Great shows that were too smart for audiences

a different world

 

I think Profit would be the dictionary definition of this. Now, there are plenty of shows that try to pass off their oddness as "smartness that you rubes just don't get." That would cover the most of the David R. Kelley ouevre. Chicago Hope is a big example of that; the viewing public sniffed that out soon enough, and ER won in a rout. Some of Kelley's stuff is entertaining, but a lot of it is just plain gimmicky.

 

How could I have forgotten this one?

Before it was a movie franchise that hit it big, it was a series on ABC with a six-show run.

"Police Squad." Those six shows equaled three of the funniest hours in television history.

My favorite line from the series:

Frank Drebin goes to a strip club dressing room to talk to a dancer who is a supposed witness to a crime.

After he knocks on the door and shows his badge, the dancer says "Is this some kind of bust?"

Drebin: "Yes, it's very nice, but I'd like to ask you some questions."

 

Freaks and Geeks was indeed horribly mistreaterd by the soulless bastards at NBC...the same network we're reverentially blowing for airing two of the best shows on TV in "My Name Is Earl" and "Studio 60." Amazing.

But the way F&G ended, I think a one-year run was indeed the best way to preserve its absolute perfection. I loved that ending...so melancholy and uncertain. Lindsay was no longer the good girl just rebelling. She severed her ties with her parents by bolting off to tour the country with Kim Kelly and the Dead. What was next? A bunch of by-the-numbers episodes about the Weirs trying to rein Lindsay back in? Better to leave all those loose ends.

As for great shows that probably would have gotten even better, let me second "Action."

Edit: Junkie is right, Ned and Stacey was hilarious. Weren't Grace and the guy from Wings starting to really fall in love when the show was cancelled?

 

Joey

 

I've never understood the affection for Sports Night. Sorkin is very talented -- I watched the West Wing from the first episode to the last, and I find it very hard not to watch A Few Good Men when I invariably stumble across it on cable on Sunday nights after midnight -- but Sports Night was just annoying. As someone who worked in sports media -- although not in television, I'll admit -- I thought it wasn't at all realistic. Didn't one of the first episodes climax in some profound emotional moment as the entire newsroom was transfixed by some athlete from Africa running the 10,000 meters? (And this wasn't the Olympics.) Yeah, that'll happen. : Joshua Malina -- who inevitably brings a level of suckitude to anything he's in -- dates a porn star? Riiight. All of the fast-walking, fast-talking, hyper-witty repartee was insufferably pretentious. (It works much better when the setting is the White House.) Storylines were lifted straight from SportsCenter during the Olbermann-Patrick era. And "dramedies" existed long before Sports Night -- M*A*S*H, for instance -- so it wasn't a show ahead of its time in that sense.

 

Cop Rock.


Seriously: I hated Ned & Stacey. With a passion.

 

The Critic. It failed on two networks, because many of its jokes - often involving old movie parodies - were way above most viewer's heads. If you've seen a lot of movies, though, The Critic was off-the-charts funny.

 

The term "dramedy" was invented to describe Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, I believe.

And Cop Rock was good...when they didn't frickin' sing.

 

I LOVED The Critic. The dad was priceless, the mom was great, and the cranky old hairstylist was tremendous. Lovitz killed.

(so there, Junkie!)

 

Keen Eddie.

 

Agree with that. That show never really got its due.