SCHEDULES OF THE PAST: 1990-1991 Saturdays

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

ABC	8:00	9:00	10:00
Sep	The Young Riders	China Beach	Various Programs
Oct			Twin Peaks
Nov
Dec
Jan		Under Cover
Feb
Mar		Saturday Night Movie
Apr
May

ABC's Saturday night lineup was full of shows that were niche or cult hits. That might seem like the perfect way to schedule a Saturday night in the early 1990s because it was a low pressure night but it did not go well enough in the ratings even for that. At 8pm was the third season of The Young Riders. It lasted the full year at 8pm but was cancelled at the end of the season. It did better than the two critically acclaimed shows that followed it through. China Beach continued to be a critical darling that could not find a wide audience. It was yanked in December and the final run aired in the Summer of 1991. As a result of the burn-off scheduling, star Dana Delany was eligible for the 1992 Emmy Awards and ended up winning more than a year after her show left the air. At 10pm was Twin Peaks, which had been the water cooler show in the Spring of 1990. All eyes were on the show but it couldn't capture the zeitgeist again. Part of it may have been the Saturday 10pm scheduling but the main reason was the show started to falter creatively. In season one, critics once heaped praise on the innovative storytelling and movie-like aspects of the show. In season two, it was derided for failing to tie up loose ends and not finding interesting enough ways to keep the show going. It was cancelled after just two short seasons but remains a very influential show in terms of the way contemporary TV dramas are made. Many darker dramas in the decades since have some Twin Peaks DNA in them and Peaks itself was of course revived on Showtime in 2017. The revival had its fans but still couldn't compare to that genre-changing first season. When China Beach was pulled from the lineup, it was replaced by a new drama, Under Cover. The secret agent drama, which premiered as a two hour movie, dealt with a little bit of wonky scheduling thanks to the Persian Gulf War breaking out, but it also struggled in the ratings and was yanked after just over a month on the air. Twin Peaks was yanked at the same time and ABC switched over to a movie for the last two hours of the night.

CBS	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Sep	The Family Man	The Hogan Family	E.A.R.T.H. Force	48 Hours
Oct			Various Programs	Various Programs
Nov				Wiseguy
Dec	You Take the Kids	Lenny	Broken Badges
Jan			Saturday Night Movie
Feb	Uncle Buck
Mar
Apr	The Flash
May

While ABC's lineup struggled in the ratings, CBS had a Saturday lineup that outright flopped. It was a complete revamp from the previous season but nothing worked. The night started with a comedy block. The Family Man was a family sitcom from Miller-Boyett, who were well known by then for their stable of hit shows on ABC. Starring Gregory Harrison, the series was CBS's attempt to get in on the family comedy game but it wasn't ABC and didn't have that audience. That also didn't help the lead-out, The Hogan Family which was also from Miller-Boyett and moved from NBC to CBS for its sixth season. The show formerly known as Valerie and Valerie's Family ended up not being a good pick-up for CBS as it was cancelled after one season on its new network. Both The Family Man and The Hogan Family were off the air by December and burned off the rest of their runs with quite a few episodes in the summer. Two more family comedies replaced the two on hiatus. You Take the Kids was a Pittsburgh-set sitcom that marked Nell Carter's first return to TV since her successful Gimme A Break. It lasted just five episodes before being replaced by Uncle Buck on its third and final night of the season. The 8:30pm replacement was Lenny, which had been off the air after just a three week run on Wednesdays to start the season. By April, CBS abandoned the comedy block and aired the end of the first and only season of The Flash. While the comedy hour was unsuccessful, the show that followed first in the fall was an outright flop. E.A.R.T.H. Force was about a team trying to prevent environmental disasters and it lasted just two episodes in its Saturday timeslot before being yanked as the first cancellation of the 1990-91 season. 10pm entry 48 Hours was quickly moved to Wednesdays and the Saturday lineup was filled with specials and movies for a couple months. There were two short runs by dramas in the middle of the year before a movie took over for the rest of the season. Broken Badges was a police drama that was a co-production with Canada and lasted just about a month. The final season of Wiseguy also aired on the night. Series star Ken Wahl had the left the show after a disagreement with CBS over the direction of the show. The series tried to move forward but the departure of its star and move to a tough timeslot (at midseason no less) was too much and the series was cancelled.

