barely remembered, semi-obscure television shows

Richard Benjamin's return to series television seemed like a sure-fire hit. 'Star Wars' was an unparallelled cultural phenomenon in late 1977 and the networks were sure that science-fiction was back for them in a big way. Rather than risk a huge investment on a hour-long serious science-fiction project, NBC wanted a half-hour comedy that was set in outer space. A perfect vehicle to replace the under-performing 'Sanford Arms' that was killing their winning Friday night line-up of Chico, Rockford, and Quincy.

Benjamin was cast a series about a garbage scow in outer space done in 'Star Wars' style. The humor would be broad but reasonably sophisticated, with lots of sardonic asides to make the show palatable to people who didn't care for science fiction - and for those that did, Benjamin had science-fiction "credentials" with his 'Westworld' acting turn. The new show was called Quark.

The cast was a galactically diverse one. Richard Benjamin starred as Adam Quark, commander of the garbage scow for the United Galaxy Sanitation Patrol space station 'Perma One'. His assistants are: Ficus (Richard Kelton), the plant organism science officer, Betty I and Betty II (Trisha and Cyb Barnstable), identical gorgeous cloned twin sisters, and Andy (Bobby Porter), a malfunctioning, cowardly robot that was more trouble than he was worth.

The first mate Gene/Jean (Timothy Thomerson), a half-man half woman person that was constantly fighting with him/herself - making this sitcom a sort of 'He and He/She' in outer space.

Orders for the missions would come from a disembodied head known as 'The Head' (Alan Cailou), that would appear on the ship's video screen, and from Otto Palidrome (Conrad Janis from 'Mork and Mindy'), the ships persnickety architect.

The cast of Quark' worked well together, the scripts were good, and the reviews were excellent. But 'Quark' failed to attract many viewers, so later episodes brought more action, with the garbage scow's crew facing Zorgon the Malevolent and other deadly outer-space adversaries.

This did nothing to lure viewers away from Lynda Carter's boobs bouncing around on CBS and Donny and Marie's pearly whites on ABC. 'Quark' finished dead last on Friday nights despite heavy promotion from NBC and despite the show being the wittiest send-up of science fiction ever attempted on television.

Everyone involved was shocked that 'Quark' didn't catch on, but the network simply fell back on their contention that science-fiction doesn't work on television. This was Richard Benjamin's last series to date.

throb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090533/

for years i thought i'd imagined it. thank you, google.

"feel the beat, feel the beat, feel the heartbeat...THROB"

http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Oregon_Kara_Ai

I have never met anyone else who recalls seeing this show:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherworld_%28TV_series%29

Also: AutoMan

Quark, I remember Quark.

Mr. Merlin!

Just Our Luck!

Brother's Keeper is a television series that aired from 1998 to 1999 on ABC. This sitcom was about Porter Waide (William Ragsdale), a single father who raises his son, Oscar (Justin Cooper). At the same time, though, he must keep his brother, Bobby (Sean O'Bryan), a notorious placekicker for the San Fransisco 49ers, out of trouble. It was produced by Axelrod-Widdoes Productions and Donald Todd Productions in association with Studios USA Television.

This was actually pretty funny, esp. the guy who played Bobby.

did anyone else ever see 'Whitney and the Robot'? Early-mid 80's, kind of a semi-educational live action sitcom starring bespectacled Whitney and a really low budget R2D2 looking thing. It came on at like 5 am before saturday morning cartoons, don't know how wide a syndication it got.

Silk Stalkings is a 1990s TV crime drama originally shown on CBS in 1991 as part of the network's late-night Crimetime After Primetime programming package, and rebroadcast on the USA Network. After CBS ended the Crimetime experiment in 1993, the series ran exclusively on USA. The show was created by the prolific crime-show producer Stephen J. Cannell, perhaps best known for The Rockford Files and The A-Team. On the DVD extras, Cannell pointed out that of the 40 or more TV shows he has created, this one had the longest run, eight seasons.

