New York News | CBS | 1995

September - November 1995

CBS | 13 episodes (5 unaired) | Drama

WATCH EPISODE TWO | MORE INFO

WHO'S IN IT? Mary Tyler Moore, Madeline Kahn, Melina Kanakaredes

SYNOPSIS: New York News is the story of the fictional New York Reporter, a struggling tabloid in the US's largest, most competitive newspaper market - New York City.

VERDICT: ★★★☆☆

The saxophone theme tune, the fashion, the newsroom as a setting...could this be anymore 90s?! 

Mary Tyler Moore, the woman who can “turn the world on with her smile,” leads the cast as the tough-as-nails newspaper editor Louise Felcott, so disliked that she’s universally known as “the Dragon.” Mary apparently felt that her character's storylines were not fully fledged and wanted out of her contract, though she enjoyed the opportunity to play against type.

In this episode, Madeline Kahn's character, gossip columnist Nan Chase, sets up a date with the uber-90s media personality Fabio so he can give his side of the story after she writes in her column: "Shirley MacLaine last night with Fabio twisted around each other like two pretzels!". After she's schmoozed by Fabio and a correction submitted, she's later stood up. Furious, Nan dashes into Louise's office to demand that they stop the presses so she can edit her column into a vicious Fabio evisceration, even offering to "pull the lever" herself. Looking for support, she asks Louise the last time she was stood up. "I'm not sure I ever was stood up," she answers. Nan takes a beat, and then says, "Oh...thank you for that." Of course, "The Dragon" is having none of it and tells her: “If Jesus himself were to walk through that door to announce his second coming, I wouldn’t stop the press.”

CANCELLED TOO SOON? I liked it but there may have been too much going on at one point. There were about 3-4 different storylines running at the same time - the Fabio one, one about sweatshops in Chinatown, another about a cross-dressing congressman, and then Louise being forced to submit to an efficiency evaluation from a new middle manager. Not only that, another character was shot at the end of the episode. Was it drama? Comedy? Comedy-drama? I wasn't sure. The show was aired on the same night as Seinfeld during its 7th season, yes The Soup Nazi season, so it's no wonder it didn't catch on.

Live Shot | UPN | 1995

August 1995 - November 1995

UPN | 13 episodes | Drama

WATCH EPISODE | MORE INFO

WHO'S IN IT? Jeff Yagher, Cheryl Pollak, Bruce McGill, Wanda De Jesus, Hill Harper, Sam Anderson, et. al.

SYNOPSIS: "In the television news business, there's one hard and fast rule: you're only as good as your next...LIVE SHOT"

Live Shot is a fast-paced ensemble drama focusing on the staff of a Los Angeles television newsroom. As the series opens, Alex Rydell is about to begin his first day as KXZX Channel 3's news director. He's moved from Boston to Los Angeles with his young son in tow, leaving behind a dissolving marriage in the process. 

In the first episode, the team uncover a police cover-up involving the murder of a local socialite (which was followed over in a story-arc not resolved by the end of the show), later on in the episode a bomb goes off in the newsroom - nicknamed "the chopped liver bomb" - the origins of which were also carried over into a later episode.

VERDICT: The ensemble cast is interesting, although a little busy. The show has major network quality, although very mid-90s: full-screen graphics of the show's title in/out of each commercial break, and flashy jump cuts set to a pop music soundtrack (The "Do be do be do do dos" from Annie Lennox's "No More I Love You's" play through the episode, then later changing to her 1995 single "I Can't Get Next To You", and then the episode closing with "Why" also by Lennox - I guess someone was a fan!). The storyline of Alex and his son is a little boring, but the episode otherwise makes up for it.

At the time of the show's launch, UPN was a fairly brand new network and attempting to branch out into different genres - it's most successful show at the time was Star Trek Voyager. In the case of Live Shot, it's cancelation was more that viewers were not aware of the show, rather than a testament to the quality of the show.

CANCELLED BEFORE ITS TIME? Yes! Deserved much better. Thankfully, all episodes are on YouTube.

The Bonnie Hunt Show | CBS | 1995

September 1995 - April 1996

CBS | 13 episodes | Sitcom

WATCH EPISODE | MORE INFO

WHO'S IN IT? Bonnie Hunt (Jumani was released December 1995, while this show was on the air)

SYNOPSIS:  Bonnie Hunt played Bonnie Kelly, a television reporter who moves from Wisconsin to take a job with a local TV station in Chicago. In addition to the stories surrounding her personal life and her life at the station, each episode showed one of Bonnie's television news features, where she would interview real people. For example, in the pilot episode, Bonnie says to a young African-American girl with dreadlocks: "I love your work in Sister Act".

It seems it ran for 6 episodes before being put on hiatus and returned with some retooling.

VERDICT: Not bad, the first episode pretty much captured the first day nerves of starting at a new job - not knowing where things are, who you're working with, etc. The setting was Chicago, but felt more of a New York type of show. The scene where Bonnie is talking to her neighbour over the alleyway, their windows barely a foot apart, living cheek by jowl, is something you're going to get in any metropolis really. 

CANCELLED BEFORE ITS TIME? I'd watch more episodes.