SCHEDULES OF THE PAST: 1988-1989 Mondays

On Mondays, I take a look at schedules from yesteryear. Here's a look at Mondays in the 1988-89 season!

ABC	8:00	9:00	10:00
Sep	MNF Pregame	Monday Night Football
Oct	MacGyver
Nov
Dec
Jan		Monday Night Movie
Feb
Mar
Apr
May

It was another year with the same Monday lineup for ABC. The only difference was that 1988 was marred by a Writer's Strike that lasted from March 7-August 7. As a result, many scripted shows were delayed in their starts so ABC added a pregame for Monday Night Football until MacGyver was ready to come back. Once it did, ABC had the usual combination of MacGyver and Football with a movie replacing Football in January.

CBS	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30
Sep	Newhart	The Cavanaughs	Monday Night Movie
Oct		Coming of Age
Nov			Murphy Brown	Designing Women	Various Programs
Dec		Kate & Allie			Almost Grown
Jan
Feb
Mar	Live-In	Heartland			Newhart	Kate & Allie
Apr
May

CBS's Monday lineup had a delayed start thanks to the Writer's Strike. The season started with reruns of Newhart at 8pm and the end of the second season of The Cavanaughs, which had returned in the summer of 1988 after first airing in the 1986-87 season. After a couple episodes, it was pulled from the lineup because it was never the planned show for the fall. The Cavanaughs finally finished its run in the summer of 1989. It was a series that only had two seasons and 26 episodes but ran off and on from December 1986 to July 1989. Newhart was the first veteran comedy to return with new episodes and it was paired with Coming of Age. Newhart had been the strongest comedy in the Monday night block the previous season but it took a pretty significant drop in its seventh season. Meanwhile, Coming of Age was renewed despite airing only three episodes the previous season. It didn't do any better in its second season and was yanked from the schedule after four episodes before being burned off in the summer of 1989. The next two shows to get started were the new Murphy Brown and the returning Designing Women, which were both held for a November launch. Murphy Brown got a prime 9pm slot, which was (is) not too common for a new sitcom. The Candice Bergen-led comedy was a hit with critics out of the gate but took a little while to find a mass audience. Bergen won an Emmy for the first year and the show was soon the cornerstone of the Monday night lineup. Designing Women was continuing to overcome its slow start and actually became the strongest comedy on the night for CBS this season though CBS Monday as a whole was not as strong as it had been. Continuing the staggered starts, the next show to premiere on the night was Almost Grown, a This is Us-style drama about a couple at three different points in their life. Starring Tim Daly and Eve Gordon, the show was created by David Chase over a decade before The Sopranos. CBS also quickly needed a replacement for Coming of Age so it brought the veteran Kate & Allie back to the night. Once a critical and ratings hit, the show was at the end of its run and ended at the end of this season after six seasons and 122 episodes. In March, CBS made the choice to go with three hours of comedy. This has been tried several times throughout TV history but has never worked well. The veterans Newhart and Kate & Allie moved to 10pm while two new comedies launched in the 8pm hour. First up was Live-In, a sitcom about an Australian nanny starring Lisa Patrick. It was followed by the compatible Heartland, starring Brian Keith as a Nebraska farmer who moves in with his daughter. Neither family comedy made much of an impact and both were cancelled at the end of the season.

NBC	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Sep	Summer Olympics
Oct	ALF	The Hogan Family	Monday Night Movie
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr		Nearly Departed
May		The Hogan Family

NBC had the same Monday lineup for much of the 1988-89 season as it had for the 1987-88 season. ALF continued as a lead-off and was still a Top 15 hit. Following all the drama with Valerie Harper's departure, the lead-out was now officially called The Hogan Family, its third and final title. Despite all the changes and negative publicity, the show still managed to find an audience and now had Sandy Duncan as the female lead for a second season. It was briefly put on hiatus in April to make room for a new sitcom, Nearly Departed. The odd supernatural comedy was an updated version of the odd 50s sitcom Topper as it centered on an English professor and his wife who are killed in an accident but return as ghosts to their old home, now inhabited by a new family. Starring Eric Idle, it aired just four episodes before being yanked in favor of an early return of Hogan. A movie continued at 9pm and pulled a little more ahead of ABC's competing movie.

Top Rated Monday Show in 1988-89: ALF (#13)
Lowest Rated Monday Show in 1988-89: Heartland (#75)

What would I have watched on Mondays in 1988-89?
Monday Night Football, Newhart, Murphy Brown, Designing Women. I'm sure I would have sampled Almost Grown and would have been more interested in Heartland than Live-In.

Tomorrow: Top 10 TV Couples!

Next Monday: A look at Tuesdays in 1988-89!