SCHEDULES OF THE PAST: 1986-1987 Saturdays

Here's a look at Saturdays in the 1986-87 season!

ABC	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Sep	Life with Lucy	The Ellen Burstyn Show	Heart of the City	Spenser: For Hire
Oct
Nov
Dec	Sidekicks	Sledge Hammer!
Jan			Ohara
Feb
Mar
Apr	Starman
May

Without a doubt, the saddest flop of the 1986-87 season came on Saturday nights on ABC. After not having a regular TV series for 12 years, ABC was able to coax the legendary Lucille Ball back to TV with Life with Lucy. They gave her complete control and she brought back her old writers and co-star Gale Gordon. However, TV had evolved by 1986 and the show felt incredibly dated. Ball was greeted by huge ovations in the studio audience and did not seem to see that the show was severely lacking in quality. The network had no control so they couldn't do anything to fix the impending disaster (not that they would have been successful). After a big premiere, ratings dropped quickly and the show was cancelled after just eight episodes. The saddest part was Ball felt like fans just didn't like her anymore but it was more the show than Ball herself (of course audiences still love Lucy even to this day). It would be Lucy's last foray into television as she died less than three years later. After three hugely successful sitcoms, it was sad to see a swan song like this. I will have more on this show on my One Season Wonder post on Wednesday. Lucy was followed by The Ellen Burstyn Show, which featured the acclaimed actress as a college professor and also starred Elaine Stritch and a young Megan Mullally. When Lucy was cancelled, Ellen Burstyn was put on hiatus and didn't resurface until the summer, after it had been cancelled. The comedy block was replaced by Sidekicks and Sledge Hammer! which moved over together from the 9pm hour on Fridays. Both shows were small improvements in the ratings but not much. Sidekicks was cancelled while Sledge Hammer! eked out a renewal. Another Friday transplant, Starman, ended the season in the 8pm hour and was also cancelled at season's end. The 9pm hour was first given to Heart of the City, a cop/family drama that featured a young Christina Applegate just months before Married... with Children. It was cancelled in December after getting some of the lowest ratings of the season. It was replaced by Ohara, a police drama starring Pat Morita as a lieutenant who would use Japanese techniques included martial arts to help him solve crimes. The show did not do very well but improved on Heart of the City and got a renewal. The 10pm hour was the only hour of stability on the night as it belonged to Spenser: For Hire all season. The second year drama wasn't a huge hit but kept the lights on in the difficult Saturday 10pm slot.

CBS	8:00	9:00	10:00
Sep	Downtown	Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer	The Twilight Zone
Oct
Nov	The Wizard	Saturday Night Movie
Dec	Downtown
Jan	Outlaws
Feb
Mar
Apr
May

CBS started their Saturday night with three dramas but the plan didn't last long and they quickly resorted to a movie for the last two hours. At first, they tried with a new drama at 8pm. Downtown was a Los Angeles-set police drama that featured a young Blair Underwood and Mariska Hargitay in its cast. It was followed by Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer and season two of The Twilight Zone. Mike Hammer had last been seen in the 1984-85 season but took a year off when star Stacy Keach was sentenced to prison for drug smuggling. With Keach out of prison, the show resumed in the fall of 1986 and was quickly sent to help shore up Wednesdays when the comedy hour tanked. At the same time, CBS put the struggling reboot of The Twilight Zone on hiatus to make room for a movie. CBS also replaced Downtown with The Wizard for a couple weeks before sending The Wizard back to Tuesdays and returning Downtown to the lineup. A month after that, Downtown was cancelled. a new drama took over 8pm to start 1987. Outlaws was an odd drama about a gang of Houston outlaws who were transported from 1899 to 1986 by a lightning bolt strike and then decided to open up a detective agency. Yep go ahead and read that sentence back. The western/sci-fi/detective drama managed to last the rest of the season before being cancelled.

NBC	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00
Sep	The Facts of Life	227	The Golden Girls	Amen	Hunter
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr		Sweet Surrender		Me &  Mrs. C
May

While the other networks struggled mightily with their Saturday night lineups, NBC reigned supreme with an acclaimed and popular comedy block that was second only to their Thursday block. At the center of it was The Golden Girls which vaulted into the Top 5 in the ratings and won its second straight Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series, beating the four popular Thursday sitcoms. The rest of the night enjoyed the halo around the hit comedy. At 8pm was The Facts of Life. TV's longest running sitcom at that point went through a big change with the departure of star Charlotte Rae and addition of Cloris Leachman to the cast. The show was clearly getting up there in years and was the lowest rated comedy in the block but still did decently. 227 slid up an hour to 8:30pm and continued to have success in its second season while the post-Golden Girls slot was given to a new sitcom: Amen. Just over a year after his long run on The Jeffersons ended, Sherman Hemsley was back on TV, this time as a deacon of a Philadelphia church. The comedy did well in the ratings, probably thanks largely to its lead-in. For being a show that ran for awhile and had decent ratings, it doesn't seem to be remembered much today. Late in the season, both 227 and Amen took breaks for two other comedies. At 8:30pm was Sweet Surrender, a family sitcom featuring Dana Delany that lasted just six episodes. At 9:30pm was Me & Mrs. C, a sort of female version of The Odd Couple that had last been seen in the Summer of 1986 and managed to get renewed for midseason. It did not fare better in the regular season and was also quickly cancelled. All season, Hunter aired at 10pm. The crime drama had found a good home in a difficult slot and did quite well for itself.

Top Rated Saturday Show in 1986-87: The Golden Girls (#5)
Lowest Rated Saturday Show in 1986-87: Heart of the City (#82)

What would I have watched on Saturdays in 1986-87?
I would have certainly supported Lucy by watching Life with Lucy even though it wasn't any good. I would have probably sampled The Ellen Burstyn Show and Amen and I imagine I might have gotten into The Golden Girls.

Tomorrow: Top 10 Christmas Sitcom Episodes (1995-Present)!

Next Monday: A look at Sundays in 1986-87!