Portraying the daily lives of two detectives who solved sexually-based crimes of passion ("silk stalkings") among the ultra-rich people of Palm Beach, Florida, the tightly-budgeted Silk Stalkings was not actually filmed in Florida. Most episodes were shot in San Diego, California. Some shows were filmed in Scottsdale, Arizona.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Stalkings

"notorious placekicker"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Doctor_%281989_TV_series%29

haha, yeah! As the series starts, he's fresh out of rehab and the Niners are willing to give him ONE LAST SHOT in the pros. He has a sexy female agent and the brother is a college professor. (xpost)

I remember Doctor Doctor. It starred Max Headroom.

Meego was a short-lived 1997 science fiction comedy that aired on CBS. It starred Bronson Pinchot (Perfect Strangers) in the title role. Meego was a 9,000-year-old shape-shifting alien from the planet "Marmazon 4.0" who winds up living with a human family after his ship crashes. Meego does not want anyone to know that he is extraterrestrial, and tells people he is from Canada instead.

* Bronson Pinchot .... Meego
* Ed Begley Jr. .... Dr. Edward Parker
* Erik von Detten .... Trip Parker #1
* Will Estes .... Trip Parker #2
* Michelle Trachtenberg .... Maggie Parker
* Jonathan Lipnicki .... Alex Parker

o_O

I remember "Mr. Merlin."

How 'bout:

Ohara was an American television police drama series that first aired on the ABC television network from January 17, 1987, until May 7, 1988, starring Pat Morita in the title role of Lt. Ohara. Morita also co-created the series along with Michael Braveman and John A. Kuri. Kevin Conroy, Jon Polito, Rachel Ticotin, and Robert Clohessy also starred in supporting roles. It was notable for being one of the first television series to have a Japanese-American actor in the leading role.

The series focused on a Los Angeles-based Japanese American police lieutenant (played by Pat Morita) who uses spiritual methods such as meditation to solve crimes without the use of a gun or a partner although he would use martial arts if necessary. He often talked in the form of epigrams.

Small Wonder!

i cannot remember any of these shows but i vaguely remember nbc doing this weird thing in 1986 or something where they started their prime-time shows at 6:30/7:30 instead of 7/8, and filled the half-hour slot with crappy sitcoms. does that ring a bell?

is that when "Kate & Allie" aired?

Sledgehammer!

herman's head!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101115/

any Space: Above and Beyond fans up in this piece?

i swear, there was some show starring loni anderson involved. easy money? easy street?

easy street i think

this was my fave show as a kid:

They Came From Outer Space:

I remember lazy Saturday afternoons watching this sitcom.

I already knew it back then ( i think i was a freshman in high school) that this show was never really planned to be anything great. I mean, I recognized half the background locations as Universal Studio Tour backdrops!!! ...but that's what i loved about it! I loved how they always ended up in the dumbest situations, I loved how they ended up with the ladies, and I loved their catchy song they would sing... "Bye, GoodBye, I'll see you...Bye GoodBye I'll See you..." Hahaha...Just thinking about that show brings back so many great memories.

Unfortunately, the actors that played Bo and Abe didn't really "make it" in Hollywood after this show. I believe one of them played Stiles in TeenWolf, and the other was in Mark Harmon's "Summer School", but that's pretty much the last I saw of them.

NBC's original Heroes:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089602/

Plot summary for
Misfits of Science (1985) (TV)

Drs. Hayes and Lincoln are researchers in biological oddities for the Humanidyne company. When they find a man still alive after being frozen for 50 years, their greedy boss fires them and takes the Iceman to use for military experiments. Left without jobs, Hayes and Lincoln decide to get a group of "freaks" (including a telekinetic 17-year-old and a rock guitarist who shoots lightning from his hands) together to rescue the Iceman and stop their boss' reckless experiments.

Filthy Rich, All is Forgiven, and Condo all come to mind right away

i just remembered this crappy 'empty nest' spinoff called 'nurses', which was the last of the 'benson'-style sitcoms.

Okay... this one has been bugging me for years. Anyone remember a very short-lived TV show from the (I believe) late 80s about dudes the rode around in a semi with a helicopter that lifted out of the top of it? I think they also had a car that rolled out of the back. No, it wasn't Airwolf or Knight Rider. The semi was like this sleek, futurustic thing with a curved roof that opened up to let the helicopter out. Also, it wasn't the MASK cartoon either.

maybe this??

