What TV shows are you mourning?

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What shows just aren't as good as they used to be? Do you get attached to television programs so that you're sad when they get cancelled or start to suck, or are you pretty good at accepting that it's just a damn TV show?

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000

Answers

Yes, I know this was a long time ago... But I really, really miss "Quantum Leap."

And don't give me that "Sliders is just as good" crap... Because it isn't. =P Sliders was a cheap knock-off on the Quantum Leap idea, and it was just BAD.

Also missing: Red Dwarf (they don't show it here anymore), Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot (a cartoon show that was VERY good and deserved to come back), Wildfire (a cheesy 80s cartoon that no one but me remembers), Gargoyles (another cartoon; the "reincartation" - Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicals - was a real stinker), and Sea Quest (gotta love Darwin!) Shows that I wish hadn't gone downhill: Voyager (I *hate* Seven of Nine), X-Files, and ER.

she's actual size

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000


I'm mourning Ally.

I know that no one EVER took this show seriously, but I used to LOVE LOVE LOVE it. There used to be a time when every single episode made me cry and I felt like the show was a mirror for my life. (Esp. the episode where Georgia thought she was pregnant, but she wasn't. Oh. My. Buddha. Rivers of tears.)

Lately, it's just pissing me off.

What the fuck is up with the inconsistencies?! Ally is bi-sexual (or at least acted like one long enough to kiss not just Elaine, not just Georgia, but LING too) but she's prejudiced against dating a bi-sexual man.

In the episode where Ling was being sued for her escort service Nell's big concern with John ordering a prostitute was: "What would you tell your kids?" HELLO!! You said last season that you never wanted kids! Ugh.

It's just become really annoying and frustrating. I just want her to find Mr. Right get married and have the show be done with already. Or at least bring back all the nifty special effect delusions. Yeah, they were delusions, but I'd rather watch her get speared by the dancing baby than watch her pour coffee on the head of a cappucino worker - errr coffee shop owner - errr JUDGE.

And I'm really fucking tired of her being thrown in jail.

Give me more That 70's Show and I'll be fine. (=

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000

Of course they're just TV shows. But since most of the time, the '75 channels and nothing on' adage goes, it's a good thing if occasionally something comes along that grabs your attention or at least manages to entertain you for a while. I never, ever cancel appointments to watch a TV show, but if it's a show I happen to enjoy, I do tape it.

Most of all, I really miss Deep Space Nine, although the seventh season wasn't quite as good as the first six, due to the departure of Terry Farrell. Then again, Voyager is still going strong (I adore Seven of Nine - she's the queen of deadpan remarks, but Janeway remains my favorite character) and undoubtedly there'll be another Trek incarnation in the future.

A show that really blew it for me was Ellen. Not because of the coming out thing in itself - nothing wrong with coming out in my book - but because it just took all the mindless fun out of the series, which is what I enjoyed about it in the first place. And Friends passed its expiration date about two years ago. That formula is just old, old, old.

I'm also probably the only person in the world who actually misses Love Boat - the Next Wave, and I can't offer an explanation for it either. I just enjoyed it. Sorry about that.....

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000


What TV do I miss? - Gone but not forgotten are Twin Peaks, On the Air (was that the name of the short-lived 1/2 comedy/drama David Lynch was involved with during the era of Twin Peaks?), Brooklyn Bridge, Square Pegs, Homefront, and My So-Called Life.

And now - apparently Freaks & Geeks since NBC keeps pre-empting it with that dumb 21 show.

Now I subsist on a TV diet of News Radio reruns (the ones with Phil Hartman) and Iron Chef on the food network. I still watch too much TV though...

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000


The original WKRP in Cincinnati. Yeah, that's some pretty serious denial. I began to accept the just-a-tv-show attitude about the time I became dependent on my wife's videotaping skills in order to catch some shows; some things are still a little vague, like setting the VCR to the right channel or pressing record AND play, or nothing happens. I can't gripe about that too hard because I failed to record last night's Buffy rerun. Hey, it's just TV. If it's good, they'll rerun it. Oh, wait, they did that...

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000


I am so embarassed to admit this, but, Melrose Place. I watched it from the very first episodes with the "other" Vanessa Williams. I did get absolutely ridiculous, but I still loved it. The one from my childhood would be Bewitched. I always thought I should be able to wiggle my nose so I could have anything I wanted. Ahh, that would be the life!

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000

I miss Xena. The show used to have some incredibly funny episodes and some solid action-adventure episodes along with a few lame "spiritual" episodes that I always avoided.

Now everything is spiritual and loving and, you know, some idiot's idea of What Women Want: babies and good friends and reincarnation and angels and plots that make no sense and aren't even funny.

I don't know if they changed writers one too many times or if someone was struck by lightning or if it's post-Bruce Campbell fallout. But I miss the butt-kicking Xena who didn't mess around with any of this quasi-Hindu Way Of The Warrior Mommy garbage. It's so depressing.

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000


"Cupid," "Quantum Leap," "Beauty and the Beast," 'Total Recall: 2070," "Babylon 5."

Though at least Bab 5 and Quantum Leap had bona fide _endings_.

Total Recall and Cupid were both canceled so we never got the answers to the questions that were being posed in the series.

And Beauty and the Beast had the _lamest_ ending/jumping point into "new revised series"

Sort of a poster child for good TV gone bad.

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000


Cupid for me too. I resent that we never did get to find out if he was really Cupid or just crazy. Ally McBeal is annoying me now, and I used to love it. I still watch WKRP and Rhoda and M*A*S*H on reruns, when I catch them. I missed a season of Reboot and now it completely confuses me. Anybody remember Max Headroom?

