Monday, November 06, 2006

The Onion A.V. Club has a rundown of "15 Lamentably Lost One-Season TV Wonders". A lot of shows I loved that were taken from me after the first year are there (and most of them came and went on Fox).

The one's that interested me were:

The Dana Carvey Show (ABC 1996) Now I never saw this show in it's brief existence, but this is a case of wishing you had a portal to the future, because if execs could see where their writer's from this show would end up in the next 2 - 10 years, they would have kept going: Steve Carrell, Stephen Colbert, Charlie Kaufmann, Bob Odenkirk, Louis C.K. and Robert Smigel.

Cupid (ABC 1998) Paula Marshall is a psychologist whose patient, Jeremy Piven, believes he's Cupid, cast out from Olympus and banished until he can unite 100 couples without using magic arrows or divine intervention. I thought Paula Marshall and the motormouth Piven had great chemistry, and it was an interesting premise, but audiences just don't want to watch relationships shows (Alicia Silverstone and Heather Graham both had sitcoms with a similar matchmaker theme). I haven't seen it pop up on DVD yet, but there are some online torrents of the series floating about.

Freeks & Geeks (NBC 1999) Do yourself a favour and rent this DVD set. You'll see some excellent stories that remind you that high school was a time of freaks and geeks. Some great performances from several actors just starting out, including Jason Segal (Marshall on How I Met Your Mother), Seth Rogan (40 Year Old Virgin) and Linda Cardellini (ER). The three guys who played the younger geeks all turned in several really good performances set in an age where kids with single parents were on the upsurge.

Undeclared (Fox 2001) - Like Freaks & Geeks, it was also created by Judd Apatow, it also captured the simultaneous thrill and terror of being on your own at university. More comedic that Freeks & Geeks, and just as endearing.

Other one-season wonders include Firefly, Action, Profit and Police Squad. I would have added in Wonderfalls myself, but you can check out the list for yourself on The Onion AV Club.

Scooped from A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

AHHHH!! what i wouldn't do to have more episodes of firefly.

and the adventures of brisco county jr.