SCHEDULES OF THE PAST: 1998-1999 Tuesdays

On Tuesdays, I take a look at schedules from yesteryear. Here's a look at Tuesdays in the 1998-99 season! Also, after this week, the blog will be taking a two week break for Spring Break. New posts will return on April 4.

ABC	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00
Sep	Home Improvement	The Hughleys	Spin City	Sports Night	Various Programs
Oct					NYPD Blue
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar					Strange World
Apr					NYPD Blue
May

ABC was a mess on Tuesdays in the 1997-98 season except for Home Improvement and NYPD Blue, but the night stabilized quite a bit for them in the 1998-99 season though trouble was on the horizon with the ending of Home Improvement. One of the most popular shows in the 1990s, Home Improvement moved up an hour to air at 8pm on Tuesdays. Stars Tim Allen and Patricia Richardson were offered large salaries to continue for a ninth season but made the decision to walk away at the end of the season and the series ended after eight seasons and 204 episodes. Impressively, it never dropped out of the Top 10 in the Nielsen Ratings during its run. It was followed by a new family comedy. The Hughleys starred comedian D.L. Hughley as a father who moves his family from inner city Los Angeles to suburbia. The series performed decently but wasn't a breakout hit following the still potent Improvement. At 9pm, Spin City moved back to Tuesdays after spending a year on Wednesdays. The series continued to be a solid performer though it never became a cornerstone to build a lineup around. At 9:30pm was new comedy Sports Night. The first TV outing from Aaron Sorkin, it was a single camera comedy at a time that was very rare for network TV. Set at a fictional Sportscenter-type show, the series was instantly acclaimed and championed by critics but it struggled to find a wide audience. It managed to get renewed based in large part on the reviews and not the Nielsen numbers. NYPD Blue continued at 10pm with a mid-October start as the series had done several times before. The series went through a transition in its sixth season with Jimmy Smits departing five episodes into the season. Dennis Franz's character got yet another new partner in Rick Schroder starting in episode six. ABC put Blue on hiatus for a brief period in March to air the new Strange World. The sci-fi drama, which centered on an Army doctor battling infectious diseases with an otherworldly cure to his own disease, was supposed to run longer but only made it three episodes before being cancelled. The comedy lineup stayed in tact for the entire season though it was obvious ABC had some work to do with the impending void about to be left by Home Improvement's departure.

CBS	8:00	9:00	10:00
Sep	JAG	Tuesday Night Movie
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May

After failed dramas in the 9pm & 10pm hours for 1997-98, CBS went back to basics on Tuesday night for the 1998-99 season with the simple pairing of JAG and a movie. For JAG, the 1998-99 season (which was the series fourth overall and third on CBS) was its highest rated season of its long run.

NBC	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00
Sep	Mad About You	Encore! Encore!	Just Shoot Me!	Working	Dateline NBC
Oct
Nov		Various Programs
Dec	3rd Rock From the Sun	Newsradio		Will & Grace
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr				Everything’s Relative
May				Various Programs

The ending of Seinfeld had a domino effect on the NBC lineup for the 1998-99 season. Frasier left Tuesdays after four seasons to take over the Seinfeld slot and that left open the 9pm slot on Tuesdays. NBC handed it to Just Shoot Me!, which had broken out in its second season. While it didn't get Frasier-level ratings, it proved it was capable of being an anchor show for the network. Earlier in the night, Mad About You started off the season returning to the 8pm slot. It was followed by the new Nathan Lane sitcom Encore! Encore! starring Lane as an opera singer. The show went through troubled development and was trashed by critics and off the night by November Sweeps. Check back tomorrow for a One Season Wonder post on Encore! Encore! Mad eventually moved to Mondays and 3rd Rock From the Sun came back to the night in yet another timeslot move for a show that bounced all over NBC's lineup. It was followed by Newsradio, which was wrapping up a five season run that also bounced all over the lineup. The 9:30pm slot was originally given to Working, which was a moderately rated renewal. It did not deserve NBC's faith with a renewal as it struggled in the ratings. NBC brought over Will & Grace from Mondays after it showed promise there to give it a better slot and the plan worked as Will & Grace became the network's next big hit. Will & Grace did so well it even got upgraded again to Thursdays late in the season. It was replaced on Wednesdays by Everything's Relative, a sitcom starring Kevin Rahm as a comedy writer that came from a pre-Arrested Development's Mitchell Hurwitz. Also starring Jeffrey Tambor, it was cancelled after just four weeks. Throughout all the changes from 8-10pm, newsmagazine Dateline NBC held down the fort at 10pm.