The Highwayman was an action-adventure themed television series starring Sam J. Jones, set in "the near future." It was created by Glen A. Larson and Douglas Heyes. The pilot aired in September 1987, and was followed by a short-lived series of nine episodes, with significant changes to the cast and format, that ran from March until May 1988. It was summed up by many reviewers as a cross between Mad Max and Knight Rider (the latter being Larson's previous hi-tech hit).

The movie and subsequent series follow the adventures of "The Highwayman", one of a mysterious group of U.S. Marshals conducting crime-fighting missions and solving bizarre mysteries. Each Highwayman is equipped with a hi-tech, multi-functioned truck.

Opening narration:

"There is a world, just beyond now, where reality runs a razor thin seam between fact and possibility; where the laws of the present collide with the crimes of tomorrow. Patrolling these vast outlands is a new breed of lawman, guarding the fringes of society’s frontiers, they are known simply as "Highwaymen"... and this is their story..."
The 1987 Pilot movie stars Sam Jones, best known—blonde haired—for playing the title role of Flash Gordon in the 1980 movie, and who had appeared in guest roles in series such as The A-Team and Riptide. Playing the lead, only known simply as "The Highwayman" (or "Highway"), he drives a large black computerized truck with a bullet-shaped cabin, which actually belongs to a concealed helicopter (an Aérospatiale Gazelle) which can detach from the rest of the truck. (Also seen in a couple of subsequent episodes, a futuristic sports car also came out of the rear of the truck).

Hahah, wasn't that the series that costarred Jocko from the Energizer ads? TOO RIGHT!

omg jocko!

70's kids PBS shows; Vegatable Soup and Villa Alegre.

Thank you Omar... that's been driving me crazy. Now I know I wasn't crazy. Well, in this regard anyway.

i used to get up really early on saturday mornings and there was this show that confused the fuck out of this irish-catholic kid, yet i would always watch it.

The Magic Door (also known as The Magic Door Television Theatre) was a Jewish educational television series aimed at providing kiruv (outreach) to Jewish children in the Chicago, Illinois metropolitan area. The show was produced by the Jewish Federation of Chicago; and premiered January 1, 1962. The show ran weekly until January 1, 1982 that aired at 7:00 AM every Sunday morning on WBBM-TV.

Background Information

The main characters of the series included "Tiny Tov" (a character "reduced" to appear as a kind of elf), and two hand puppets named "Scrunch" and "Judy". Tiny lived in a house that was made out of an acorn, the entrance was "The Magic Door".

Each week, Tiny Tov would travel back through time riding his Magic Feather. Each week he would educate Jewish children on Jewish history, sharing stories from Torah.

Every episode would include a brief Hebrew lesson, stepping through the Aleph-Bet (Hebrew alphabet).

Tiny Tov was played by Charles Gerber, who also created the song lyrics. Gerber, currently resides in New York.

Chaki! For U:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2RSu9Gw61U

And for everyone, really.

some show in the late 80's with an english actor playing a butler...it was a syndicated sitcom. I can't remember the actor's name, he was tall and blonde and the last time I saw him was on an episode of frasier. it was awful

also, some sitcom based in a supermarket. I think this was canadian. I thought don adams was in it but imdb isn't helping out.

x-post -- Jacko, apparently, being his name.

thx ned! hey la people who remember awesome kids local show THE FROOZLES?!?!

also, "it's your move", starring jason bateman and steve from married with children (I think), about which I remember nothing other than a two part episode with a fake rock band that was made out of skeletons

more remembered sitcoms:

'fm' starring robert hays -- sort of the missing link between wkrp and newsradio, if i recall correctly.

