Khan

What I remember most about "My Big Fat Greek Life" was Steven Eckholdt, an actor whom the TV industry had tried very hard (God knows how many failed pilots and short-lived series) to make happen.

IA. "Four Corners" had some rough spots in its' abbreviated run, but I thought it had potential -- more potential than anything coming from Lynn Marie Latham and Bernard Lechowick at that point. I think CBS was just looking to get out of the primetime soap game. More about "Millie"/"Julie": Putting Julie Andrews with children makes sense, given her legacy. But I'm not sure it'd have been something I'd want to see every week. An addition to the list: Ellen Burstyn. As much as I can recall, she's been a lead or co-lead in two series, "The Ellen Burstyn Show" (an '80's sitcom) and "That's Life" (a '90's hour-long dramedy), and neither lasted for very long.

ICAM. I wouldn't say Faye Dunaway can't do (television) comedy, but I do believe, as I did back then, that she was all wrong for that type of comedy. Of course, considering what a nightmare she is BTS, it was likely for the best that that show died a quick death. All these years later, it's still very painful to watch. I wish I didn't remember this...but I do. You know you're in danger, girl, when the theme song puts you to sleep. And James Farentino is a comedy black hole, AFAIC. (See: "Mary".)

I guess you could add Dustin Hoffman to the list, since HBO's "Luck" ended up stalling at the gate (pun not intended).

As a maniacal serial killer sits across from you in the dark.

It was "Something So Right," composed and originally sung by Paul Simon:

Agree! Also, she, like Susan Seaforth Hayes, has the ability to light up the screen with just her face. All any director or camera person has to do is put the camera on her and the rest takes care of itself.

That's right: "Related by Birth." Unfortunately, neither Marsha Mason nor Alex Rocco appeared in the retooled version.

I wouldn't say the GOP is still in control -- if they were, I don't think they'd bother picking stupid fights over potato genitalia -- but I do think the time has come for Chuck Schumer and others to start applying pressure to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, especially as we turn our full attention to the VRA.

Oh, I loved "Sibs" sooooo much. It had everything: a terrific cast (Mason, Margaret Colin, Jami Gertz, Dan Castellaneta, Alex Rocco), terrific writers (creator Heide Perlman, Jim Brooks, Sam Simon) and a REALLY terrific theme song (by George "Atomic Dog" Clinton) that I still sing/hum to this day. I thought "Sibs" had tremendous potential. Unfortunately, it came along at a time when the TV zeitgeist was blue-collar shows like "Roseanne" and "Home Improvement." (Plus, rumors suggest that Mason had a falling out with Brooks, although I don't know how true those rumors are). RE: "Good Sports" ~ Ironically, O'Neal BEGGED Farrah to be on the show; yet, I think Farrah, rather than O'Neal, turned out to be the better actor for the project. I'm not saying Farrah was another Candice Bergen, but she was certainly funnier than her then-partner. Years later, I asked Paul Feig, who had co-starred on the show, about GS. Apparently, working with Ryan O'Neal and Farrah Fawcett was nothing short than a nightmare for everyone involved. Speaking of "Sibs," someone uploaded the premiere episode, "The Naked and the Damned," on YT last month:

I just hope she had a good time at the mall afterwards.

Olbermann is such a doofus for tweeting something like that. Does he not realize that not every Texan agrees with Gov. Greg Abbott that it's safe to remove the mask mandate and fully reopen public spaces? I think Abbott's a grade-A [!@#$%^&*], but I wouldn't want to see all Texans punished on account of him.

Yep.

I stopped even paying attention to RW after...wait, which season was the one with Colin and Amaya? Was that Hawaii? It was so skanky that I was afraid even to touch my TV set for fear of contracting herpes.

Agree!

There are, like, a half-dozen "Law & Order" episodes contained within that report on Jackson. And you know you're trash when your life is like even one episode of L&O.

Maureen Dowd: "Believe me, you want us on that wall." Not if it means you get another crack at selling us all down the damn river just so you can keep spooning with fascists.

Edith's affair with the very married (to Claire) Jim Lowell was pretty much the story that kicked off ATWT, as their illicit relationship sent shock waves through the Hughes and Lowell families, who were also connected via the law firm of Hughes, Lowell & Hughes. (Or was it Lowell, Hughes & Lowell? Anyways.) IIRC, Irna wanted the story to end with Edith and Jim happily married, but P&G opposed, saying it would send the wrong message to audiences. So, instead, she killed off Jim, and Edith later married George Frey before the two moved out of Oakdale.

