, considering the “characters America wants to invite into their living rooms every week” mentality that dominated most shows at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/37 "2009-03-20T21:57:47Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > **Smallville**. Kevin Smith based a stand-up routine on how awful the premise was, based on a similar proposal for a Jon Peters film: He doesn’t wear a costume, he doesn’t fly, and he FIGHTS A GIANT SPIDER! Okay, the spider went to a different Jon Peters project. And it came in on the heels of an abysmal **Superboy** series and an underwhelming **Lois and Clark**. > > How did they succeed where others had failed? By loading it up with sexy, sexy teenagers. I don’t think most of the actors who played the lead roles were actually teens. Certainly they were all considerably older than the roles. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/38 "2009-03-20T22:04:12Z")
> [@Max\_the\_Immortal](#): > > More accurately, it was a show about _assholes_. Which was still an unpromising premise, considering the “characters America wants to invite into their living rooms every week” mentality that dominated most shows at the time. Yeah, that’s a good point. What was innovative (and dangerous, and hard to see as a success beforehand) about _Seinfeld_ was that the stories had no moral. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/39 "2009-03-20T22:18:06Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Yeah, that’s a good point. What was innovative (and dangerous, and hard to see as a success beforehand) about _Seinfeld_ was that the stories had no moral. It was also bold in the way it showed shallowness and selfishness as attractive qualities. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146/40 "2009-03-20T22:23:14Z")
Annie-Xmas: > [@](#): > > The winner has to be The Simpsons, both in unpromising idea and amount of success. A prime time cartoon hadn’t succeeded since The Flinstones. It was pitched to all the networks, and only Fox picked it up and only as shorts in the Tracy Ullman show. And the rest is a large piece of TV history. Is that really true? My recollection of the Simpson’s origins is that they were invented in the first place to serve as Ullman shorts, and people liked them so much that Fox, which aired Ullman to begin with, took a flyer on spinning them off into their own series. I’m not saying they’re not an improbable success story, but I don’t ever recall hearing that Groening had already created the characters and the premise and failed to find a taker until finally Fox agreed to air them as shorts. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-series-succeeded-with-an-unpromising-premise/490146.md?page=3)