SCHEDULES OF THE PAST: 1990-1991 Thursdays

On Mondays, I take a look at schedules from yesteryear. Here's a look at Thursdays in the 1990-91 season!

ABC	8:00	9:00	10:00
Sep	Father Dowling Mysteries	Gabriel’s Fire	Primetime Live
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr		Twin Peaks
May		Various Programs

ABC had a pretty steady Thursday night lineup in 1990-91. At 8pm was the third season of Father Dowling Mysteries (and second on ABC). The gentle Tom Bosley drama aired at 8pm the whole season but was not renewed for a fourth season. The show was moving more from "case of the week" style to more theologically themed episodes and that change did not help matters. At 9pm was Gabriel's Fire, a new drama starring James Earl Jones as a former Chicago police officer who had been wrongly imprisoned. The series was notable for bringing film star Jones to the small screen and he earned an Emmy Award for his performance but it struggled to reach a wide audience. The show was renewed in part due to the critical acclaim and was re-named Pros and Cons for its second season. Late in the season, Fire moved to Wednesdays and Twin Peaks came back to the night but it was far from the cultural zeitgeist it had been when it aired on Thursdays just a year before. Now it was at the tail end of a very disappointing second season and ready for an imminent cancellation. Primetime Live continued to hold down the fort at 10pm.

CBS	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00
Sep	Various Programs				Knots Landing
Oct	Top Cops	The Flash		Doctor, Doctor
Nov
Dec
Jan				Good Sports
Feb
Mar	Top Cops		The Flash
Apr			The Antagonists
May

CBS made a last minute change with their Thursday night plans heading into 1990-91. The original plan was new superhero drama The Flash at 8pm, family dramedy Sons & Daughters at 9pm and Knots Landing at 10pm. Knots stayed put but the rest of the night switched around. CBS made a last minute decision to get The Flash away from The Cosby Show and The Simpsons and slid it to the unusual 8:30pm time while unscripted Top Cops aired at 8pm and a Wednesday transplant, Doctor, Doctor aired at 9:30pm. Sons & Daughters ended up being held for midseason. Nowadays when we think of a TV show called The Flash, we think of the successful CW show. But that wasn't the first TV version of the DC Comics character. CBS had a version in 1990-91 that had some similarities. The show received a ton of promotion and had decent critical notices. It started decently in the ratings but the numbers quickly dropped. It was cancelled at the end of the season and mostly forgotten until the 2015 series on the CW which has incorporated elements and actors from this show in its "Arrowverse." Doctor, Doctor was yanked from the lineup in January and replaced by Good Sports, a comedy starring real life married couple Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neil as anchors on a sports cable network. The series lasted a couple months before being burned off in the summer. At that point, Top Cops expanded to an hour while The Flash moved back half an hour to 9pm for a short time. At the end of the season, the 9pm hour went to The Antagonists, a little remembered legal drama starring David Andrews and Lauren Holly. Throughout the season, Knots Landing aired at 10pm and continued to be a solid performer even with the soap craze certainly over and others quickly leaving the airwaves.

NBC	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00
Sep	The Cosby Show	A Different World	Cheers	Various Programs	Law & Order
Oct				Grand	L.A. Law
Nov
Dec
Jan				Wings
Feb
Mar
Apr				Seinfeld
May

NBC continued to dominate on Thursday nights but there was a sign of a chink in the armor. The Cosby Show had spent five straight years at the top rated show on TV (tying with Roseanne in the fifth year). But with new competition from The Simpsons as well as being an aging show, it dropped to #5 in 1990-91. This was the first time that Cosby showed signs of mortality amid some thinking the once groundbreaking sitcom was past its prime and old news. It was still a big hit but it was actually behind the two shows that followed it. A Different World beat its lead-in for the first time ever as it benefited from getting audiences funneled to it from both the family friendly Cosby and the youth skewing The Simpsons. Meanwhile at 9pm, Cheers rose to #1 for the first and only time in its 11 year run. It was fresh off the first ever Emmy win for Ted Danson heading into the season and it celebrated its 200th episode to much fanfare during the year. The show's ninth season gave the series its fourth win for Outstanding Comedy Series at the Emmys. While the first three shows were a model of stability (it was their fourth season together in that order), the 9:30pm slot was more of a revolving door. Up first was Grand, which had not been a huge hit the previous season but got a second chance in the same slot. The series underwent retooling as it cut some of its characters and became less serialized. It was cancelled at the end of December without ever getting to air its finale, the third part of a three part episode. The first replacement was Wings, which had been airing on Fridays and was a logical fit with Cheers. But their next great Thursday show came later in the season when Seinfeld took the 9:30pm slot. The series had a long road to Thursday nights but finally showed signs of becoming a breakout show when given the chance though it was still a long way off from being a dominant player. As usual, L.A. Law didn't start until several weeks into the season so NBC gave the first couple weeks to Law & Order and that helped the new procedural get off to a solid start. For Law, they were dealing with the impending departures of original cast members Jimmy Smits and Harry Hamlin at the end of the season. They also made headlines for the very famous death of a character via elevator shaft. It garnered a lot of attention but also some critical backlash. 

FOX	8:00	8:30	9:00
Sep	The Simpsons	Babes	Glory Days
Oct			Beverly Hills, 90210
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May

FOX expanded its broadcasting to Thursday nights in 1990-91 and they did it with a big splash by bringing The Simpsons over to the night. The Simpsons had been the first real breakout hit for the young network and they made the aggressive move of using it to carve out a Thursday night presence, putting it against behemoth The Cosby Show in an era where timeslot battles were incredibly important. All summer long, there was a ton of press about "Bart vs. Bill" and the press certainly seemed to accomplish FOX's goals. The end result was pretty much a draw. The Simpsons, while placing #8 in its first week on Thursday, ended up losing by quite a bit to The Cosby Show. However, it was easily FOX's #1 show on TV and had successfully opened up a new night for them as well as weakened Cosby to some extent. FOX also had high hopes for its lead-out show, Babes. The comedy was centered on three overweight sisters and received some criticism for its handling of fat jokes. While it was still one of FOX's higher rated shows, the drop-off from its lead-in audience was huge. It underwent some re-tooling after negative reaction to its fat jokes but was still cancelled. After finishing up a run of late summer drama Glory Days, another legacy FOX show premiered at 9pm. Teen drama Beverly Hills, 90210 was not a breakout hit by any means as it struggled through its first season but it of course became a big success for the network and part of their youth-oriented approach in the early 1990s. It also helped launch or broaden the careers of many big names including Jason Priestley, Shannen Doherty, Jennie Garth, Luke Perry, Brian Austin Green and Tori Spelling. FOX started airing its second season super early in July 1991 and the show garnered more attention as a quasi-summer show. 

Top Rated Thursday Show of 1990-91: Cheers (#1)

Lowest Rated Thursday Show of 1990-91: Glory Days (#130)

What would I have watched on Thursdays in 1990-91?

The whole NBC lineup. I must admit I would have been Team Cosby or Team Simpsons. There's not really anything on the other networks I would have been interested in.

Tomorrow: Top 10 Petticoat Junction Characters!

Next Monday: A look at Wednesdays in 1990-91!