The only thing I remember about "The Monroes" was someone getting locked out of their office after having sex and then having to go downstairs (IN THE NUDE) and get the security guard to help him back inside.

That could be the strangest "meet-cute" ever.

I think so, too. For sure, WTB? wasn't Lear's kind of sitcom. He preferred his shows to have an edge. WTB?'s creators, Martin Cohan and Blake Hunter, believed they were making some sort of feminist statement. Beyond the series' initial premise, however, it was a fairly standard family show/romantic comedy. DEFINITELY agree about "Perfect Strangers" and "Mr. Belvedere." The latter show's producers, Frank Dungan and Jeff Stein, have gone on-record with their ambivalence about their association with the show. For one thing, it was 20th Century Fox Television who approached Dungan and Stein with the "Belvedere" character, which they owned the rights to, rather than the other way around. Dungan and Stein were just wrapping up "Barney Miller" when they signed a development deal with 20th, and every other series they had pitched hadn't sold, so they were more-or-less compelled to develop "Belvedere," despite their hesitation toward working on a "family show." Moreover, they LOATHED doing Very Special Episodes, like the one about the camp counselor who was molesting Wesley and his friends (or something). However, VSE's always attracted attention from the media; and as Stein said in an interview about the release of the complete "Barney Miller" on DVD, they thought it'd be cool to see a "Belvedere" episode highlighted in that week's TV Guide.

Well, I stand corrected, lol.

And then you had Maggie Haberman's condescending ass telling every Twitter user who disagreed with Dowd that they are just too simple-minded to understand what journalism is or what journalists do. It all made me so damn angry. It still makes me so damn angry.

Exactly. I put 1987 as the line of demarcation between the first wave and the second (which, like you say, was dominated by Miller-Boyett's output). It isn't an EXACT line. "Valerie"/"Valerie's Family"/"The Hogans"/"The Hogan Family" (which is a strange animal in this genre: a Miller/Boyett show that began as a star vehicle for adult Valerie Harper, then morphed into a showcase for Jason Bateman, Jeremy Licht and Danny Ponce once she was fired) premiered the year before; and "Growing Pains," a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing family show that was ostensibly about Alan Thicke and Joanna Kerns' characters but really wasn't, the year before that. But, '87 is a good place to set down the marker, as that's the year FH, arguably the most successful and influential series from the second wave, premiered on ABC. I'd also agree that "The Wonder Years" and "Doogie Howser, M.D." were closer to the "adult shows" than they were to the kid ones. Kids and young adults watched them, but they weren't necessarily written and produced FOR them. Same goes for "Family Ties," "Gimme a Break!" and "Who's the Boss?". On each series, there was a balance of story and airtime between the kids and their adult counterparts (although, in "Gimme a Break!"'s case, you could certainly argue that every other character was just a prop for Nell Carter to lug around on set). Pretty much. For all intents and purposes, the end of "TGIF" on ABC's Friday night lineup was the end of all kid-centered sitcoms on the major networks. After that, if you wanted that kind of show, you had to go to cable. Exactly, lol. By any measure, "Strokes" and "Facts of Life" were, at best, middling successes. In fact, it's telling that Norman Lear never had his name associated with either series, even though his production companies, Tandem and T.A.T./Embassy, produced them both, and he had always put his name somewhere on new series in the past. However, "Strokes" and FoL benefited from being on NBC at a time when even a middling success was better than no success at all.

PB (the original, not the revival) was one in a line of kid-centric shows from the late '70's and '80's -- like "Diff'rent Strokes," "Silver Spoons," "Webster," etc. -- that never grabbed huge ratings but were massively, even insanely, popular with younger audiences. In fact, I think the only show from that genre and period that ever cracked the Nielsen Top 30 was "The Facts of Life." "Full House" did better, of course, but I always associate it with the "second wave" of kid- and teen-friendly shows that started in the late '80's -- as stars like Gary Coleman, Rick(y) Schroder, Soleil Moon Frye and the FoL girls were "aging up" -- and continued in the next decade.