1985 and the Small Screen
Top 30 TV Shows, by Nielsen Ratings, for the 1985-86 TV Broadcast Season [1]:
(New shows in
bold)
1. The Cosby Show (NBC), Thursdays at 8 pm
2. It’s Your Move (NBC), Thursdays at 8:30 pm
3. Murder, She Wrote (CBS), Sundays at 8 pm
4. Miami Vice (NBC), Fridays at 9 pm
5. 60 Minutes (CBS), Sundays at 7 pm
6.
The Golden Girls (NBC), Saturday at 8 pm
7. Who’s the Boss? (ABC), Tuesdays at 8:30 pm
8. Kate & Allie (CBS), Mondays at 9 pm
9. Dynasty (ABC), Wednesdays at 9 pm
10. Cheers (NBC), Thursdays at 9 pm
11. The A-Team (NBC), Tuesdays at 8 pm
12. Shaping Up! (ABC), Tuesdays at 9 pm
13. Cover Up (CBS), Fridays at 8 pm
14. Night Court (NBC), Thursdays at 9:30 pm
15. Dallas (CBS), Fridays at 9 pm
16. Newhart (CBS), Mondays at 9:30 pm
17. Monday Night Football (ABC), Mondays at 9 pm
18. Knots Landing (CBS), Thursdays at 10 pm
19.
Mr. Belvedere (ABC), Tuesdays at 9:30 pm
20. Crazy Like A Fox (CBS), Sundays at 9 pm
21.
MacGyver (ABC), Mondays at 8 pm
22. Falcon Crest (CBS), Fridays at 10 pm
23. St. Elsewhere (NBC), Wednesdays at 10 pm
24. Remington Steele (NBC), Tuesdays at 10 pm
25. Punky Brewster (NBC), Saturdays at 8:30 pm
26.
The Lost Episode (CBS), Wednesdays at 8 pm
27. Scarecrow & Mrs. King (CBS), Tuesdays at 10 pm
28.
Lime Street (ABC), Saturdays at 10 pm
29. Hardcastle and McCormick (ABC), Sundays at 8 pm
30.
Hollywood Undercover (ABC), Saturdays at 9 pm
TV Guide’s Look Back at the Fall 1985 TV Season
There’s an old adage about two hikers who come across a bear in the woods. The one hiker calmly begins lacing up his running shoes as his companion stares at him, incredulous. “You can’t outrun a bear!” “No,” replies the first hiker, “but I can outrun
you.” [2] Network television shows are a lot like that first hiker: they don’t have to win their timeslot to survive; they just have to outperform other shows on the same network.
With that in mind, we look at some of our favorite or noteworthy shows that are safe, on the bubble, or facing cancellation from the three networks:
ABC
Safe: New hits
Mr. Belvedere,
Lime Street,
MacGyver, and
Hollywood Undercover.
ABC diversified its television portfolio in 1985, even as the evening soap opera
Dynasty slipped from being the nation’s #1 show in 1984 to ninth despite facing essentially no competition from the other networks. Sophmore sitcom
Who’s the Boss (#7) and mainstay
Shaping Up (#12) anchored ABC’s Tuesday lineup, paving the way for their top new hit,
Mr. Belvedere, which finished the season as the 19th-highest rated program on network television. [3] All in all, it was a healthy bounce-back season for 1984’s worst network.
Featuring the unlikely pairing of English stage actor Brian Blessed [4] and ballplayer-turned-beer-pitchman-turned-actor Bob Uecker,
Mr. Belvedere tweaks the family sitcom model ever so slightly. Sportswriter Dad (Uecker) and law student Mom (newcomer Ilene Graff) parent two teens (Rob Stone and Tracy Wells) and an adorable little moppet (Brice Beckham), but little do they know that uptight butler Lynn Belvedere (Blessed) is actually an acclaimed author, immersing himself in the role so – in his words – “as to write the great American novel, as only an Englishman can.” The back-and-forth comedic timing between Blessed and Uecker provides the laughs; the genuine, almost fatherly chemistry between Blessed and Beckham provides more than a few heartwarming moments. ABC has renewed
Mr. Belvedere for 1986.