FOX	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30
Sep	King of the Hill	Costello	Guinness World Records
Oct
Nov		King of the Hill
Dec		Holding the Baby
Jan		The PJs
Feb
Mar
Apr		Futurama	The PJs	Various Programs
May

FOX changed gears on Tuesday nights for the 1998-99 season. After four years of airing a movie on Tuesdays, FOX went back to regular programming thanks in part to the breakout success of King of the Hill. They felt like the show could leave its post-Simpsons slot and kick off a new night. It maybe wasn't ready for that though as it plunged from #15 to #110 in the ratings. It still got renewed and ran for many more years, but the show never again came close to the heights of its breakout second season in 1997-98. It was followed by new comedy Costello, a comedy starring comedian Sue Costello as a Boston bartender. Despite the setting of a Boston bar, it was not the next coming of Cheers as it was trashed by critics and off the air by the middle of October. The unscripted Guinness World Records continued to air at 9pm as it had in the summer. When Costello went off the air, repeats of King of the Hill aired for awhile before FOX burned off some episodes of Holding the Baby, which had been on hiatus since mid-September. A new comedy launched in January. The PJs was a stop motion animated sitcom created by Eddie Murphy, Larry Wilmore and Steve Tompkins. Murphy also provided the voice of the main character. The series earned better reviews and better ratings than Costello and helped round out a night of animated shows late in the season by moving to 9pm. That was to help make room for Futurama, which was another animated sitcom in a season that saw a major push by FOX for new animated shows (in addition to The PJs and Futurama, FOX also launched Family Guy in the 1998-99 season). Futurama, a sci-fi cartoon set in 2999, had the added prestige of coming from the creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening. While none of the Tuesday shows were huge hits, they all showed enough promise for FOX to remain invested in the animated lineup though they didn't continue on Tuesdays.

UPN	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30
Sep	Moesha	Clueless	Moesha	Clueless
Oct			Mercy Point
Nov			America’s Greatest Pets	Reunited
Dec				America’s Greatest Pets
Jan			Malcolm & Eddie	Between Brothers
Feb
Mar		Family Rules
Apr
May		Clueless

UPN continued to begin its Tuesday nights with Moesha and Clueless. Moesha remained UPN's highest rated show besides Star Trek: Voyager and star Brandy Norwood continued to be a budding pop star fresh off her #1 single with Monica "The Boy Is Mine." Clueless had performed pretty well in its first UPN season after a year on ABC but it wasn't doing all that well and UPN cancelled the series at the end of the season after three seasons (two on UPN). Clueless was briefly replaced by Family Rules in the spring. Family Rules starred Greg Evigan as a widower raising four children and coaching basketball in Baltimore. Featuring a young Maggie Lawson, the series lasted for its six episode spring run before it was never heard from again. At the beginning of the season (which was October for UPN), they tried a drama at 9pm. Mercy Point was a sci-fi medical drama starring Joe Morton and set in a space hospital station in the 23rd century. The series was pulled from the lineup after just three episodes with four more episode getting burned off in Summer 1999. It was replaced by the unscripted America's Greatest Pets and new comedy Reunited. Reunited was about a mom reuniting with a daughter she had given up for adoption 20 years prior. It had the distinction of being the lowest rated network show of the 1998-99 season and one of the lowest of all time at that point. In January, UPN brought over Malcolm & Eddie from Mondays and paired it with Between Brothers, which had aired on FOX in the 1997-98 season. Between Brothers only aired four new episodes on UPN (originally produced for FOX) during the spring but reruns populated the slot from January to May. There was a plan to produce new episodes if the ratings panned out but they didn't so no new episodes were produced.

WB	8:00	9:00
Sep	Buffy the Vampire Slayer	Felicity
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May

The WB had expanded to Tuesday nights in January 1998 with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson's Creek. When Dawson's Creek broke out, The WB decided to break up its successful shows to help launch new ones by sending Dawson to Wednesdays and it paid off on both nights. Buffy the Vampire Slayer continued at 8pm and posted its best ratings of its entire run in the 1998-99 season, the third for the show. It was paired with Felicity, a very different type of drama but one that appealed to the same demographic. Felicity starred Keri Russell as a college freshman in New York City. It was an instant hit with critics and the WB audience and The WB continued to expand its roster of teen and young adult friendly shows.

Top Rated Tuesday Show of 1998-99: Home Improvement (#10)

Lowest Rated Tuesday Show of 1998-99: Reunited (#164)

What would I have watched on Tuesdays in 1998-99?

I would have had a tough time deciding what to watch on Tuesdays. I think I would have watched (or taped) Mad About You, Spin City, Sports Night, NYPD Blue, Newsradio, Just Shoot Me! and Felicity to name a few. There were others I might have sampled too but that 9pm hour would have been a logjam for me.

Tomorrow: A One Season Wonder look at Encore! Encore!

Tuesday in Three Weeks: A look at Wednesdays in the 1998-99 season!