Great shows that were too smart for audiences

Offwing, I think your internal calendar is off. The Critic debuted in the spring of '95.

 

Funny, when Northern Exposure started up, it was trashed by some critics as an attempted ripoff/imitation of Twin Peaks.

It took NX a season really, to find its legs, and at the same time, Peaks was rapidly running out of creative gas, so by the time NX hit its stride for seasons 2,3 and 4, Peaks had slid off the air.

NX also faltered badly near the end of its run, as the constant drama-queen hysterics over whether Rob Morrow was going to leave the show muddled the show's focus, is he in is he out, first making it not enough focused on Fleischmann, then too much, then he fades out again, etc etc. until the last season, especially, with the awkward replacement characters the Capras fouling up the plotlines, it was time to go.

But in its three best seasons, NX was about the best there ever was.

 

Right year of college, wrong semester. Premiered on ABC, Jan. 26, 1994; moved to Fox, March 5, 1995.

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0108734/episodes

 

Just got mail back from ASKFOX, the show I was thinking of was called WHOOPS!, an awesome show that wasn't given a chance.

 

Whoops was about a group of nuclear holocaust survivors stuck on an island. A comedy that was part Gilligan's Island, part Lord of the Flies and wholly awful. Another reason why Lane Davies should not have given up the Mason Capwell gig.

 

I dug Flying Blind that aired on Fox back in '93. Had Peter Boyle and Tea Leoni in it and I got many laughs out of it. Another one was Key West, also on Fox, with Meg Tilly and Fisher Stevens. He played some hack in a dead-end job in the US northeast, wins the lottery and heads for Key West but when he arrives, he realizes he's so in debt and has bills that he can't really enjoy his winnings but he stays anyway.

On the animated front, I totally agree that The Critic was an overlooked gem, and I also favored The Tick, both the animated series and the one-season only live version that started Patrick Warburton as the blue avenger.

 

Mr Bubbler,

The Prisoner, which was aired first in Canada before the UK and and the US, doesn't really belong on this list. It was a one-off, not intended for a long run. More self-contained mini-series. It would have been worse, not better, if it ran several seasons.

YHS, etc

 

I know someone mentioned it somewhere, but the Ben Stiller Show was just fucking hilarious and never had a chance in hell because Fox aired it Sunday nights at like 9:30 right after Herman's Head...

 

Fridays "the OTHER SNL"

http://www.collegehumor.com/picture:1707329/context/search:fridays

 

But in all seriousness, does anyone here remember "Wonder Falls"? That show was one of the best examples of quirky humor I have EVER seen. Not only that, but I had a bigger crush on Caroline Dhavernas than I ever had on anyone.

 

A classic show, but certainly not because it was smarter than the audience. It was just damn funny sketch comedy.

 

We're not making a socieological judgement here, but a demographic one:

Am very fond of The Critic, but its quirky humor reflected quite the gay sensibility,
and that doesn't play in the boonies, and that was the end of THAT.