'the powers that be' -- political sitcom w/david hyde pierce and some other dudes.

also, 'out of the blue', a late 70's sitcom about an angel

"War of the Worlds" 1980s TV series (basically "V" tempered by "Aliens")

its your move is classic. the skeletons thing you are thinking of was j batemans recreating the grateful dead video

i think that's what it was anyway...A Different World came on after Cosby at one point too, and Wings was in there at some point.

lol we watched Nurses too. remember my bro and I would go in grandma's room to watch something else instead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY81WYZ-Z_M

The series revolved around a group of nurses working at the same Miami hospital as Empty Nest's Dr. Harry Weston. Initially, the main characters were strong-willed nurse Annie Roland (Arnetia Walker), sarcastic nurse Sandy Miller (Stephanie Hodge), dim-witted nurse Julie Milbury (Mary Jo Keenen) and Latina nurse Gina Cuevas (Ada Maris) who frequently reminisced about her homeland, the fictional San Pequeño.

they had all the types of characters: strong-willed, sarcastic, dim-witted, latina

Ah yes, Saint Little.

lmao

"Salvage 1" Sci-Fi junkyard series starring Andy Griffith,

OMG, we used to love Salvage 1. Starring Joel Higgins, the dad from Silver Spoons!

I remember "Salvage 1," except in my parallel universe it was called "Quark" and starred Richard Benjamin.

I recently saw a social-media post that showed a TV guide page from back in the day. Unfortunately it was a Saturday, so it wasn't representative, but I was warmed by seeing "Gimme a Break" on there.

Among the best theme songs IMO: tidy, concise. "I sure deserve it."

Yes, you do. Nell. RIP.

The Nightmare Man - written by Dr. Who contributor Robert Holmes and adapted from the 1978 novel Child of Vodyanoi by David Wiltshire. A serial is set on a small Scottish island, where the population is gripped by fear following a series of savage murders and the discovery of a strange craft on the local beach.

I remember watching this with my parents back in 1981. It was quite scary. Dad was disappointed by the ending.

For ages, I had forgotten most of the details about this, and it was the BBC mentioning that it was the 70th anniversary of Quatermass which reminded me. I knew there were more modern incarnations of Quatermass, after the original 50s eps which weren't even recorded, or were wiped, and wondered if it was one of those.

Hart of the Yard - this was a short lived US series where a UK cop played by Ron Moody went to work in a US precinct (in San Francisco, as it turns out, I remembered in falsely as New York). For ages I couldn't find out anything about this, largely coz in the US it was called Nobody's Perfect (and they had to change the name coz there had been a UK comedy called that).

Only thing I did remember about it other than the premise was him entering the room, putting his hat on the hatstand and knocking something over and then asking "Did I do that?". Which I found hilarious, but I was 9.

Ark II

We had a Crime Story thread: I Wah-wah-wah-wah-wonder What ILX Thinks of "CRIME STORY"

I had a crush on Bernadette Peters in my youth but even that couldn't save All's Fair, a minor Norman Lear production featuring Peters and Richard Crenna as a mismatched couple yelling about their political and generational differences. It lasted one season 1976-77.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FivmnKyfpIE

xp Thanks for the link. I vaguely remember a huge narrative and stylistic shift when the series moved to Vegas in S2.

The same basic material for Crime Story also provided the basis for the true crime book Scorsese adapted for Casino.

Fewer Atomic bombs in Casino

Thought recently of the 10-episode Keri Russell teen soap, Malibu Shores, circa 1996. Class conflict between the valley kids and Malibu kids. Christian Campbell was also in it, and frankly was the main reason my gay-ass 11 year old self watched.

Bernadette Peters was very crushable.

Almost forgot all about that show.

There was a show I saw once in the mid-later 80s, a BBC thing... I only recall this one episode about a haunted radio station, where the DJ was being phoned up by a ghost or bothered by one (maybe ala "play misty for me"?) Anyway all I recall elswise is "Ghosts" by Japan was played in it at one point. Does that ring bells for anyone?

― Bloompsday (Trayce), Saturday, July 23, 2011

No one ever did comment on this/help me out. Still don't know what the show was. it was kind of like a much-dinkier "Inside No 9".

Ah! But that somehow reminds me of an obscure show I do recall (had to Google it a bit)

"Mission: Magic", featuring a cartoon Rick Springfield!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxY-XEv2BuM

My brother sent me a clip recently from the Paul Lynde Show. I'm not sure I ever knew he had a show. It probably deserves to languish in obscurity, but he really did have a pretty perfect sense of comedic timing.

I have at least one bit from the trailer for that burned in brain.

Malibu Shores is the ultimate in "I've seen them in something else but I need to check with IMDB" casting

I had a crush on Bernadette Peters in my youth but even that couldn't save All's Fair, a minor Norman Lear production featuring Peters and Richard Crenna as a mismatched couple yelling about their political and generational differences. It lasted one season 1976-77.