While
Lime Street is ostensibly about the machinations of tough-as-nails insurance investigator J. Greyson Culver (played by veteran Robert Wagner, last seen on
Hart to Hart) solving various crimes (as a result of his insurance fraud investigations), it’s more accurate to say that the show is a star vehicle for the acting debut of teenaged peace activist Samantha Smith, who plays Culver’s 13-year-old daughter, Liz. [5] Smith, who memorably served as “America’s Youngest Ambassador” to the Soviet Union in 1983 after writing a letter to then-Soviet premier Yuri Andropov, is a natural actress and serves as the moral compass to the otherwise-too-pragmatic Culver. One quibble: although the title refers to the headquarters of the world’s oldest insurance market, Lloyd’s of London, the show is quite obviously filmed in studio in Hollywood, California. [6] ABC has renewed
Lime Street for 1986. [7]
We discuss
MacGyver and
Hollywood Undercover in depth on page 67. [8]
On the bubble:
Moonlighting,
Growing Pains, and
Webster.
Moonlighting is the quirky comedy/drama starring Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd that we discuss on page 58. [9] With critical acclaim but mediocre ratings, it sits squarely on the renewal bubble.
Growing Pains is a formulaic family sitcom starring Alan Thicke (
Thicke of the Night) as the 40-but-looks-50 dad, Joanna Kerns (Marjorie Donovan from
V) as the 40-but-looks-30 mom, Kirk Cameron as the popular, wisecracking slacker older son, Tracey Gold (
Goodnight, Beantown) as the nerdy sister who’s frequently the butt of Cameron’s jokes, and Jeremy Miller as the obligatory adorable tot. Sound familiar?
Growing Pains finished last in its timeslot, opposite CBS’s
Cover Up and NBC’s
Knight Rider. [10]
Finally, the
Diff’rent Strokes ripoff
Webster limped through its third season and might not be back in 1986. [11]
Likely Cancellation:
Lady Blue,
Our Family Honor,
The Insiders,
T.J. Hooker,
Hotel, and
Spenser: For Hire. [12]
CBS
Safe:
The Lost Episode,
Dreams
Despite a strong 1984, no network shook up its lineup more than CBS, which cancelled half its prime-time lineup and debuted a whopping
nine new shows in 1985. CBS also took the biggest risk of any network, declaring Wednesday to be “Movie Night In America!” and airing three small-screen adaptations of recent hit movies:
The Big Chill, Stir Crazy, and – perhaps most inexplicably –
Ghostbusters.
However, for all of CBS’s bold moves, only
one produced a hit:
The Lost Episode, a wildly inventive sketch comedy show that re-enacts supposedly “lost” episodes from classic shows throughout TV’s history. Already, the troupe has revisited
The Honeymooners,
Get Smart, and
I Love Lucy; we can’t wait to see what season two will bring. [13]
The Lost Episode stars Dave Thomas [14], Stuart Pankin [15], Robin Duke [16], Mike Hagerty [17], Bekka Eaton [18], and
Saturday Night Live alums Brad Hall and Julia Louis-Dreyfus [19]. It’s written by Thomas, Buck Henry, and George Meyer, with contributions from Al Franken and Steve Martin. [20]
Meanwhile, CBS continues to hope that
Dreams will catch on; it’s the story of the would-be metal band “Steel Cobra,” led by John Stamos, looking to hit it big on L.A.’s Sunset Strip, led by John Stamos – will catch on. After a promising first season, the producers reworked the show, bringing in real-life heavy metal rocker Michael Bolton to play Stamos’s nemesis, bad-boy band “Rampage” – and, not incidentally, to play guitar and provide vocals for “Steel Cobra’s” songs. The result is a TV show with considerably more verisimilitude, but despite the improvements,
Dreams finished just outside the Top 30 for the second straight season. Nevertheless, CBS has already renewed
Dreams for 1986. [21] And, in a strange case of art imitating life, Michael Bolton’s latest album – released as “Rampage,” of course, and featuring two “Steel Cobra” songs – has been climbing the charts. [22]
On the bubble:
No Complaints,
Still The Big Chill, and
The Equalizer.
New sitcom
No Complaints features two former college roommates, Valerie (Diana Canova,
Soap) and Joanne (newcomer Anne Twomey) who reunite 15 years after graduation. Valerie is a housewife with two kids; Joanne is an ad executive rapidly climbing the corporate ladder. Both suffer from the-grass-is-always-greener syndrome; Valerie is envious of Joanne’s high-roller, expense-account lifestyle, while Joanne, coming off of a string of painful breakups, is jealous of Valerie’s doting, faithful husband and adoring children.