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000

Predictable of me, I know, but I miss Northern Exposure like nobody's business.

Everynow and again I'll see someone from the cast in a movie (two of them in "Smoke Signals") or an a tv show (Maurice is always on one thing or antoher) and I just want to cry. Although, admittably, after Fleischman turned trapper the show headed down hill.

Oh. And "ThirtySomething." I still kinda miss that show.

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000



I'll second the "Freaks and Geeks" nomination. It might be the best television show I have ever watched, and it is so going to get cancelled. It got pulled by NBC this fall, and now it has been pulled again for February sweeps.

Anyway, it's supposed to come back on March 13th. Every person I have told to watch it has loved it. But I'm trying not to get too attached because I know that it is going the way of the dinosaurs.

Also, The West Wing makes me feel like ER and Buffy used to. After watching an episode, I just sit there and say, "This is such a good show."

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000


I miss the first season of ER when it was actually about medical problems and interesting patients and less about romances among the doctors. Oh, there were some, but they didn't dominate the whole show.

I miss the first season of Twin Peaks - I was a total Peakie and everybody at work was too, and we'd talk about every show and speculate on what was going to happen next. It was great. I ought to get hold of tapes of that season and relive the whole thing.

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000


Twin Peaks. Quantum Leap. X-files before the movie.

*sob*

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000


Homicide. Homicide. Homicide. Fifth season and before, once Ballard's boobies and Falsone the boob showed up, it all went to hell. God, I miss Homicide. *sob*

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000

The Powers That Be. Wish it had at least lasted long enough for syndication, or for anyone else to have watched it.

Newsradio. (I didn't think it would be salvageable without Phil Hartman, but they managed to make it work)

Grand. It wasn't an amazing show, and I wouldn't have minded if it had ended shortly after it did, but they just dropped it without wrapping up any of the storylines, leaving two characters trapped down a well.

Brisco. Was my weekly dose of puns and explosions.

Most of the rest were allowed to finish with grace (Cheers, Night Court, Twin Peaks) or went on a season too long (Northern Exposure). I want to watch reruns, but I'm not really mourning.

As for going downhill... X-Files. Friends was, but has gotten a lot better this season. Frasier has completely lost me. I can't say I think Buffy has gone downhill this season, (because I thought the beginning of last season was so unutterably awful) although none of the recent episodes have really stood out. Lets not mention Angel, I'm still too bitter about Doyle.

Usually, when I see a show starting to go downhill I lose interest and stop watching without really realizing it, so I probably have forgotten about a number of shows I once liked, but that lost my interest after a time.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000



We flipped through the TV last night and I saw "Chicago Hope" was still running. The first season of that show had Mandy Patankin and Peter MacNichol, and whatsisname that plays Greg in "Dharma and Greg". It really wasn't about a hospital as much as it was drama with a lot of very very odd dry humor scenes with Patankin. I liked it better than ER at the time, but not many people agreed. They even referred to ER jokingly -- to spice up the hospital's P.R., an 'ad' was made which parodied ER's intro.

Then Patankin and MacNichol left, leaving the cast without any interesting range of personalities. I think the whole writing staff was replaced, and a bunch of poor actors got cycled through, and now it's a shallow soap opera with pretty young female and older male doctors with 'ripped from the headlines' overly emotional stories. What a piece of junk.

I got into 'Bablyon 5' too late. Very funny, stupid costumes and accents, flat acting. Dunno why I liked it, maybe it was the detailed storylines which built up and ebbed over the season.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000


I definitely miss the best show of the 1980s: MacGyver! I still want to see a MacGyver movie in theatres! I love this show. I also really miss Early Edition and I'm really mad at CBS for cancelling it. I also miss Quantum Leap. I really want this show to make a comeback. But this list goes on and on, so I'll just list some others: Knight Rider The A-Team The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. The Greatest American Hero Thundercats Transformers G.I. Joe Silverhawks Bravestarr Family Ties Full House Family Matters Charles in Charge Growing Pains The Six Million Dollar Man The Bionic Woman The Flash Wonder Woman The Incredible Hulk The Amazing Spider-Man Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Shazam Magnum, P.I. Matlock Ferris Bueller Saved By the Bell Saved By the Bell: The College Years Manimal Automan and so on and so on....... (basically just about any TV show or cartoon from the 80s except for Roseanne and soap operas)

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

I miss Tucker on NBC. It was a funny show and it got cancelled after like 6 episodes. I also miss Space Cases too. I know it was a stupid kids show on Nickelodeon but it was cool. I miss Early Edition also. Personally I think I'm bad luck for tv. Every time I get into a show it disappears. I really liked Tucker and it disappeared. I really got into Space Cases in the second season and that's when it got cancelled. And as soon as Early edition became my favorite show two episodes later it gets cancelled. Same thing with Normal, Ohio. But the shows you really hate stay on forever. Like I hate 7th heaven and it has been on for 5 seasons. Same thing happen to anybody else?

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

I miss Airwolf, and Macgyver. Those are the two that I still have'nt figured out why they were cancelled!

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2001

I miss X-Files when it had a sense of humor ("How come I never get to drive? How come I don't have a desk?"). I miss West Wing, because it seems as if they had about three new episodes this year and the rest has been this endless re-run extravaganza. I kinda miss Profiler (Sam's hair absolutely hypnotized me).

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2001

WKRP in Cincinnati. The show is so heavily edited for dialogue and music in reruns, that I want to cry. I doubt an official release will correct this in my lifetime. Maybe in a hundred or so years, when the music can be used free.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2001

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