Speaking of obscure Lear shows, but one of my pet annoyances is when people talk about "Hello Larry" like McLean Stevenson quit MASH so he could do that show. It was his _third_ post-MASH show, following "The McLean Stevenson Show" and "In The Beginning", a Lear show starring McLean Stevenson as a priest which was cancelled after 5 years. After "Hello Larry" Stevenson inexplicably got one more shot with "Condo" in '83.

I've never seen "Hello Larry", but reading about it, it looks like an example of my favorite '70s phenomenon - take a flop show and completely change the premise, characters, and plot in the hopes it will be successful. (As far as I can tell this literally never worked.) Look at this fantastic revamp:

In addition, various supporting characters were added in the apartment building where Larry and the girls lived; these included a neighbor, Leona (Ruth Brown), who usually did not approve of Larry's parenting; Tommy (John Femia), a purportedly worldly wise teenage boy who became a love interest for Ruthie; Larry's widowed father (Fred Stuthman), who moved in with the younger Alders; and former Harlem Globetrotters player Meadowlark Lemon as himself, running a local sporting-goods store in the series (believed to be an attempt to boost ratings with African-American audiences who had tuned in for Diff'rent Strokes).[6] None of these changes, nor a two-part episode in which Larry's ex-wife Marian (Shelley Fabares) tried to reconcile with him, were enough to save the show.

They also had Stevenson guest-star on "Diff'rent Strokes" to try and get people to watch the show. God, they tried with that one.

Other examples of this from the '70s are Mrs. Columbo/Kate Columbo/Kate Loves A Mystery, Temperatures Rising, and perhaps most infamously, Supertrain, which was revamped _twice_ in nine episodes. Supertrain was a terrible show (I do have bootleg DVD-Rs of the complete run, some of them from the original broadcasts - it was rerun on A&E in the late '80s and some are from those rebroadcasts), and but its creative team gets more flack than they deserve. First off, MASS TRANSIT IS GREAT AND WE NEED MORE OF IT, ok obligatory leftist bit done. Second off Fred Silverman... maybe it was a terrible idea done badly, but Silverman was also behind the "Rural Purge", a really pivotal moment in history... the racial implications of the Rural Purge are often ignored and overlooked, and I think it's worthy of consideration. Third off Dan Curtis flopped with the show, but come on, Dark Shadows. Wouldn't you give the guy behind Dark Shadows all of the money in your bank account to make a TV show? I would!

And of course the concept has had further life. The Bollywood film "The Burning Train" has a sort of similar Irwin Allen disaster movie/supertrain premise, and then of course there's Snowpiercer...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7hTET3tbNQ

take a flop show and completely change the premise, characters, and plot in the hopes it will be successful. (As far as I can tell this literally never worked.)

I think Cougar Town did something like this, keeping only the title and Courteney Cox. Also, didn't Ellen do something like this after the first season?

Third off Dan Curtis flopped with the show, but come on, Dark Shadows. Wouldn't you give the guy behind Dark Shadows all of the money in your bank account to make a TV show?

Never got into Dark Shadows, but Dan Curtis made some terrific occult-horror movies - TV and theatrical: The Norliss Tapes, the Kolchak movies, Burnt Offerings, Curse of the Black Widow

a lot of the pairings mentioned sound familiar to me but Diff'rent Strokes was always paired with Silver Spoons for me

I watched Hello Larry regularly but could not even say which iteration I watched, that's how little it stuck with me. I basically recall McLean Stevenson and a microphone.

Adam-12 and Emergency! another frequent pairing. And it's odd bc in some ways they occupied the same fictional LA, but in other ways didn't... sometimes actors appeared in both playing different characters, and sometimes the same characters.

One Adam Twelve, one Adam Twelve

Dragnet occupied that same fictional space.

All three of them Jack Webb productions - he was fond of reusing the same actors over and over again.

