Khan

Don't quote me on this, but my understanding was that the cul-de-sac and surrounding area were built shortly after WWII, as the soldiers were returning home, and their families were expanding and moving into the suburbs. Your idea of Ginger and Kenny as siblings rather than husband-and-wife sounds intriguing, @All My Shadows. It certainly would've created more variety in the storytelling, which I'm always big on, lol. Yeah, I didn't care for JVA's exit either. It seemed to undo a lot of their tentative plans for S14, even though they did a reasonably good job making up for it. From what I understand, however, that was a particularly sticky situation on both sides. JVA co-starred in a pilot for a half-hour series on NBC, and Filerman and Jacobs more-or-less forced her to choose between waiting for the pilot to be picked up (which it didn't) or staying with KL, because (as they said) they couldn't really move forward with anything if her availability was up in the air. And while I could understand why JVA chose the pilot over KL - by S13, Val was pretty much spent as a character - I also think her choice was unfortunate, because Ann Marcus' idea to have her work on Greg Sumner's biography could've been the best storyline that JVA had had since God-knows-when. I kinda suspect that the plan was for Joe to assume the mantle of Cooper/Fairgate family patriarch and bring in more male viewers - something Kevin Dobson and Mack would do the next season - but that Stephen Macht might've been too much for the producers to handle. (I have no insider info about this, just a gut feeling that Macht was/is a difficult person to work with, judging by how often he's written off of different shows).

For sure, I would've had Val's cancer recur during S13, when it was obvious the show didn't know what to do with her and Gary. Imagine: Gary and Val finally reunite after so many years apart, and then - WHAM! - they're blindsided with the news of her diagnosis, and the likely possibility of her dying. And you have Kate there, helping Val take care of the twins and preparing everyone for her dying, which lays the true groundwork for a Gary/Kate romance that comes down the road.

IIRC, Jeff Sagansky was still president of CBS, and he was very high on increasing the visibility of Hispanic and Latino actors on the network. So, I guess it made sense for them to spin off Jennifer Lopez's character, in particular, although I think they would've been better off developing a whole new series for her. "Hotel Malibu" just feels like something the Lechowicks and Stanleys threw together (and CBS aired) in order to fulfill some obligations.

Honestly, does Kamala Harris even NEED the young white male vote at this point, lol?

I agree. Clearly, KL included those moments to draw in viewers who'd been used to watching action-heavy shows like "Charlie's Angels" and "The Rockford Files." In a way, it reminds me of when Paramount Pictures forced Francis Ford Coppola to include in "The Godfather" scenes like the one where Talia Shire's character smashes all the dishes because they were afraid the movie wasn't exciting enough, lol. Shows like "Hill Street Blues" took off, IMO, precisely because of episodes like the one with Val's operation. I think viewers were just plain sick and tired of watching huge issues like that being dealt with in one episode and then never mentioned again.

What would we define "Frasier" as, besides a show we loved before we knew more about Kelsey Grammer than we should've?

I certainly remember watching the trial, and I don't recall ever thinking that the Brothers Menendez were the type to go on fabulous shopping sprees while eyefucking each other, lol.

Well, don't be surprised, because "next to nothing" is pretty much what you'll get from the Wards (both separately and together) from this point forward, lol. I think we've discussed this before on this thread, but a big problem with Kenny and Ginger was that Gary and Val's inclusion as the other set of newlyweds (albeit, one with a history more convoluted than the Wards') made the Wards redundant from the start, with Gary and Val getting a lot of focus that might've gone to Kenny and Ginger otherwise. I do think the show tried very hard to give Kim Lankford and Jim Houghton some worthwhile stuff to play in S's 1 and 2, but yeah, by S3, I think, it's evident that the show has all but given up on them. Frankly, the Wards (and Richard) probably should've been written out at the end of S3, if not sooner, but I don't think David Jacobs was ready to let go of his original vision for the show just yet. S4, therefore, pretty much becomes the point, I think, where Jacobs decides just to let KL be what it needs to.

That's how I remember it, too, lol. But I tend not to blame Patricia Richardson, because I don't believe she (or her character) was treated fairly at all by the producers or the network. (To me, it says alot that she admits that she and Tim Allen have not kept in touch over the years, despite her guest-starring role on "Last Man Standing").

Case in point: Kenny cheating on Ginger with Sylvie. When Ginger learns about their affair, you hope that some good [!@#$%^&*] goes down, but it just doesn't. IIRC, Ginger did leave Kenny for awhile, but they got back together when she learned she was pregnant, and I was like, "And that's it?" I mean, at the very least, Sylvie could've returned down the road with a baby (and a better singing voice). I'd love to see someone try and trash and my mother's living room the way folks kept trashing Val's. Mama Khan: "Where the hell is my gun!? I'm about to set it off in here!" Either that or - as many of us probably suspect - the first part of the story was just so flat-out, country-ass dumb that nobody bothered tuning in the next week for the conclusion.

