Shows you forget were on at the same time

[All My Shadows]

Oddly enough, when I watch GG reruns, I can never tell right away when the episode originally aired. There are some eps that I long assumed were from the early years that I've only recently learned were from the 90s ("Rose: Portrait of a Woman," for instance).

Touched by an Angel, Walker Texas Ranger, and Diagnosis Murder all ran into the early 2000s, and that still shocks me. They were all network mates with CSI.

[SFK]

The more gravelly Bea's voice, the earlier the episode. She quit smoking and her voice healed. She sounds like a totally different person. Just like how she looks like a totally different person compared to Maude. Bea's and Rue's hairdos are also good indicators.

[All My Shadows]

Now that you mention it, I always did notice Bea's different hair. I just never thought to use it as an indicator of when episodes were made. I can only think of two distinct 'dos. Am I right in assuming...

Early years

And...

Later years?

[SFK]

You are correct! There's another longish one in the season before the bottom pic style debuted which is imo the most flattering. Those are the episodes where Dorothy looks pretty, even.

[juppiter]

Famously, "Everybody Loves Raymond" was moved to Mondays at 8:30 to compete against "Ally McBeal" midway through its first season. Ally was a cultural phenomenon and Raymond was a mediocre, struggling, mid-level sitcom. Raymond became a hit that season and Ally began to die.

Ally McBeal ended in 2002, far after it was ever relevant, as one of the last two surviving series to premiere during the least successful TV season ever for new shows, 1997-1998. It tied Dharma & Greg for lasting five seasons.

Even though Raymond ended up being vastly more successful in ratings and now in syndication, in terms of pop culture, Ally lives forever in terms of representing everything about the late 90s. Raymond, on the other hand, had a season or two of brilliance, and thereafter became the blueprint for each mediocre CBS sitcom that has come since.

[Khan]

I agree -- and so does Susan Harris:

Do you ever think The Golden Girls ever jumped the shark?

Ugh ' [long pause] Now, I didn't stay with the show. I was in and out for three years. After my experience with "Soap" it was too exhausting, and I just couldn't put myself through that again. Then I had a baby to raise. There was a period when I saw a few shows, and I told Paul I thought it had lost its touch with reality. It got silly. I don't know if the audience felt that way, but for me, it jumped my personal shark, which was keeping it real. Keeping the women real. Not joke machines.

http://www.out.com/entertainment/television/2010/10/03/catching-golden-girls-susan-harris?page=0,0

[DRW50]

That became especially bad with Rose and Sophia. I didn't mind the later episodes as much when I watched some reruns years later, but I still don't enjoy most of them.

[Khan]

According to Tracy Gamble, who was hired with his partner, Richard Vaczy, at the tail end of the Speer/Grossman/Fanaro/Nathan/Hervey era, there was great turmoil among the writing staff when they became show-runners for the final season and wanted to return to more character-driven writing. (This was all explained in an interview for the Writers' Guild in-house magazine during the first season of "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter.") I don't remember him detailing who was "for it" and who wasn't. However, judging from track records and such, I have a hunch writers Marc Cherry & Jamie Wooten, Mitchell Hurwitz, Marc Sotkin (who had been the show-runner until he moved to AZ, I think, and couldn't be as hands-on) and Jim Vallely were among those who weren't in favor of that direction.

[Khan]

IA. All the girls became one-joke premises to one extent or another. No longer were they three-dimensional. Instead, Blanche became the Cheap Slut, Rose the Village Idiot, Dorothy the Lovelorn Spinster, and Sophia the Naughty Old Lady.