Jack Webb's quote about "if it's a government agency that has a seal, then I can make a series about it" totally OTM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Hara,_U.S._Treasury
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_(1973_TV_series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_D.A._(1971_TV_series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hec_Ramsey

this is what Nickelodeon thought was both edgy and hip for adults

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jLtFpkjwsU

xp Yeah, the two Adam-12 cops also appeared on the other two shows as the same cops, but then for example William Boyett played two different regular characters on Adam-12 and Emergency!. Virginia Gregg played 14 different characters on Dragnet alone! (And also multiple characters on the other two shows).

Never got into Dark Shadows, but Dan Curtis made some terrific occult-horror movies - TV and theatrical: The Norliss Tapes, the Kolchak movies, Burnt Offerings, Curse of the Black Widow

― Elvis Telecom

i want to give it another try at some point, it almost seems like a us version of sixties doctor who

re: same actors, etc - i miss tv shows being shot in new york, shows like law and order had a whole different set of bit players because of where it was filmed

never seen it all the way through but the 1948 film _he walked by night_ is very proto-dragnet and i appreciate that about it

The Night Stalker is justly not forgotten.

Dark Shadows was also shot in NYC, as were most US soaps in the '60s. What's most amazing about that show is the conditions under which it was produced. They basically shot it like a play in real time, using the commercial breaks to switch sets and sometimes change costumes. There was post-editing only for very egregious mistakes.

^cool!

I once saw a (barely remembered, semi-obscure) comedian deliver a rapid-fire monologue about how many sitcoms were based on a cliche title.

AllsFairDifferentStrokesFactsOfLifeFamilyTiesSilverSpoonsGiveMeABreak...

Dark Shadows was also shot in NYC, as were most US soaps in the '60s. What's most amazing about that show is the conditions under which it was produced. They basically shot it like a play in real time, using the commercial breaks to switch sets and sometimes change costumes. There was post-editing only for very egregious mistakes.

― Josefa

right, that's more-or-less how sixties doctor who was... early tv productions were actually often called "teleplays". they, uh, didn't do a lot of editing in post. switched between cameras live, etc., etc. by the time of "the claws of axos" they would at least stop and restart shooting, but my recollection is that if you look at the doctor who pilot, there's a whole chunk of it that was filmed twice because there was a sound error. they were only doing 40 some-odd episodes a year, mind you, so they would at least _rehearse_ the scripts beforehand, but it was still a pretty quick turnaround.

Noodles, that pairing works too! One of the half-remembered joys of that era was that you could mix and match like Garanimals. Lots of combinations were plausible. The point (to me) is that programmers cared, and they used actual human thought to construct a lineup that would keep viewers engaged and keep them from flipping to another channel.

So many afternoons just lying on an ugly carpet and eating terrible food. We didn't know how good we had it.

One time, deep into one of those endless sitcom runs, my sister asked me to go get her a Klondike bar. I rode my bike to 7-11 and got (gently) hit by a car. When I returned an hour later, she asked me why it took so long. Good times (to coin a phrase). Nowadays I lack the required attention span for most tv but there was definitely a sweet spot when my receptiveness for entertainment matched the entertainment I had access to. I doubt it will ever happen again.

Relatedly, Dan Peterson, you may wish to read Derek Thompson's book Hit Makers on the optimal balance between familiarity and novelty. A lot of time is spent on the work of the industrial designer Bernard Loewy, who had a principle called MAYA (most advanced yet acceptable).

Kate, the aforementioned book goes into some mildly interesting history about how so much early television was, basically, filmed radio.

The thing that saved radio was: cars.

Kate, the aforementioned book goes into some mildly interesting history about how so much early television was, basically, filmed radio.

The thing that saved radio was: cars.

― Exit, pursued by a beer (Ye Mad Puffin)

i've put it on my list even though it has possibly one of _the_ most off-putting blurbs i can think of:

Description:
“This book picks up where The Tipping Point left off." -- Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of ORIGINALS and GIVE AND TAKE

i'm definitely interested in the social effects of technology but there's this whole Jared Diamond argument that reduces all of history to technological innovations. the point of view that says that the long history of slavery in america is due to the invention of the cotton gin making slavery economically feasible. fucking clean wehrmacht bullshit, slavery in america isn't just because of eli whitney, it's because _america is foundationally a white supremacist ethnostate founded on the notion that Black people should be considered property_.

and for that matter... to bring it back full circle... a lot of the reason sixties doctor who survives as much as it does was because, and this isn't widely acknowledged, the show was distributed as a form of british imperialist propaganda, and it _does_ seem like _hit makers_ talks about the way that social forces shape technology rather than the other way around, at least to some extent. like, the existence of television recordings owes a lot to desilu, as does a _lot_ of early television... we're most familiar with the system wherein networks commission pilots, but back in the 50s and 60s pilots were made by production companies, and desilu was one of the biggest pilot producers. on top of that, recorded television owes a lot of its existence to the desire (i think by desilu? maybe the network) to broadcast "i love lucy" on the west coast on a time delay.