No Complaints is the only sitcom in CBS’s Tuesday block not to win its timeslot, and it is on the bubble for 1986. [23]
Still The Big Chill is the only show from CBS’s ill-fated “Movie Night In America” with a chance to survive the 1985-86 season. A direct-to-TV adaptation of the hit 1983
The Big Chill, its TV successor stars Jane Kaczmarek (
The Paper Chase and
Hill Street Blues) as Mary Newell, and Franc Luz (
The Doctors) as Ben Abbott. Mary and Franc’s Beaufort, South Carolina wedding provides the pretext for reuniting college friends (in the movie, the main characters are brought together by a funeral, instead). Rounding out the circle of friends are troubled rock star Christopher Springer (Andrew Rubin), college professor Peter Kincaid (John Bedford-Lloyd), divorcee Barbara Donnelly (Margaret Whitton), and fry cook Joey Nathan (Daniel Stern), a single father whose parentage is thrown into question by his ex-girlfriend, which forms the major story arc for the first season. [24] CBS has not yet decided whether to renew
Still The Big Chill for the 1986 season.
The Equalizer is discussed in detail on page 77. [25]
Likely Cancellation:
Ghostbusters,
Stir Crazy,
The Recovery Room,
Charlie & Co., and
The George Burns Half Hour Comedy Hour.
Where to begin? CBS’s “Movie Night In America” was a high-profile flop, and the network has already cancelled its TV adaptation of the 1980 Richard Pryor /Gene Wilder hit film
Stir Crazy [26], as well as
The George Burns Half Hour Comedy Hour [27] and the unsuccessful Cosby-ripoff
Charlie & Co. [28]
Next up? We suspect it will be
Ghostbusters – a very funny movie that just never worked on the small screen. You know the plot: parapsychologists Peter Venkman (ably played by stand-up comedian Bob Saget), Ray Stantz (Xander Berkeley, doing a passable Dan Aykroyd impersonation) and Egon Spengler (Steve Buscemi) crack wise while saving New York from an army of spooks. The special effects get more laughs than the scripts. [29]
After striking out with last season’s quirky hospital sitcom
E/R, it’s strange to see CBS essentially doubling down with
The Recovery Room – a quirky sitcom set in a bar whole locals work in, you guessed it, the nearby hospital. (Oh, and the bar is called “The Recovery Room”; get it?) The bar is owned by med school dropout Steve (Mark Linn-Baker) and former nurse Kelly (Kelly Bishop), and is frequented by a cast of stereotypes: the young genius, the overbearing heartthrob, the clumsy bookworm, and the philandering hospital administrator.
The Recovery Room has had terrible ratings opposite ABC’s smash hit
Who’s The Boss?; between that and it’s poor lead-in (the already-cancelled
George Burns Half Hour Comedy Hour), there’s a slight chance that it survives the chopping block. But we doubt it. [30]
NBC
The transformation begun three years ago by NBC’s boy-wonder executive Brandon Tartikoff is now complete. Once relegated to the bottom of the ratings, NBC now has the top-rated show on television, three of the top five shows, the highest-rated new show, and the most high-profile night on television: Thursday’s “Must See TV!” [31]
We’ve already devoted much ink to NBC’s Thursday night, which has been credited with revitalizing the sitcom as a genre. We’ve also written extensively about
The Golden Girls – NBC’s effort to reach out to the blue-haired demographic that gave CBS a surprise hit in last year’s
Murder, She Wrote. [32] Oh, and of course there’s also
Miami Vice – perhaps the most talked-about, most imitated show on TV.
Of course, not
everything Mr. Tartikoff touches turns to gold, and the peacock network had its share of flops in 1985.
Safe:
The Golden Girls,
227 [33]
On the bubble:
Family Ties,
Misfits of Science.
Despite extensive retooling in 1985, including a touching story arc surrounding Elyse Keaton’s miscarriage which led to the addition of adopted daughter Ariel Keaton (played by adorable seven-year-old child actress Judith Barsi), ratings for
Family Ties remain low, and the series faces a possible cancellation. [34]
We discuss the bizarre superhero show
Misfits of Science on page 85. [35]
Likely Cancellation:
All That Glitters
A spinoff of NBC’s hit
Knight Rider,
All That Glitters features ready-for-action secret agent David Dalton (Charles Taylor) paired with fish-out-of-water Janene St. John (newcomer Fran McDormand). Together, the two criss-cross the nation, solving mysteries and fighting crime on behalf of a shadowy government organization led by the elusive “Z” (George Murdock). Ratings are very low. [36]
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NOTES:
[1] See
post #323, note 2, for details on all of the shows from the 1984-85 TV schedule that were cancelled in 1985.
[2] This is shamelessly stolen from the "
Cancellation Bear" feature at tvbythenumbers.com.
[3] IOTL,
Mr. Belvedere never cracked the Top 30, although it frequently won its time slot and aired for six seasons. With a stronger lead-in, a better night (IOTL, it aired on Fridays at 8:30, after
Webster), and somewhat weaker competition, #19 seems about right.
