SCHEDULES OF THE PAST: 1997-1998 Tuesdays

On Tuesdays, I take a look at schedules from yesteryear. Here's a look at Tuesdays in the 1997-98 season!

ABC	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00
Sep	Home Improvement	Soul Man	Home Improvement	Hiller and Diller	NYPD Blue
Oct	Soul Man	Over the Top
Nov	Grace Under Fire	Soul Man		Various Programs
Dec				Grace Under Fire
Jan	The Drew Carey Show
Feb
Mar	Home Improvement	Something So Right		That’s Life
Apr		Soul Man		Something So Right
May

ABC was revamping much of its Tuesday lineup with Roseanne having ended and Spin City moved to Wednesdays. Home Improvement and NYPD Blue remained as the 9pm and 10pm anchors but the other slots were a mess throughout the season. The plan was for Soul Man to lead off at 8pm after airing just three episodes in its first season. It was to be followed by Over the Top, a sitcom starring Tim Curry, Annie Potts and a young Steve Carell. However, Over the Top was re-tooled and its planned September premiere was pushed back to late October. Soul Man aired at 8:30pm following repeats of Home Improvement so it didn't have to compete with Mad About You right away. The lineup did eventually materialize but only for a couple weeks before Over the Top was cancelled. On top of scathing reviews, Over the Top was also part of some odd offstage drama because its executive producer had recently broken up with the ABC Entertainment President. Meanwhile at 9:30pm, a new show was also struggling. Hiller and Diller starred Kevin Nealon and Richard Lewis as an Odd Couple type of comedy writers. It was pulled for November Sweeps and only returned to Tuesday for a one-off episode in December before being pulled again. The ratings weren't terrible but it was losing huge amounts of the Home Improvement audience. Check back tomorrow for a One Season Wonder post on Hiller and Diller! To try to help stabilize the night, Grace Under Fire returned with a late premiere. The series had once been a Top 5 show but offscreen issues with star Brett Butler's erratic behavior and addiction struggles led to a pretty fast collapse for the show and in its fifth season, it was hanging on by a thread. It aired at 8pm and then 9:30pm before it was abruptly cancelled in February after Butler suffered another relapse in her addiction to painkillers. Repeats of The Drew Carey Show and Home Improvement aired at 8pm the rest of the way. In March, ABC aired the second season of Something So Right, a show it had rescued from NBC. NBC had some success poaching from ABC, most notably with 3rd Rock From the Sun so this was ABC's attempt to go the other way. It didn't work for them though as Something So Right was cancelled for the second time in two seasons in the spring. At the same time, a sitcom called That's Life aired at 9:30pm. The blue collar sitcom about a family in Queens was trashed by critics and lasted just a few weeks. After that, Something So Right moved to 9:30pm and Soul Man returned to 8:30pm. After all the carnage, only Home Improvement and NYPD Blue lived to see another season.

CBS	8:00	9:00	10:00
Sep	JAG	Michael Hayes	Dellaventura
Oct
Nov		Tuesday Night Movie
Dec		Michael Hayes	Dellaventura
Jan
Feb		Various Programs
Mar		Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel	Four Corners
Apr			Various Programs
May		Tuesday Night Movie

CBS revamped its lineup for Tuesday, ditching the Tuesday Night Movie for the first time since the 1989-90 season. Taking over at 8pm was JAG, which had made a successful move from NBC to CBS and was quickly becoming a tentpole show for its new network. It led into two new dramas. At 9pm was Michael Hayes, which was notable because it marked David Caruso's return to TV after his contentious exit from NYPD Blue. This was sort of a mea culpa because Caruso left Blue because he thought he could be a huge movie star and now he was coming back to TV at a time where the line between those two mediums was stronger than it is today. Hayes starred Caruso as an ex-police officer turned Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It was followed by another new drama, Dellaventura, which starred Danny Aiello as a former NYPD detective turned private detective. The male skewing night of law and order did not work for CBS as only JAG was garnering decent ratings. The new dramas went on hiatus in November then returned briefly in the winter months before Dellaventura was cancelled and Michael Hayes was shipped off to Wednesdays. Meanwhile on Tuesdays, there was eventually a new attempt of the night with newsmagazine Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel moving over to the night followed by new drama Four Corners, which marked Ann-Margret's one and only foray into regular series television. She starred as a woman trying to hang on to the family ranch following the death of her husband in a plane crash. The series was created by David Jacobs, who had created Dallas and Knots Landing but instead of lasting for over a decade, this one lasted just two weeks, one week as a two hour premiere and one subsequent episode.