(i'd really like to see a book with reviews of pilots that didn't go to series from the '50s through the '70s... i have a book just listing them, but i'm more interested in knowing which ones are standouts that never went to series.)

anyway, the way social forces affected doctor who. this is a special interest of mine - i can tell you about the difference between suppressed-field and stored-field methods of recording, though i don't have all the bicycle chains memorized. the root of my interest is the story about episode hunters calling up iran in the '80s and asking if they had any missing doctor who episodes. the sheer amounts of fucking privilege necessary to do that! imagine living in a world where the most important thing about iran was that they bought some episodes of 1960s doctor who.

one of the early companies that was responsible for sales of episodes to other countries was T.I.E. Limited. there are... suggestions that this company was also involved in intelligence operations. on top of that the episodes were distributed to the stations at really cheap prices. perhaps this was to serve as propaganda for the commonwealth, or perhaps it was simply to provide entertainment to the english population who went to those countries to uphold and preserve the british empire. there is, in fact, a belief that the reason "the crusade" is the only season 2 serial to not exist in its entirety was because it was thought it would be inadvisable to screen it in arab countries! (this belief is however, to the best of my knowledge, mistaken.)

everybody talks about where the missing episodes were sent, why they're missing, but nobody looks at it from the other perspective - what survives, and why? the bulk of the season 1 episodes which survive, for instance, are believed by some to have come from algeria. to me, there are so many interesting stories there!

and of course, you can also see this in the way the "historical episodes" are produced, the way they reflect the prejudices and norms of the time. these may be liberal norms - lucarotti's historicals _are_ fascinating. "the aztecs" advocates for not fucking around with indigenous peoples, but it does so from a fundamentally paternalistic standpoint, assuming that interfering with indigenous practices is desirable (please not that i am not arguing in favor of human sacrifice - i'm more addressing the larger framing here). and then there's the later episode he wrote for the failed tosh/wiles iteration of the show, "the massacre". this is interesting because the topic of the story, it wasn't one he wanted to write, but one he was handed by tosh/wiles, i believe. i'm not english and i don't know the politics involved, but it seems to me there's a certain amount of residual anti-catholicism present in choosing to tell a story about the massacre of the huguenots. maybe it's lucarotti's gifts as a storyteller that this doesn't come to the fore more. what i _can_ say is that the 1960s doctor who historicals are, by and large, very bad history indeed.

anyway. something i've wanted to write about in-depth for a while, because it's not something i've much seen addressed elsewhere, but i haven't really had the time or energy...

(i'd really like to see a book with reviews of pilots that didn't go to series from the '50s through the '70s... i have a book just listing them, but i'm more interested in knowing which ones are standouts that never went to series.)

Goldberg's Unsold Television Pilots?

(I mean, is that the book you have?)

I'd love for a channel to resurrect Trio's Brilliant But Cancelled series.

Goldberg's Unsold Television Pilots?

― Elvis Telecom

that's the one! there's some great stuff in there but it's pretty overwhelming...

(I mean, is that the book you have?)

I'd love for a channel to resurrect Trio's _Brilliant But Cancelled_ series.

I think Cougar Town did something like this, keeping only the title and Courteney Cox. Also, didn't Ellen do something like this after the first season?

I think CBS was trying to do a similar thing with the 2nd (and ultimately final) season of B Positive by shifting focus to Annaleigh Ashford and her new storyline running the retirement home after Thomas Middleditch got #METOO'ed.

Cougar Town re-vamped its tone, going from "lol, these women are cougars" to a general "older Friends" type sitcom. They kept the main characters, I think.