[4] He’s certainly available, and I always envisioned that Christopher Hewett was cast as Lynn Belvedere OTL from notes that said “looking for a Brian Blessed type.”
[5] Even had
Unknown not put in this request back in
post #358, I had always intended to save Samantha Smith. Whether Bar Harbor flight 1808 doesn’t crash, or whether Samantha is on a different flight, it strikes me as the perfect example of an event that’s highly contingent and almost
must be butterflied away.
[6] Currently under construction ITTL and IOTL,
the Lloyd’s building at 1 Lime Street is one of the most distinctive pieces of architecture in west London.
[7] Boy, the reviews are all over the map for OTL’s
Lime Street; there’s a particularly scathing one at IMDB that seems strangely passionate for a show that was cancelled two decades ago after a handful of episodes, for example. But pretty much everyone agrees that Samantha Smith really
could act, and Robert Wagner is obviously Robert Wagner, so I’m having difficulty imagining it being a total dog. IOTL,
Lime Street aired at 9 pm on Saturday opposite NBC’s
The Golden Girls (#7) and
227 (#20) and got bulldozed; here, it airs an hour later opposite the 1985 reboot of
The Twilight Zone and the
WWF Main Event, so it’s pretty easy to see it winning its timeslot.
[8] As for
MacGyver: it’s pretty much as OTL, so it doesn’t get a writeup.
Hollywood Undercover is profiled in
post #323, and I’m tickled that I've dropped two separate hints as to a non-event in 1985 that continues to elude people.
[9]
Moonlighting is also mostly as OTL; it just has the misfortune of airing on Thursdays at 9 pm opposite
Cheers and
Night Court instead of on Tuesdays at 9 as IOTL – largely because ABC has already locked up Tuesdays from 8 to 10 with (mostly) successful sitcoms, including TTL’s
Shaping Up! and
Mr. Belvedere. Moonlighting will be back for 1986;
TV Guide just doesn’t know it yet.
[10]
Growing Pains is, with minor butterflies, as OTL; the difference is that OTL’s version (a) had the wildly successful
Who’s the Boss? as a lead-in; and (b) aired opposite a rotating black hole from CBS (and the
The A-Team on NBC, which fared worse IOTL). Here, with a weak lead and strong competition from CBS,
Growing Pains falls outside the Top 30. Status for 1986 is uncertain.
[11] Webster got four seasons IOTL despite declining ratings due to a syndication deal with Paramount; ABC cranked out the minimum 100 episodes and washed its hands of the whole deal. Probably the same thing will wind up happening ITTL.
[12] The first three are flops from OTL;
The Insiders is (briefly) profiled as a
Miami Vice ripoff in (of course)
post #323.
T.J. Hooker had sort of a strange path IOTL; it was cancelled by ABC in 1985, but picked up by CBS for a final season, where they tried to retool the series with longer, “edgier” episodes. (That didn’t work.) Here, it just limps through the final season on ABC before quietly going away.
The real changes from OTL are
Hotel and
Spenser: For Hire. IOTL,
Hotel was the #22-rated show of 1985, although it lost 20% of its lead-in audience from
Dynasty. Here, it runs opposite the CBS adaptation of
Stir Crazy (instead of
The Equalizer), which competes for some of
Hotel's Baby Boomer/prime-time soap audience. The net result is that
both shows suffer -- and NBC’s
St. Elsewhere does significantly better, finishing the season at #24. OTL’s
Hotel would run for another two seasons, although it would never again finish among the Top 30 shows. Despite all this,
Hotel might be back in 1986; the network still isn't sure.
Spenser: For Hire ran for three seasons IOTL on Fridays at 10; it does rather less well on Saturdays at 8 – particularly opposite the bulldozer that is NBC’s
The Golden Girls. The careers of Robert Urich and Avery Brooks survive intact, though.
[13] There’s no OTL analogue to this show; it’s
kind of inspired by SNL-ripoff (and flop)
The New Show, although obviously actual thought has gone into this one.
[14] Yes, this is the brainchild of TTL’s Doug McKenzie, who was on hiatus from both SCTV and SNL at this time; sadly, it will butterfly away Thomas’s role as Sam Sleaze in
Follow That Bird but otherwise, his schedule is pretty wide open. A veteran of the Second City comedy troupe in Chicago, Thomas will recruit a lot of his fellow alumni.
[15] The second-biggest star here, Pankin was leaving his gig as news anchor Bob Charles on the HBO series
Not Necessarily the News right as
The Lost Episode was being cast. He’s a comedic straight man.
[16] Whom you might remember as the diner waitress from
Groundhog Day. Like Thomas, she was also in the (strange, but hilarious) 1985 Martin Short comedy special “Martin Short: Concert for the North Americas,” which is butterflied away ITTL. Like Thomas, she's also a Second City alum.
