SCHEDULES OF THE PAST: 1993-1994 Wednesdays

On Mondays, I take a look at schedules from yesteryear. Here's a look at Wednesdays in the 1993-94 season!

ABC	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00
Sep	Thea	Joe’s Life	Home Improvement	Grace Under Fire	Moon Over Miami
Oct
Nov
Dec		George			Various Programs
Jan					Birdland
Feb		The Critic
Mar	Home Improvement	Thunder Alley			Turning Point
Apr				These Friends of Mine
May

In the 1992-93 season, ABC Wednesdays had Home Improvement at 9pm but a lot of the rest of the night was peppered with ending series like The Wonder Years and Doogie Howser M.D. and cancelled fare like Laurie Hill and Home Free. So it was back to the drawing board in the 1993-94 and ABC put Home Improvement as the centerpiece and surrounded it with new series across the board the rest of the night. At 8pm was Thea, a sitcom starring comedian Thea Vidale. Featuring a young Brandy Norwood, it was part of the trend of comedians getting their own show but Thea was notable since Vidale was black and most comedians getting their own shows in 1993 were white. Thea lasted 19 episodes before being cancelled. It was followed by Joe's Life, a family sitcom starring Peter Onorati and Mary Page Keller. It didn't last as long as Thea and was gone before the New Year. It was briefly replaced by George, which hadn't cut it on Saturdays. When George was cancelled, a new animated show took the slot. Primetime animated shows continued to be fool's errands unless your name was The Simpsons in the early 1990s but the networks kept trying. The Critic was about a New York film critic voiced by Jon Lovitz. It was geared specifically to adults but airing between family sitcoms which made for an odd flow. ABC cancelled the series but FOX picked it up for a second season. Finally when Thea was cancelled, ABC decided the best lead-in to a new 8:30pm show would be reruns of Home Improvement. They weren't wrong as the ratings improved with the reruns and helped the final new 8:30pm show, Thunder Alley. The family sitcom starred Ed Asner as a retired race car driver living with his daughter and grandchildren. It did great sandwiched between old and new episodes of Improvement and was renewed for a second season. Home Improvement continued to thrive in its 9pm anchor slot even with some mess before it and ABC found a successful show as a lead-out. Grace Under Fire starred brassy comedian Brett Butler as a blue collar single mom. The show instantly drew comparisons to Roseanne both for its on-screen sensibility and reported volatility of its star. The Missouri-set sitcom was the top new show of the 1993-94 season with critical and audience love. Late in the season, Grace took a little break so ABC could launch another new sitcom centered around a stand-up. Ellen DeGeneres starred in the show that became Ellen but was known as These Friends of Mine in its first abbreviated season. The show received solid ratings airing behind Improvement and it was renewed and re-tooled for its second season. The 10pm hour was also a revolving door. First up was Moon Over Miami, a stylish detective drama starring Ally Walker and Bill Campbell. It only made it to the beginning of December. Next up was Birdland, a medical drama starring Brian Dennehy as a psychiatrist. The series did not even last as long as Miami on the night. After two failed dramas, ABC went with the networks' favorite remedy in the 1990s - a newsmagazine. Turning Point was a host-less show that focused on one topic per episode. It did well enough to get renewed which is more than the dramas could say.

CBS	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Sep	Various Programs		Various Programs	48 Hours
Oct			South of Sunset
Nov	Hearts Afire	The Nanny	Various Programs
Dec
Jan	The Nanny	Hearts Afire	In the Heat of the Night
Feb
Mar		Tom
Apr
May	Various Programs