NBC	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30
Sep	Parenthood	Working It Out	The Golden Girls	Empty Nest	Carol & Company	American Dreamer
Oct
Nov
Dec	Amen	The Fanelli Boys
Jan						Dear John
Feb
Mar		Down Home			Carol & Company
Apr
May					Sisters

NBC experimented with three hours of comedies at the end of the 1989-90 season and continued that into the 1990-91 season. The fall lineup included three new series. In 1990, NBC made a very unusual move. They launched nearly all of their fall series with one-off episodes in late summer as "sneak peeks." It was an attempt to get more eyeballs to their new shows before the busy Premiere Week. It's hard to know if it made any difference. Only a couple series were successes but that was pretty much the norm in those days for only a couple shows to break out. Two new comedies opened the night. Parenthood was a family sitcom based on the 1989 movie of the same name. None of the film cast members joined the TV show and it only lasted a few months before being yanked from the lineup. Of course the title found success on NBC in 2010 with the drama version of Parenthood that lasted five more seasons than this sitcom. It was followed by Working It Out, a sitcom about two single parents starring Jane Curtin and Stephen Collins. It was off the lineup at the same time as Parenthood. The 8pm hour replacements were a retooled version of Amen and Wednesday transplant The Fanelli Boys. Amen was cancelled at the end of the season after five seasons and 110 episodes. Fanelli only made it a couple months on Saturdays before it was replaced by Down Home, a show returning for a second season after a very brief run at the end of the 1989-90 season. This was one of those shows that NBC took a flier on and it didn't earn the faith it got as it was cancelled at the end of the season. The 9pm hour remained stable with two hit shows - The Golden Girls and Empty Nest, which were both still big successes. In fact, Empty Nest finished ahead of Girls in the ratings for the first time. Carol & Company returned at 10pm and was paired with American Dreamer, a new sitcom starring Robert Urich as a Chicago man who relocates to Wisconsin to spend more time with his children. The series received decent reviews but 10:30pm is a tricky slot for a new sitcom. It lasted for a few months before being replaced by Dear John and then a one hour version of Carol & Company. At the very end of the season, NBC found a more permanent 10pm show with the launch of Sisters, a family drama starring Swoosie Kurtz, Sela Ward and Patricia Kalember as, you guessed it, sisters. The show only aired seven episodes in its first season but got a chance to grow in its second season.

FOX	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30
Sep	Totally Hidden Video	Haywire	Cops	American Chronicles
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan				Cops
Feb
Mar		Yearbook
Apr
May		Totally Hidden Video

FOX's Saturday nights were filled with unscripted shows. Totally Hidden Video and Cops returned to the night as the anchors and were followed by new ones. Haywire was a sketch comedy show that didn't really get a pulse especially when FOX had a much more successful one - In Living Color - on Sundays. At 9:30pm was American Chronicles, a documentary show that came from Mark Frost, best known as the time as a co-creator of Twin Peaks. The series also had an eerie feel and aired just a half hour before Peaks but was off the air within a few months. Another documentary series aired at midseason, Yearbook, which focused on students at an Illinois high school. By the end of the season, it was down to an hour of Totally Hidden Video and an hour of Cops.

Top Rated Saturday Show of 1990-91: Empty Nest (#9)

Lowest Rated Saturday Show of 1990-91: American Chronicles (#133)

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

China Beach and I might have been into Twin Peaks at the time. On NBC, I probably would have watched The Golden Girls and sampled the new shows, especially Parenthood.

Tomorrow: Top 10 Taxi Characters!

Next Monday: A look at Sundays in the 1990-91 season!