Maybe This Time | ABC | 1995

September 1995 - February 1996

ABC | 18 episodes | Sitcom

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WHO'S IN IT? Marie Osmond, Betty White, Ashley Johnson, Amy Hill, Craig Ferguson

SYNOPSIS: The series stars Marie Osmond as Julia, a mother and recent divorcee running the family coffee shop/bakery with her mother Shirley (Betty White) while raising her 11-year-old daughter Gracie (Ashley Johnson). Rounding out the cast are Logan (Craig Ferguson), who works in the bakery of the coffee shop, and Kay (Hill), owner of the pawn shop down the street.

VERDICT: ★★★☆☆

Charming and witty at times, not too straitlaced - in the first episode, Betty White's character reveals how she's been able to get a good deal on her lease for the past how many years - acting out sexually fantasies with the landlord. The show debuted in the Top 20 but was soon lower down the ranks after a few episodes, so I'm guessing the jokes got tiresome fairly quickly?

I don't believe that I've seen Marie Osmond act in anything before, but she's not bad, and she plays off Betty White fairly well. Betty meanwhile is completely the opposite of her character in Golden Girls. I guess that was intentional. Ashley Johnson is just awful. Thankfully she has improved in the last 25 years, but here she's insufferable. Amy Hill giving her typical OTT Asian portrayal, while Craig Ferguson over plays his Scottish-ness.

CANCELLED TOO SOON? Yes, it's on par with a lot of shows that had several seasons.

Live Shot | UPN | 1995

August 1995 - November 1995

UPN | 13 episodes | Drama

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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.

Good Company | CBS | 1996

March - April 1996

CBS | 6 episodes | Sitcom

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WHO'S IN IT? Wendie Malick, Lauren Graham, Seymour Cassel

SYNOPSIS: Good Company was set at the offices of Blanton, Booker & Hayden, a Manhattan ad agency. Art director Will would rather be a serious painter than an ad man and his recent Cleo Award win has given him serious thought to changing career. However,  newly appointed creative director Zoe pooh-pooh's his plans to quit and assigns him to jazz up a new toilet-paper line (toilet paper with baking soda!). Other characters include Ron, the account director, Liz, another copywriter, Dale, a junior art director, and Bobby the agency's president and CEO.

Six episodes were made, and there's very little evidence of the show.

VERDICT: It's not bad, but there's nothing overly unique or stand out - it's a run of the mill workplace sitcom set in New York. For some reason the time is given in the corner of each scene - adds nothing. Wendie Malick plays Zoe, a high powered no-nonsense business woman. After Will tries to quit she tells him: "I think someone needs to remind you that this is a place of business. You can't just sit around and drink cappuccino and discuss your personal problems all day like you were a cast member of that show Friends, because I've got news for you - this isn't, and we ain't!"

CANCELLED BEFORE ITS TIME? Well...I like Wendie Malick, but the show didn't make an impression.

Dweebs | CBS | 1995

September - November 1995

CBS | 10 episodes | Sitcom

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WHO'S IN IT? Corey Feldman, Stephen Tobolowsky, David Kaufman

SYNOPSIS: Carey, someone who barely knows the difference between microchip and potato chip, takes a job as an office manager at a fictional Seattle software company called Cyberbyte. The company is raking in enough money to move from its oil-stained garage headquarters – shades of Woz and Jobs – into a clean, modern, office building. Carey does most of her interacting with Cyberbyte’s trio of wisecracking, jargon-spouting programmers - the "dweebs" - whiny, neurotic Morley, clueless, sheltered Karl, and snarky, sleazy Vic. 

I'm only onto the D's here and this is the 7th CBS show that didn't last longer than the 1995-96 TV season. Ten episodes were produced but only seven aired. 

VERDICT: Not bad - in the first episode Carey throws a party which gives an introduction to the Dweebs - Vic, a know-it-all type (played by Corey Feldman), whose form of social chit chat is to tell someone: "the leather they use in German cars causes rectal warts in mice," the Dick Solomon type Karl (played by Stephen Tobolowsky), who turns up wearing a cape and later entertains the guests playing boogie woogie on the piano, and Morley, who when told he's a little early, sits in the hall rocking back-and-forth, later asking one of Carey's friends: "I've heard that women who've known each other a long time their menstrual cycles become synchronized". 