NBC	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00
Sep	Mad About You	Newsradio	Frasier	Just Shoot Me!	Dateline NBC
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar		For Your Love		Lateline
Apr
May				Just Shoot Me!

NBC had a pretty steady season on Tuesdays in 1996-97 but tried some different returning shows in the 8:30pm and 9:30pm slot for the 1997-98 season. Mad About You, Frasier (coming off its fourth straight Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy Award) and Dateline NBC remained in the anchor slots. At 8:30pm was Newsradio, which had bounced all over the NBC lineup and was a cult hit but struggled to find a wide audience or gain the approval of the NBC programming executives. At 9:30pm was Just Shoot Me!, which had only aired a six episode first season but quickly started to gain steam in its second season. In March, both the half hour shows were on the move with the rising Just Shoot Me given a try-out on Thursdays and Newsradio sent to the wolves on Wednesdays. Two new sitcoms took their place. At 8:30pm was For Your Love, a romantic comedy about three couples at different stages of relationships starring Holly Robinson Peete among others. The series had a much more diverse cast at the time than any other NBC sitcom. At 9:30pm was Lateline, a sitcom starring Al Franken before his political career. It was set at a fictional late night news TV show. Since it followed the hit Frasier, it did pretty well in the ratings and got renewed for a second season. Meanwhile, For Your Love was cancelled but then picked up by The WB where it ran until 2002. For a brief time, Just Shoot Me returned to the night to close out the season.

FOX	8:00	9:00
Sep	Tuesday Night Movie
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May

FOX aired a movie on Tuesday nights for a fourth consecutive season.

UPN	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30
Sep	Clueless	Moesha	Hitz	Head Over Heels
Oct
Nov	Moesha	Clueless	Malcolm & Eddie	Hitz
Dec			Various Programs
Jan
Feb
Mar			Malcolm & Eddie	In the House
Apr
May				Good News

UPN was slowly building its network and had found a reliable comedy in Moesha, which was in its third season. It reached the highest ratings of its run in this season perhaps thanks in part to star Brandy's breakout role on the TV movie update of Rodgers & Hammestein's Cinderella. UPN paired it with another teen comedy, Clueless, which had come over from ABC. The show was gaining steam on ABC with summer reruns after it was cancelled and ABC tired to get it back but couldn't. It wasn't as great a fit on UPN and quickly flipped slots with Moesha to not be the 8pm lead-off. But it also was stronger than the 9pm hour. There were two new comedies at 9pm. Hitz was a critically savaged sitcom about record executives in Los Angeles and featured the return to TV of controversial comedian Andrew Dice Clay in a supporting role. Head Over Heels was a workplace comedy set at a Florida video dating service. The series came from Full House creator Jeff Franklin but was much smuttier than that wholesome ABC family comedy. It was also hated by critics and was the lowest rated UPN show of the year. Both the new comedies were pulled off the night by the end of November and UPN aired a variety of specials for a few months before bringing over some of its Monday sitcoms to finish out the season after going in a different direction on Mondays.

WB	8:00	9:00
Sep	No WB Programming
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan	Buffy the Vampire Slayer	Dawson’s Creek
Feb
Mar
Apr
May

The WB expanded to a fourth night of programming midway through the 1997-98 season by adding Tuesday nights to their roster. They used one of their breakout shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to give some fire to the new night and aired it at 8pm. Although the ratings were only so-so by virtue of it being on a netlet, it was getting a lot of media attention and becoming a cult hit. It was paired with a new teen drama that helped usher in a new era for The WB. Dawson's Creek, which starred four appealing young actors as teens in a small coastal Massachusetts town. The show became a breakout hit for The WB, the kind of show they were searching for since they launched in January 1995. Although it was still only #132 in the ratings, it was easily the top WB show of the year. It led to The WB becoming a haven for teen dramas in the years to come and The WB had quickly carved out a presence on Tuesday nights.

Top Rated Tuesday Show of 1997-98: Home Improvement (#10)

Lowest Rated Tuesday Show of 1997-98: Head Over Heels (#166)

What would I have watched on Tuesdays in 1997-98?

I'm pretty sure I would have watched the NBC sitcom block straight through and then flipped to ABC for NYPD Blue at 10pm. There were some appealing ABC sitcoms in their block but nothing I would have chosen over the competing sitcom on NBC.

Tomorrow: A One Season Wonder look at Hiller and Diller!

Next Tuesday: A look at Wednesdays in the 1997-98 season!