TV Ratings from 35 years ago for the week of October 29-November 4 1990.

#3 Cosby facing some tough competition from #19 The Simpsons. Dallas started its final season its season premiere opening up at #41 while Knots was at #33. 
 

Poor Twin Peaks just didn’t stand a chance in that miserable timeslot. Grand really was odd man out with the rest of NBC’s Thursday night schedule wasn’t it?

CBS should have moved Major Dad and Designing Women to build a new night but the trouble was the schedules were sitcom heavy at that point and there were no opportunities.

ABC wanted to be rid of Twin Peaks. It might have faired better Wed @10 but there was misplaced faith in Cop Rock.

NBC had too many sitcoms with duds like Fanelli Boys and Parenthood and Grand cluttering up the schedule. They should have been more focused on keeping Thurs, Sat strong and maybe another hour here and there.

CBS finally moved Dallas but Over My Dead Body was another poor choice for Fri @9.

I guess a lot of these shows get on the air for reasons other than their actual quality (or lack thereof).

3 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

CBS should have moved Major Dad and Designing Women to build a new night but the trouble was the schedules were sitcom heavy at that point and there were no opportunities.

ABC wanted to be rid of Twin Peaks. It might have faired better Wed @10 but there was misplaced faith in Cop Rock.

NBC had too many sitcoms with duds like Fanelli Boys and Parenthood and Grand cluttering up the schedule. They should have been more focused on keeping Thurs, Sat strong and maybe another hour here and there.

CBS finally moved Dallas but Over My Dead Body was another poor choice for Fri @9.

I guess a lot of these shows get on the air for reasons other than their actual quality (or lack thereof).

I think Major Dad and Designing Women were fine where they were, and helped contribute to the even stronger Monday night schedule the following season. By the time CBS moved the shows in 1992 to build that Friday night block, it flopped hard as we’ve mentioned before.

I’ve read WIOU was a solid show cancelled too soon, perhaps it should have aired on Monday @10 instead? 

At some point CBS would move Dallas back to 9 I believe in another desperate attempt to do something with that Fri night schedule.

Sitcom heavy is right, and there’s some oddball things going on as well. CBS picked up The Hogan Family from NBC only to air it in a DOA Sat night timeslot at 8:30. Night Court still hanging on Friday nights with middling ratings. Dear John, once a hit on Thursdays at 9:30, became the poster child for the troubled NBC Thursday night 8:30/9:30 sitcoms as it failed to thrive once out of the slot. 
 

And as you mentioned there’s a lot of well low quality to garbage across all four network line-ups lol. Cop Rock, anything on CBS Thursday schedule not named Knots Landing, the glut of pointless sitcoms etc. 

Edited November 14Nov 14 by soapfan770

Empty Nest should have moved to 8pm allowing for new sitcoms 8.30/9.30. Hopefully something strong enough to take over from GG at 9pm once that show began to slide.

Apart from KL everything else on ABC/CBS was a disaster on Thursdays.

Maybe Twin Peaks should have stayed Thurs @9 to at least maintain some sort of cult following. It would have done as well as Gabriel's Fire. Moving it to Sat kind of said that ABC were not interested in 'quality' programming. Same with China Beach.

Don't know why CBS would pick up a middling sitcom like Hogan Family and then bury it Sat night. Was this what I was referring to earlier where BTS stuff comes into play. Maybe CBS picked up Hogan Family to establish/maintain relationships with certain producers/creatives etc.

In retrospect, ABC made a huge mistake in forcing the producers of "Twin Peaks" to end the "Who Killed Laura Palmer?" storyline so early.  Anyone with common sense would've seen right away that TP had nothing else going for it.

Edited November 14Nov 14 by Khan

1 hour ago, Khan said:

Anyone with common sense would've seen right away that TP had nothing else going for it.

I'm going to argue against this idea.

TP had built such an interesting world they could've gone anywhere, but by centering the season on Agent Cooper, rather than Laura's friends and their families, they built too much expectation on solving the mystery.  It is a classic soap opener to start with a murder, Eastenders built half a decade off an opening scene with an unexpected murder.  But, the mystery has to take a backseat to introducing the characters.  The log lady, Shelly, Bobby, and Audrey would've carried the load if Twin Peaks had been on Fox.

I think the issue is that the ABC audience never liked that type of drama, see the failure of Wild Palms a few years later.  It was the wrong product for the wrong audience, and it never fit with the rest of the programming.

11 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Don't know why CBS would pick up a middling sitcom like Hogan Family and then bury it Sat night. Was this what I was referring to earlier where BTS stuff comes into play. Maybe CBS picked up Hogan Family to establish/maintain relationships with certain producers/creatives etc.

Most likely. The Family Man was also a Miller-Boyett sitcom, although why have a new untested sitcom lead off the night instead of at least giving the Hogan Family the lead seems puzzling. And again on a Saturday night…maybe CBS was hoping for those younger demos?
Or contractual obligations to avoid any interference with other Miller-Boyett shows?

Both shows were cancelled by seasons end. CBS’ other later attempts with Miller-Boyett of course were catastrophic failures as discussed previously. 

The CBS season of the Hogan Family was of course particularly dark-killing off a main character after contracting AIDS was  definitely not your typical “tonight on a very special…” plot line so many other sitcoms of the era used. 

4 hours ago, j swift said:

I think the issue is that the ABC audience never liked that type of drama, see the failure of Wild Palms a few years later.  It was the wrong product for the wrong audience, and it never fit with the rest of the programming.

Once shows like Dynasty and Moonlighting fell off dramas on ABC had a hard time, even if they were critically acclaimed. It’s striking to see ABC so devoid of dramas for the bulk of the 90’s and early 00’s outside of fare like NYPD Blue, Lois & Clark, and I guess The Commish? Even well praised shows like Murder One and Once and Again ultimately failed after a couple seasons. 
 

It wasn’t until the 2004-05 season once Desperate Housewives, Lost, Grey’s Anatomy and Boston Legal got going that ABC leaned hard into dramas again.

Maybe Major Dad could have been the Sat lead in to Family Man?

Although Sat was no longer a priority for the networks.

This was early in the season but changes were already being made.

CBS

Evening Shade which started on Fri @8 was moved to Mon @8 to replace Uncle Buck that wasn't working Mon. Puzzled why they didn't move Major Dad forward a half hour as it was the stronger show. Try Uncle Buck @ 8.30Mon.

Uncle Buck was moved to Fri but didn't do any better.

The Wed lead in of Lenny/Doctor,Doctor were quickly canned and 48 Hours was moved from Sat.

Earth Force and 48 Hours Sat 9-11 were replaced by Beverly Hills Cop 2

NBC

Fanelli Boys and Dear John were quickly swapped on Wed 9-10 in the hopes that amore familiar show would draw viewers. Puzzled why NBC would think Fanelli Boys was strong enough to be the 9pm show.

ABC

They were keeping things in place but shows like Married People, Cop Rock, China Beach were headed for the axe.

 

5 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Puzzled why NBC would think Fanelli Boys was strong enough to be the 9pm show.

Politics. The Fanelli Boys was from Touchstone Television, and was the follow-up series from four former writers-producers of The Golden Girls (Barry Fanaro & Mort Nathan and Kathy Speer & Terry Grossman). On paper, it probably seemed just much a sure thing as Wings.