[17] Another Second City alum, to me he’s most memorable as one of “Da Bears” on SNL; he’s also apparently a regular guest star in the
Star Trek universe, apparently playing aliens who really, really sound like they’re from Chicago.
[18] Yet another Second City alum; she had a few bit parts in the 1980s and then disappeared from the TV landscape. She’s a plus-sized actress.
[19] Louis-Dreyfuss is 24 here, and fresh off of a disappointing three-year run on
Saturday Night Live. Hall and Louis-Dreyfuss are dating at this time IOTL and ITTL; they would marry IOTL in 1987.
[20]
The New Show was never made ITTL, so you can think of this as occupying roughly the same space, albeit with no involvement from Lorne Michaels. Meyer never returns to
SNL ITTL. And, as great as this writing team looks, remember that it’s a
subset of the awesome team assembled for OTL’s
The New Show, which turned out to be one of the lowest-rated TV shows of all time, so it’s no guarantee of any sort of long-term success.
[21] I talked about this a little bit in
post #210, but didn’t want to give
too much of the fun away.
[22] Yes, this is an analogue to OTL’s
Everybody’s Crazy album, the last hard rock/heavy metal album released before Michael Bolton switched over to the soft rock ballads for which he’s known today. ITTL,
Rampage (featuring Michael Bolton) spawned three Top 40 singles, all of which were featured in episodes of
Dreams: “Everybody’s Crazy,” “(Goin’ On A) Rampage,” and “You Gotta Want It.”
[23] IOTL, “No Complaints” was a failed pilot sold to NBC, rather than CBS, by the same outfit that put together “The Recovery Room” for CBS. Here, CBS buys and goes forward with both shows. “No Complaints” really
is on the bubble in the Dirty Laundryverse, but some of you won’t be surprised that I gave Diana Canova another chance ITTL.
[24] IOTL, the small-screen adaption of
The Big Chill was called
Hometown (because there was no “Movie Night In America”); it was not successful on Tuesdays at 8 pm. Here, airing opposite the NBC flop
Hell Town and the fading remnants of
The Fall Guy, it manages narrowly to win its time slot.
[25]
The Equalizer is also discussed in (some) detail in
post #323. It’s firmly on the bubble, being beaten by both
Hollywood Undercover in the first half-hour and
227 in the second.
[26] Truth is always stranger than fiction, so
of course this was a real show. Look at that promo shot: you can just
tell it’s not going to be funny. At all.
[27] IOTL, this aired (
very) briefly as “
George Burns Comedy Week,” where it still wasn’t funny.
[28]
As OTL. And I think Flip Wilson is quite talented, but, "here, go be in this
Cosby ripoff" almost certainly wasn't going to work.
[29] Berkeley and Saget were taking bit parts in various TV shows at this time. Buscemi had a bit part in
Season 1, Episode 5 of Not Necessarily the News, and strikes me as the kind of guy whom you would instantly cast as “oh, hey, kind of like Harold Ramis, only weirder.”
[30]
The Recovery Room was a pilot sold to CBS IOTL; here, it makes it as a full-fledged show, only to disappoint.
[31] The earlier use of “Must See TV!” was foreshadowed in
post #205.
[32]
The Golden Girls is as OTL, except that it airs an hour earlier.
[33]
227 is also as OTL, although it does slightly worse here (outside the top 30) without
The Golden Girls as a lead-in.
[34] As per OTL, Meredith Baxter-Birney’s real life pregnancy (with twins, no less) played out on screen; IOTL, Elyse gave birth to a son, Andrew. ITTL, a smartly written series of “very special episodes” has Elyse miscarry and the Keatons adopt a daughter whom they name Ariel Moonbeam Keaton (much to Alex’s disgust).
[35] Which is to say that it’s as per OTL.
[36] IOTL,
All That Glitters was a backdoor pilot developed by veteran executive producer Glen A. Larson. It aired as a two-hour episode of
Knight Rider (titled “Mouth of the Snake”), with Taylor, Murdock, and Joanna Pettet instead of Frances McDormand. NBC declined to pick up the show on the grounds that it was too similar to the CBS flop
Cover Up, which had also been developed by Larson. NBC kept the “Dalton” character and reworked the whole thing into
Code of Vengeance. Here,
Cover Up is a hit, so
All That Glitters goes forward as originally envisioned by Larson. In development, Pettet is replaced by McDormand (still going by “Fran”) as the pilot becomes a series. Ratings are indeed low.
The complete 1985-86 TV schedule is attached.
