 This is the SF Productions Podcast Network. That wonderful TV year, 1994. From the Pop Culture Bunker, I'm Mindy. And I'm Mark. You can check out our audio podcast, How I Got My Wife to Read Comics on iTunes, or on our website, sfpodcastnetwork.com. Now, I've collected TV Guide Fall Preview issues over the years and thought it would be fun to talk about which shows made it, which didn't, and which ones we actually watched. I have to give credit to Ken Reid's TV Guidance Counselor Podcast for this idea. We've been doing these episodes going back to 1978, and design at TV Guide was fairly consistent until now. Maybe with Entertainment Weekly breathing down their neck, they decided to freshen things up. In any case, the new design screams the 90s. As you will see, there were not a lot of new shows that fall, but a few became monster hits. A few months later, two new networks came on the scene, UPN and the WB. You can see episode 225 for more details about that. Perhaps the networks kept their powder dry on some planned shows as they saw this coming. On Saturday, we have Something Wilder on NBC. Dean Wilder comes to TV in a family sitcom. He's an older dad with twin four-year-old sons and a young wife, Hillary Bailey Smith, who is better known for her soap opera work. The show did not work out and was gone after 15 episodes with three more unerred. The five Mrs. Buchanan's on CBS, co-created by Mark Cherry, post-Golden Girls and pre-Desperate Housewives, this is another show about a group of women. In this sitcom, four women have a common foe, their mother-in-law, played by Eileen Hecker, a legendary stage and film actress, winning an Oscar and Emmy and a lifetime achievement Tony. Judith Ivy, Charlotte Ross, Harriet Harris and Beth Broderick, all co-star. Ivy was better known for her stage work, winning two Tonys. Ross would go on to NYPD Blue. Harris may be best known as Frazier's Mad Agent. Broderick would go on to Sabrina the Teenage Witch. The sitcom eked out a single season. The ABC Family Movie. In an era prior to 500 channels, you could get away with a series of kid-friendly films on network TV. Most of them were produced by Disney, who would buy out ABC the next year. Sweet Justice NBC, won in a long line of big city lawyer moves to small town shows with Melissa Gilbert in the lead. She's hired at a small firm run by Sicily Tyson. Ronnie Cox plays Gilbert's father, who runs a big-time firm. Tyson would get Emmy and SAG nominations for her role. Harris ran for a season with a final episode burned off that summer. I vaguely remember that show, vaguely. Out of everything we've just done so far, that's the only one that I remember. I remember Five Mrs. Buchanan's. Not because I watched it, but because MST made references to it. On Sunday, we had Earth 2 from NBC, a take on Lost in Space without the goofy robot or Dr. Smith. A group of future explorers on their way to colonize a planet, Crashland, and have to deal with Leipzahn's technology. There's a large cast, including Debra Farentino, Clancy Brown, Rebecca Gayhart, and Antonio Zapato Jr. NBC paired this up with another sci-fi series from Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television, Sequest DSV, after a highly rated premiere, Interest Lag, and Earth 2 lasted a season. Fortune Hunter on Fox, an action-adventure series about super-spire Carlton Dial, played by Mark Frankel, who now works for a private corporation partnering with a nerdy guy back at HQ as they retrieve stolen technology. Fox made the incredibly poor decision to air this directly after Sunday NFL schedule, which meant episodes were either cut short or aired late, as a result it never gained an audience, and despite 13 episodes shot, Fox only aired five of them, one in a long line of missteps by Fox involving genre series. The entire series was seen in other countries. On our own on ABC, The Miller-Milkis Family sitcom factory turns out another one. Stand Up Ralph Harris plays the older brother to a large brood, all of whom are played by a real-life family, The Smollets. After the family is orphaned, which seems to happen a lot on sitcoms, the oldest brother puts on a wig and plays their aunt so they can stay together. Some of the Smollets went on to other gigs. Jake and Journey had roles in the film Eve's Bayou, and most of the family had a food network show together. Jesse Smollet was on his way to a major career before 2019, when he allegedly staged a fake heat crime assault for publicity reasons. On our own ran for a single season. Hardball on Fox, not the Chris Matthews commentary show, but a sitcom about a baseball team. Bruce Greenwood and Joe Rogan pre-News Radio lead the cast, with comedy legend Rose Marie as the team's owner. The show only lasted seven episodes with two more unaired. Ironically, it aired during the 94-95 Major League Baseball Strike. Wild Oats on Fox, a sitcom about revolving romance among a group of Gen Xers. Of the four leads, one went on to a major career. This was the first regular role for Paul Rudd. Paula Marshall has also had a long TV career. We either spent a lot of time on the show, as it was gone in four episodes with two more unaired. Something exciting is happening every Monday. Moving on to Monday night. Blue Skies ABC, a sitcom about two guys in Maine running a mail order company who bring in a female partner. TV Guide described it as wings as an LL bean offering. We didn't recognize any of the cast, and apparently neither did the TV audience, gone in seven episodes with one more unaired. Party of five on Fox. Another in a long line of TV kids orphaned after an accident who stick