TV shows that started like a house on fire and then the flames went out.
5. Moonlighting.
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This one is doubly frustrating because I wrote an entire long paragraph about it, tried to go back and add one word, and somehow obliterated the entire entry except for the one word. And I poured so much heart and critical angst into my original writing I am crushed. Just like I was when my favorite TV show of 1986-87 completely fell apart in its third season, when the main characters hooked up (despite reportedly hating each other in real life). This show featured a pre-fame Bruce Willis opposite an already famous Cybill Shepherd. Subversive. Inventive. Creative. Hilarious. They even did a musical episode. This murder mystery detective show was like Remington Steele as written by David Letterman’s staff over at Late Night. Moonlighting even spilled into my personal life as a high school junior: I was David and Elizabeth Thomas was Maddie. We never hooked up but maybe that was for the best. Third seasons can be disappointing. Also: my original write-up was better.
4. Batman.
In 1966 there was nothing bigger in the pop culture universe. ABC cranked out episodes at a pace that would have embarrassed the producers of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire 33 years later on the same network. Everything was Bat-this and Bat-that. Cover of Life magazine. Cover of TV Guide. It was lightning in a bottle. And until Laugh-In came along, there was nothing that quite captured the zeitgeist like Batman. Possibly James Bond and its TV spin-offs The Saint and The Avengers, came close. But for a hot second the entire country had Batman fever. I highly recommend reading Adam West’s book Back To The Batcave if you doubt me. Alas, by the third season the bloom was off the Bat-rose. ABC had killed its golden goose with overexposure. Julie Newmar, so incredibly sexy as Catwoman, wasn’t even in the quickee movie. Such a disappointing end. But I have come to appreciate Lee Meriwether in said movie.
3. Lost.
I can’t think of another TV show that started with more of a bang and finished with more of a shrug. People were obsessed with Lost early on. What did it all mean? Were they in the Twilight Zone? Did aliens have them captive? What’s with the smoke monster? The shaft? And then it ends with sort of a purgatory they were dead the whole time? At least, that’s how I remember it. Maybe I’m wrong. I like to write these columns without cheating to the web. But I’m pretty sure the whole enterprise ended up kind of being dramatically pointless? Such a good show initially and then…meh.
2. Barry.
This one is really hard for me. Aside from Black Mirror and Gravity Falls (don’t judge) this is my favorite TV show of the last five years. It got me back into not just watching episodic fictional TV, but doing so as a binge viewer. We even had a friend group on text at work. The legendary Bill Hader (sorry he is legend) plays a hitman who discovers he really just wants to be an actor. The dramatic and comedic collision of his two worlds fuel maybe the best first two seasons ever in television. And then…
Covid. Lockdown. Pandemic. Vaccines. Zoom. Work from home.
Finally, last year, Season 3 arrived and, good people, I tried. I really tried. I wanted to jump back into the Barry universe. But. Honestly, I don’t really remember if I even finished the first episode of Season 3. And maybe if you did, and you think it’s a cheat code that I’m writing this article, I apologize. Something about the two years(?) without Barry changed me. Season 2 ended with such a mind-blowing cliffhanger I’m not sure anything that came after could be nearly as good. Remember Godfather 3? Superman 3? The third Matrix movie? Sometimes maybe it’s just best to leave a masterpiece on an unfinished note. Maybe that’s why David Chase cut to black on the last episode of The Sopranos. I may yet get to the third season of Barry, but I don’t think I will unless I am actively trying to be what the kids these days call a completionist—one who soldiers on until he has seen every movie or episode. But not yet.
Before we get to number one on the list. Seinfeld’s finale was terrible. Newhart’s finale was awesome. That’s all I’m saying. Do your homework if you don’t know of what I speak.
And coming in at number one, Police Squad!
This one is going to rankle some folks. I get it. Here was a show from the creators of the first Airplane! movie. Starring Leslie Nielsen as a detective. Frank Drebin.- I cannot think of another TV show in history that went from 20 million viewers in its first week to 10 million viewers in its second week to 500,000 viewers in its third week to almost nobody watching it when it was cancelled in week…13? Week 6? I am literally making these numbers up but I might be not far off the mark. This was pre-cable, pre-DirectTV, pre-everything.
My friends, Police Squad! (IN COLOR) was hilarious. It was so good someone in Hollywood with some power, some juice, was like, hey, we should give those Airplane! guys some money and let them make the Police Squad! movies that would become The Naked Gun franchise SIX YEARS LATER. Do you know how preposterous that is? A failed TV show that was itself a creative spin-off of one of the funniest movies of all time being brought back from the dead from the small screen to the silver screen? I literally cannot think of anything else. Possibly Star Trek. But Star Trek didn’t start off with a serious actor being silly in a movie.
So there you have it. The five shows that started like you could never get enough and by the end you were like, I’ve had enough.
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