Kathy Griffin plays a party guest who spends the evening avoiding the dweebs, later telling Carey when she urges her friends to speak with the Dweebs: "Carey, I have two regrets in life - I never learned to play the piano, and I didn't leave this party an hour ago!"

CANCELLED BEFORE ITS TIME? I guess the timing was wrong for the subject matter - 1995 was just on the cusp of the home computer use. Broadcast and cancelled before its time!

The Crew | FOX | 1995

August 1995 - June 1996

FOX | 21 episodes | Sitcom

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WHO'S IN IT? The only actor I recognise is Christine Estabrook

SYNOPSIS: The Crew, created by Marc Cherry, follows the lives of a group of flight attendants working for the fictitious Regency Airlines. Jess and Maggie work together and are roommates in South Beach, Miami. Their colleagues include Paul, who is gay (and it's mentioned several times); Randy, a southern ladies' man; Lenora, former flight attendant now supervisor; and Captain Rex, the airline's new pilot.

The show aired consistently from September 1995 through January 1996, returning in May for a further five episodes. So I'm guessing it was cancelled after the first season aired.

VERDICT: From the outset, the studio audience - possibly rented from Married With Children - ruin everything and are practically pissing themselves laughing at jokes that are just not that funny. One joke, which would not fly today (get it - fly?) is between supervisor Lenora and Paul - he says to her: "We were all just noticing that you don't cast a shadow" she snarkily replies: "Dear Paul, dear sweet heterosexually challenged, Paul! I so admire gay humour. It's so witty, so biting...so illegal in 37 states!" Another gay pun is when Paul, trying to guess if the new pilot is gay, says "I'm getting mixed signals on my Gaydar!" leading the audience to laugh and groan, almost in a sickened way.

CANCELLED BEFORE ITS TIME? No. Not Mark Cherry's best work. The show is very "early days of FOX".

Can't Hurry Love | CBS | 1995

September 1995 - February 1996

CBS | 19 episodes | Sitcom

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WHO'S IN IT? Nancy McKeon, Mariska Hargitay

SYNOPSIS: The series is about Annie (a Monica Gellar type), a single, thirty-something living in New York City and her three friends (no, it's not Sex and the City). The general premise of the series centers around Annie's search for romance in the big city.

Most of the action takes place in either Annie's small studio apartment or the employment agency she manages. Supporting characters included Roger and Elliot (Think Joey and Ross) who work with her at the agency, and Didi (somewhere between Rachel and Phoebe), the slaggy free spirit of the group, who often lives across the hallway from Annie (in the pilot she's on hand with a roll of condoms).

VERDICT: Definitely CBS' attempt at Friends: 30-somethings living in New York City, hanging around one apartment. I think looking back 25 years later, this is one of the shows you can say "I wish it had more episodes". Two episodes of the show reference Maxwell Sheffield from The Nanny, almost insisting upon that they share the same New York universe. 

CANCELLED BEFORE ITS TIME? Yes, it's not Friends, but it has its moments, for example: In the pilot, Annie feeds a couple of pigeons on her windowsill, naming them Bill and Hillary. "how can you tell them apart?" asks one of her colleagues, "Bill is the one banging the blue jay"

The Bonnie Hunt Show | CBS | 1995

September 1995 - April 1996

CBS | 13 episodes | Sitcom

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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.

Almost Perfect | CBS | 1995

September 1995 - October 1996

CBS | 34 episodes | Sitcom

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WHO'S IN IT? Nancy Travis and Kevin Kilner.

SYNOPSIS: the series focused on the professional life of the female executive producer of a television cop show, her witty, zany staff which doubled as her family, and initially, how she balanced her high-powered role with that of her newfound romance with a busy assistant D.A. 

VERDICT: Actually, not bad. The show had moderate success for the first season, but it seems due to a regime change and claims that Travis and Kilner lacked chemistry, format changes were abound and the plug was pulled.

CANCELLED BEFORE ITS TIME? Yes, well, it's typical sitcom of the 90s - mid-30s female in the workplace looking for love, but the jokes were sharp and witty.