ONE SEASON WONDERS: Mr. & Mrs. Smith

On Wednesday, I take a look at shows that lasted one season or less. Here's a look at 1996's Mr. & Mrs. Smith!

MR. & MRS. SMITH

September 20, 1996 - November 8, 1996

9 episodes

CBS

Starring: Scott Bakula, Maria Bello, with Timothy Olyphant and Ray Dotrice

Created by: Kerry Lenhart & John J. Sakmar

Plot: "Mr. Smith" (Bakula) is a spy who works for a private security organization under Mr. Dig (Dotrice) and with a partner (Olyphant). He meets a rival, "Mrs. Smith" (Bello) who loses her job after a failed mission and she teams up with Mr. Smith as they continue to spar.

Brief Pilot Review:

Mr. & Mrs. Smith was a nicely shot pilot for 1996. Set and filmed on location in Seattle, it made great use of its location with lots of on-location filming that worked quite well. It wasn't up to today's production standards of course but it definitely didn't feel as drab as so many dramas did back in the 1990s. It felt like the network spent some money on it and the show made an effort to be a little more stylish, which is fitting for a spy show. The other strong part of the pilot was the stars. Scott Bakula and Maria Bello had an easy chemistry when they were fighting and an easy chemistry when they were on the same side (and there was a lot of both in the pilot).

The series gave a lot of time to Timothy Olyphant, who was not a series regular but was presented as the original partner for Bakula's character. Olyphant was strong, which is not surprising, but it was an awful lot of screen time given to a character who ultimately didn't matter. I would have rather seen them give Bakula and Bello more time together. And although the show was pretty stylish, it was more style than substance. The pilot had a few nice moments but the story wasn't that interesting. It hit on the usual spy tropes and wasn't all that engaging. This was a show that really could have been strong but ended up being more of a shrug.

What Went Wrong:

Scott Bakula was a pretty big draw back in 1996 when Mr. & Mrs. Smith launched. He was just a couple years removed from his Emmy nominated run on Quantum Leap and had also been a recurring character on Murphy Brown. So his return to TV in a spy drama was certainly a worthwhile gamble for CBS even though they put it in a sleepy Friday night timeslot. It aired after a comedy hour that included the declining Dave's World and a little comedy called Everybody Loves Raymond that very few people had any big expectations for. Bakula's co-star Maria Bello was an unknown at the time with her first regular series role.

Reviews were generally negative for the show with Entertainment Weekly calling it "Moonlighting for morons" and the Orlando Sentinel calling it a "derivative action drama." The series seemed to mostly register as disappointing given Bakula's connection. The series could not make any noise on Friday nights even though its lead-in, Everybody Loves Raymond, proved to be a surprising success. CBS rescued Raymond by moving it to Mondays but there was no reprieve for Mr. & Mrs. Smith. It was cancelled in early November with four episodes left unaired. The title Mr. & Mrs. Smith gained more pop culture recognition with the 2005 Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie movie while a new Amazon series with the same title starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine is in the works.

Tomorrow: A look at Season 11 (Part 2) of Happy Days!

Next Wednesday: A One Season Wonder look at Relativity!