CBS had a plan for Wednesdays in 1993-94 that got messed up before the season even began. The original plan was to air two new sitcoms - The Trouble with Larry and The Nanny in the 8pm hour followed by new drama South of Sunset at 9pm and the returning newsmagazine 48 Hours at 10pm. They started by premiering The Trouble with Larry early - the last week of August - with summer comedy Tall Hopes. That's where things started to fall apart because the ratings were so bad that Larry never even made it to premiere week and it was cancelled after three episodes. Check back Wednesday for a One Season Wonder post on The Trouble with Larry! As a result, The Nanny was held until November and various programs plus baseball playoffs aired in its place. Finally in the last week of October, they premiered the second season of Hearts Afire (which had been held from Fridays for creative retooling) with a one hour episode to lead into the new South of Sunset. Sunset was a crime drama starring Glenn Frey (from The Eagles) and the ratings were so bad that it became one of TV's one and done shows, cancelled after a single week. Hearts Afire changed its setting from Washington DC to a small southern town and toned down the sexual jokes and scenes that has caused minor amounts of controversy the previous season. Meanwhile, The Nanny finally premiered in November and neither of the original shows slated to bookend it were still on the air. Despite all that mess, the Fran Drescher vehicle showed promise in the ratings and was flipped with Hearts Afire in January to let the stronger show lead off the night. At the same time, they finally put in a regular show at 9pm again with In the Heat of the Night moving over from Thursdays. The series was in its second season on CBS after five seasons on NBC. It was cancelled as a regular series at the end of the season but returned as four TV movies during the 1994-95 season. In March, Hearts Afire moved to Mondays and was replaced by Tom, a new sitcom starring Tom Arnold. This show existed because Arnold had a falling out with ABC that resulted in the cancellation of his new sitcom from the previous season - The Jackie Thomas Show. He proudly and loudly moved his talents to CBS and things didn't fare any better. This sitcom starred some of his co-stars from Jackie but lasted even less episodes. Meanwhile, Arnold's famous marriage to Roseanne Barr fell apart during the same time. Throughout all the mess of the first two hours, 48 Hours aired at 10pm the entire season to passable ratings.

NBC	8:00	9:00	10:00
Sep	Unsolved Mysteries	Now with Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric	Law & Order
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May

ABC and CBS were somewhat of a mess on Wednesdays in 1993-94 but NBC and FOX had reliably stable lineups. NBC didn't have huge ratings but each show did well enough and this was in NBC's lean years between their juggernaut phases of both the 80s and mid-late 90s. Unsolved Mysteries aired at 8pm and was still solid although no longer a Top 25 show. There was yet another newsmagazine on the air as Now with Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric had started in the summer. Brokaw anchored the evening news and Couric was the star of Today so putting them together made sense but the series only delivered so-so in the ratings. It was part of an attempt by NBC to rehabilitate their news image with their biggest news names after a variety of scandals and issues. Now was cancelled at the end of the season as NBC rebranded all its newsmagazines under the Dateline NBC banner. Law & Order continued at 10pm and added female cast members S. Epatha Merkerson and Jill Hennessy after coming under fire for its very male ensemble. Law was an OK performer but it was still hard to imagine in its fourth season that it would become a franchise that still exists to this day.

FOX	8:00	9:00
Sep	Beverly Hills, 90210	Melrose Place
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May

FOX had another year with its hit lineup of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place. Both shows were still not top rated shows, it was FOX after all. But they were successes for the networks and hit the young demographics that were so desirable. Melrose Place promoted Heather Locklear to a regular and she became a breakout star as its ratings rose from the first season. 90210 sent its characters to college and actually had its highest ratings of its ten year run in the 1993-94 season.

Top Rated Wednesday Show of 1993-94: Home Improvement (#2)

Lowest Rated Wednesday Show of 1993-94: South of Sunset (#97)

What would I have watched on Wednesdays in 1993-94?

Home Improvement and Grace Under Fire and eventually Thunder Alley and These Friends of Mine on ABC. I've never really given The Nanny a chance but maybe I would have then. Probably Law & Order from time to time or because there was nothing else good on at 10pm.

Tomorrow: Top 10 The People vs. O.J. Simpson Characters!

Next Monday: A look at Thursdays in the 1993-94 season!