together, but this time as a drama. Scott Wolf, Matthew Fox, neat Campbell and Lisey Schabert, co-star along with an infant brother played by various actors over the six-year run. Wolf went on to Everwood, Fox on to Lost, Campbell to the Scream film franchise, and Schabert to the Hallmark Christmas movie machine. A later regular character played by Jennifer Love-Hewitt went on to a spin-off called Time of Your Life, which didn't last long, but her career did. Party of five tended to concentrate on mature issues like drug abuse and mental illness. It won a Golden Globe in 1996. The show was one of the first successful dramas at Fox. Ironically, if it had come along a year later, it probably would have ended up on UPN or the WB. On Tuesday, me and the boys on ABC stand up and future game show host Steve Harvey stars as a widowed dad. Boy, there's a lot of death this season to three boys. Madge Sinclair played the mother-in-law who came in to help. Sinclair passed only 10 months after the show ended. The show was scheduled to follow Full House, which the show's creators had produced with home improvement following. Despite that catbird seat and hitting number 20 in the ratings, the show only lasted a season. This did free up Harvey for his long-running eponymous WB series. The Martin Short Show on NBC. Grading, at least to us, comedian Short plays a TV dad who also happens to host a variety show. Jan Hooks played his wife. Second City Alums Andrea Martin and Brian Doyle Murray were also in the cast, and SCTV and Schitt's Creek star Eugene Levy directed and had a role on the series. The show was propped up between Wings and Frasier. Even with the time slot and talent, it only lasted three episodes with five more unerred. It's never a good sign when there are less episodes erred than unerred. On Wednesday, All American Girl on ABC. Another TV trope and ethnic stand-up, Margaret Cho, stars in a sitcom about her disapproving traditional family. Jody Long, Judy Gold, and B.D. Wanger also in the cast. The show was scheduled on the night featuring other female stand-up sitcoms, Grace Under Fire, Ellen and Roseanne. However, the stereotypical family generated a lot of criticisms, such as, the show would never have been made today, and the ratings went down. There were some notable guest stars, Meg Nguyen, Daniel De Kim, Jack Black, and Quentin Tarantino, who was Cho's boyfriend at the time. In the final episode of its only season, the show attempted a backdoor pilot with Cho's character and her grandmother, Amy Hill, as two roommates, along with characters played by Dietrich Bader, Sam Cedar, and a bartender at the local hangout, played by law and order SVU's Mariska Hargitay. The pilot, part of a move toward Gen X ensembles, possibly influenced by a show we'll discuss in a moment, was not picked up. The boys are back on CBS. TV stalwarts Hal Linden from Barney Miller and Suzanne Pluchette from The Bob Newhart Show play a married couple enjoying their days without kids in the house, until their adult children move back in. Here's yet another TV trope. George Newburn played one of the kids who would go on to voice Superman in animated shows. The show did not work out, airing only 16 episodes with two more uneared. Pluchette made several attempted comebacks post Newhart, but none of them stuck. Daddy's Girls on CBS. Dudley Moore comes to US TV. He was a fixture in the UK when he was a tankable movie star in the 80s. He plays a divorced dad. His wife and best friend left him for each other. Now his adult daughters help take care of him, played by Stacey Galena of Notts Landing, Meredith Scott-Lynne who went on to be a producer, and Carrie Russell of Felicity and the Americans. Harvey Feierstein plays Moore's buddy, the first openly gay actor to play a gay character as a regular on a series. The show was slammed by the critics and went on hiatus after three episodes with ten more never aired. That's bad. This was Moore's final TV series and second to last on-screen role with a progressive palsy that ended in his death in 2002. Then we have The Cosby Mysteries on NBC. Former pudding hawker and current pariah Bill Cosby returns to TV as a retired criminalist who just seems to keep bumping into corpses. This was an era where formerly hot stars got a second career doing cozy mystery shows. This is Murder, Murder She Wrote. William Link of Colombo and Murder She Wrote created the series, although he was pushed out when the show didn't do well. Rita Moreno played his housekeeper. The show lasted one season and was gone. Touched by an angel, CBS. Before there was an industry creating Christian-centric content for cable streaming and theaters, there was this series involving the cases of an angel, Roma Downey, and her sarcastic boss, Bella Reese. They helped people at a moral crossroads of their life for nine seasons. A huge hit for CBS in the top ten ratings for four of them. Other characters such as the Angel of Death, John Dye, and an angel trainee, Valerie Bertonelli, became regulars during the run. The series was shot in Salt Lake City and even spawned a successful spin-off called Promise Land. It was nominated for 11 Emmys, many for guest stars, and three Golden Globes. Mainstream critics hated it. Mark, I think that the episode is going to run too long if we continue. You're probably right. So we will stop right there, and you can come back and watch the rest of it. And in the meantime, you can listen to our podcast, How I Got My Wife to Read Comics on iTunes, or on our website, sfpodcastnetwork.com. From the pop culture bunker, I'm Mindy. And I'm Mark. Thanks for watching.