SCHEDULES OF THE PAST: 1992-1993 Fridays

On Mondays, I take a look at schedules from yesteryear. Here's a look at Fridays in the 1992-93 season!

ABC	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00
Sep	Family Matters	Step by Step	Dinosaurs	Camp Wilder	20/20
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar			Getting By	Where I Live
Apr
May

ABC's TGIF lineup on Fridays continued in the 1992-93 season and the 8pm hour continued to be stable while there was still trouble in the 9pm hour. Family Matters and Step by Step were a perfect pair with each other and produced nearly identical ratings. Dinosaurs returned at 9pm after moving to Fridays at the end of the 1991-92 season. It continued to not be a big player in the ratings and it was such an odd show to try to schedule. After being pulled from Fridays, it made a brief appearance on Sundays and was renewed for a fourth season but that fourth season didn't air until the Summer of 1994. A new show was added to the night at 9:30pm. Camp Wilder starred Mary Page Keller as a woman put in care of her teenage siblings after their parents died as well as her own six year old daughter. She opened her house to the many friends of her siblings as well. The roster of young actors included Jerry O'Connell, Hilary Swank, Jared Leto and Jay Mohr. Although it seemed like a fit with the other TGIF shows, it struggled in the ratings and was cancelled in February. Check back Wednesday for a One Season Wonder post on Camp Wilder! When both Dinosaurs and Wilder were pulled from the night, two new sitcoms took their place. Getting By came from the same production company as Family Matters and Step by Step and starred Cindy Williams and Telma Hopkins as friends and single mothers sharing a home and raising their families. The series did pretty well in the ratings, much better than Dinosaurs, and ABC planned to renew it for a second season. However, they planned to move the show to Saturday night which angered the producers who pulled the show from the network and NBC outbid CBS to pick it up (it only lasted one more season on NBC, which was not as good a fit for the show). At 9:30pm was Where I Live, a sitcom starring Doug E. Doug as a teen living in Harlem. The ratings were not strong but a strong fan campaign and public support from Bill Cosby helped it get renewed for a second season. 20/20 continued at 10pm and was a consistently strong performer.

CBS	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00
Sep	The Golden Palace	Major Dad	Designing Women	Bob	Picket Fences
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr		Dudley		Good Advice	Bodies of Evidence
May

CBS completely revamped its Friday night lineup in 1992-93 and attempted to counter ABC's youth driven comedy lineup with a comedy lineup of their own that appealed to older viewers. They built the lineup with two shows transplanted from their hit Monday lineup along with two high profile new shows. First up was The Golden Palace, a spinoff of The Golden Girls which had ended after seven very successful seasons on NBC. Golden Girls star Bea Arthur decided to leave the series and a spinoff featuring the other three stars - Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, was pitched and NBC committed to a 13 episode order. However, because networks always like to one-up each other, CBS swooped in and offered a 24 episode commitment. When NBC wouldn't match that, The Golden Palace headed to a new network, added co-stars Don Cheadle and Cheech Marin, and kicked off the new CBS Friday lineup. It was followed by two Monday transplants - Major Dad in its fourth season and Designing Women, undergoing yet another casting change in its seventh season with Judith Ivey replacing Julia Duffy. The 9:30pm occupant was Bob, a new sitcom starring Bob Newhart. This was Newhart's third sitcom on CBS after six season run of The Bob Newhart Show in the 70s and an eight season run of Newhart in the 80s. This time, Newhart played a greeting card artist lured back into his former career as a comic book artist. The whole night was a bold experiment by CBS but it didn't work. The only show that survived from the initial four comedies was Bob and that was aided by a move to Mondays late in the season. The others were all cancelled. Also cancelled was Dudley, a short lived comedy starring Dudley Moore that replaced Major Dad. One other comedy survivor from the night was Good Advice, which premiered late in the spring. The series marked Shelley Long's return to TV six years after her much publicized departure from Cheers. Good Advice paired Long with Treat Williams as sparring professionals who also have the hots for each other. The ratings weren't any better than the other shows but perhaps the auspices and late start convinced CBS to give it another try. The biggest success of the night was Picket Fences, a new drama from David E. Kelley about residents in a small Wisconsin town. The series did not fare well in the ratings but was a critical darling and ended up winning the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in its first year. It moved to Thursdays late in the season and was replaced by Bodies of Evidence, a police drama that had aired its first season in the Summer of 1992. It starred George Clooney in his final TV role before he broke out in ER. So the night was a valiant attempt but ultimately a flop.

NBC	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Sep	Final Appeal: From the Files of Unsolved Mysteries	What Happened?	The Round Table	I’ll Fly Away
Oct
Nov	Friday Night Movie
Dec
Jan
Feb	Secret Service		Friday Night Movie
Mar
Apr
May	Various Programs

For the second year in a row, NBC opened up Friday nights with an unscripted hour and for a second year in a row, it bombed and was off the air within a few weeks. The unlucky duo in 1992-93 were Final Appeal: From the Files of Unsolved Mysteries, an offshoot of NBC's popular Wednesday unscripted show that focused on inmates who believed they were wrongfully convicted, and What Happened?, an investigative show about disasters. Political comedy The Powers That Be was originally slated for the 8pm hour but NBC changed its mind over the summer and that series' second season eventually surfaced on Saturdays. The unscripted hour was followed by The Round Table, a prime time soap about a group of young professionals in Washington DC. This was clearly an NBC attempt at having their own Beverly Hills, 90210 and counted Aaron Spelling among its producers. The critically panned show also flopped and the entire two hour block was pulled in mid-October to make way for a movie. The 10pm hour lasted a little bit longer with season two of I'll Fly Away. The critical darling but ratings challenged drama was put in a low pressure slot for its second season but it couldn't gain any traction. ABC, CBS and NBC had all launched 40s-50s period shows in the 1991-92 season with Homefront, Brooklyn Bridge and I'll Fly Away and all of them made it exactly two seasons. In February, the movie shifted an hour and aired from 9-11pm while Secret Service moved over from Sunday. That's pretty much how the rest of the season played out as it was back to the drawing board again on the night for NBC.

FOX	8:00	9:00	9:30
Sep	America’s Most Wanted	Sightings	Lucky Suspects
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb			Sightings
Mar
Apr
May

FOX stuck with a mostly unscripted Friday night as they focused more on expanding to other nights. America's Most Wanted continued at 8pm and continued to be a solid performer for the network. It was followed by another unscripted show Sightings, which was in its second season. There was an odd entry at 9:30pm to start the year as FOX did wade into the scripted territory on the night. Likely Suspects was a police spoof that probably would have made a lot more sense on FOX's Sunday lineup. Although it lasted into early 1993, it was one of the lowest rated shows of the season. When it was cancelled, FOX made things easy on themselves and just went with another episode of Sightings to round out the 9pm hour.

Top Rated Friday Show of 1992-93: 20/20 (#12)

Lowest Rated Friday Show of 1992-93: Likely Suspects (#137)

What would I have watched on Fridays in 1992-93?

I'm not sure how I would have felt as a kid but as an adult, I would have been more interested in the CBS lineup than ABC. I would have watched Designing Women and Bob for sure and probably Picket Fences. I would have checked out Good Advice and The Golden Palace. On the other networks, I might have been interested in Where I Live and certainly would have watched I'll Fly Away.

Tomorrow: Top 10 The Americans Characters!

Next Monday: A look at Saturdays in the 1992-93 season!