Listen, when it comes to us MSW fans, you learn real quick not to mess with the bull if you don't want the horns!

IMHO, I don't believe that scenario would have been plausible, if only because Val wasn't the same woman she had been years before. When Lucy was taken from her, Val was a love-struck, hillbilly teen, whose husband had just flown the coop, and whose own mother refused to protect her or her baby from J.R.'s goons. By the time Bobby and Betsy were born, however, Val had grown into a successful novelist, who lived comfortably with her mother in the suburbs in the house she obviously received from her latest divorce from Gary. J.R. was cruel to take Lucy away from Val, but he kinda had a point (Lucy was a Ewing, and Val simply was in no position to take care of her). If he had taken the twins away from her as well, then he would've been just an [!@#$%^&*] for the sake of BEING an [!@#$%^&*], lol.

Probably, lol. Unfortunately, I think the same might be true today for "The Cosby Show" and "Roseanne." As a matter of fact, I really can't think of any Carsey/Werner-produced show that's still maintaining a presence in syndication or streaming today. Not just HI, "Cosby" and "Roseanne,"* but others like "Cybill," "Grace Under Fire" and even "3rd Rock from the Sun" seem to have "disappeared," for lack of a better word. Of course, "That '70's Show" might be the one exception, since they've got that "sequel series" still happening over at Netflix. (Is it still happening, lol?) (*ETA: I take that back: AFAIK, Cozi-TV still runs "Roseanne" every night, but that's pretty much it, lol.)

Frankly, I think RH had the same problem as SaBa: as brilliant as it was, it was never going to appeal to the average soap viewer. It was much too special and really would've done better as a primetime show, IMO.

Frankly, I'm not surprised that interest in "The Locher Room" is waning. Like y'all said, he's just not very good at interviewing people. Plus, it seems like for every interesting guest he does land, such as Steven Weber, he gets twice as many return guests; and honestly, in most of those cases, there's nothing more to talk about after their initial appearances.

Exactly. The pieces weren't in place for the show to become a continuing drama in the vein of "thirtysomething," much less a full-fledged soap opera, especially with many of the characters still undeveloped. Moreover, David Jacobs tried very hard in S2 to maintain his original vision for the show as "Scenes from a Marriage x 4," but it seems like there was no variety in the stories being presented. People either were cheating on their spouses or thinking about cheating; and on a series that aims to depict a late-'70's SoCal where people can "sleep around" with no real consequences, it all amounted to a big bunch of nothing. The way I see it, KL's transition from "Family"-like domestic drama to full-blown soap opera happened in stages. Sid's death at the top of S3 transitions KL into a series with several, ongoing storylines, if not a soap opera quite yet. They're still some self-contained, one-and-done stories, but no longer is KL a show where major events are over and done with within sixty minutes. Then, with the Gary/Val/Abby triangle, which culminates with Val leaving Gary at the end of S3, you see KL transitioning once again into a soapier show, one that'll feature juicier storylines, but still grounded in the middle-class realism that defined seasons 1 and 2. Finally, you have the start of the "Who Killed Ciji Dunne?" storyline in the latter half of S4, with the montage of Ciji's lifeless body washing up on the shore symbolizing the "death" of KL as we had known it to be and the moment where the show is finally ready to play with the "big kids," DALLAS and DYNASTY.

I guess I'm just not gay enough for stuff like this.

That has to be one of the most low-budget, low-energy openings and pilots I have ever watched.

I agree. And I think that's especially true for one-hour shows that employed continuing narratives. Conversely, look at shows like "Law & Order" and "Murder, She Wrote," which didn't have ongoing narratives and were/are still going strong decades they stopped making new episodes. Even Aaron Spelling's most disposable shows from the '70's and '80's do pretty well, I think, because viewers don't need to make a tremendous commitment to following them from the beginning.

I feel like KL went soapy too soon in S2 and that the latter half of that season and S3 were more or less course corrections, letting us get more acquainted with the characters, before trying again at the end of S3 (this time, obviously, with more success). One idea I always had for a pretend S15 was Mack and Karen learning of Eric's death and that he left behind a new wife, who might be pregnant with his child, or (as we learn) could have been two-timing him with one of his best friends.

I don't [!@#$%^&*] believe this.

It's pretty clear they wanted to do a Gary/Val/Abby triangle as early as S2 - remember when, at the end of the Earl/Judy arc, Abby comes to Gary at his office and asks, "Are you ready for me now, Gary?" - but KL was in such a miserable state that year. They were attempting to be as salacious as DALLAS, but still staying within the self-contained, Bergman-esque format, and it just wasn't working.

"Disco Deceit" is the PERFECT title for a late-'70's movie of the week, lol.

Sorry!