The major networks have basically abandoned Saturdays. The WB and UPN don’t even program the night, and NBC’s entire schedule consists of special clip shows and repeats. In fact, there is so little going on that in the fall previews by both TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly, the featured show doesn’t even exist in prime-time. Instead, TV Guide spotlighted Saturday Night Live and EW examined Mad TV. But other than ABC spreading family films and theatrical movie broadcasts across three hours, and CBS throwing the best reality show on all of television into one of the worst time slots imaginable, there’s not much interesting going on Saturdays.
And why should there be? Who stays home Saturday nights, right?
Well, here’s something to consider. What do the following shows have in common? The Mary Tyler Moore Show, All in the Family, The Bob Newhart Show, M*A*S*H, The Carol Burnett Show, The Jeffersons, Starsky and Hutch, The Love Boat, CHiPs, Hart to Hart, Fantasy Island, WKRP in Cincinnati, T.J. Hooker, Diff’rent Strokes, Silver Spoons, Gimme a Break!, The Golden Girls, 227, Hunter, Empty Nest, Who’s the Boss?, Growing Pains, Sisters, and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
I’m sure the context of my question gives away the answer: all of those shows have aired, and succeeded — many even thrived — on Saturdays. In fact, from 1971-1975, All in the Family was the top rated show on all of television while airing at 8 PM on Saturday night. And the only reason that ended in 1975 is because All in the Family was moved to Tuesdays to make room for The Jeffersons, and brand new show launched on Saturday at 8 PM because that was CBS’s strongest night of the week. During the 1973 season, CBS’s Saturday lineup kicked-off with All in the Family (still the #1 show), continued with M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and The Bob Newhart Show before winding up with The Carol Burnett Show. That’s a lineup including five of the best shows in television history, let alone that season.
It wasn’t just the 70s, though. In the 80s, The Love Boat and Fantasy Island were a one-two ratings punch, and NBC had major hits with Diff’rent Strokes and Gimme a Break! Later the same decade, The Facts of Life and The Golden Girls became major Saturday night hits. But by the mid-to-late ’90s, the last remnants of popular original programming – Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Touched By an Angel, Walker, Texas Ranger – were family shows that by a couple years ago were gone. And now? Virtually nothing.
It all came crashing down sometime in the mid-90s. Slowly but surely, audiences had been dwindling on Saturdays, and networks became more nervous about putting shows, especially new programming, on the night, and now they’ve basically decided to give us a night off.
|   | ABC | CBS | NBC | FOX | WB | UPN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00 PM: | The Wonderful World of Disney | The Amazing Race (6) | Miscellaneous Specials | Cops | Local Programming | |
| 8:30 PM: | Cops | |||||
| 9:00 PM: | Crimetime Saturday | The Apprentice (pseudo-encore; extra boardroom) | America’s Most Wanted: America Fights Back | |||
| 9:30 PM: | ||||||
| 10:00 PM: | 48 Hours Mystery | Law & Order (L&O, SVU or CI) repeats | Local Programming | |||
| 10:30 PM: | ||||||
I suppose I’m being a little bit hard on the networks. I mean, at 8 PM CBS will be airing the best reality show, and one of the best series period, on TV today: The Amazing Race. However, TAR, as it’s affectionately known by its fans, has never been a huge ratings draw except during its summer runs the past two years. But is the show’s recent success and two consecutive Emmy wins enough to actually attract an audience on Saturday nights? We won’t find out until late October at the earliest; currently CBS is replaying episodes of Survivor.
NBC is replaying episodes of its biggest reality hit at 9 PM, The Apprentice, but in a much more interesting way. NBC isn’t just replaying The Apprentice which aired on Thursday; rather they’ve been expanding the boardroom segments to comprise the final 40 minutes of the show while consolidating the non-boardroom elements into a 20 minute recap. I’ve found myself watching both airings: first Thursday all the way through, and then fast-forwarding through the first 20 minutes of Saturday and then watching all the extra-boardroom footage. Really what I’ve learned is that the show should be 90 minutes with all the added boardroom sequences there all the time. Not only are the confrontations in the boardroom the best part of the show, but we learn a lot more about all the relationships and what happened on the tasks that we may not have seen.
Fox is the only network with 100% original content every week. Fox found a nice devoted niche audience many years ago by airing law-enforcement reality shows Cops and America’s Most Wanted. I don’t ever watch either show, but they’re consistently well-made and they probably have the most loyal audiences and stable ratings of any TV show on the air. Throw in how little they cost to make, and I would be surprised if Fox’s schedule changes anytime in the near future.
Meanwhile, ABC straddles the line between original and repeats with its branded night of programming The Wonderful World of Disney. There was a time when WWoD was actually a Sunday early-evening staple on NBC, usually featuring cartoons from the studio vaults and broadcasts of Disney theatrical and made-for-TV films appropriate for the family, usually of the adventure or comedy variety. The current WWoD would be more interesting if it continued to show those older films like Swiss Family Robinson, Freaky Friday (the original) and Escape From Witch Mountain and made interesting, but not stupid, original family films. Instead, the series seems to exist as a branding arena for anything released via Walt Disney Pictures in the last few years and really stupid and unnecessary original TV films.
Now I’m sure this may excite more than a few of you, and I loved it myself, but I really see no need for Growing Pains: The Return of the Seavers. Yet this second Growing Pains reunion movie will be what launches this season of The Wide World of Disney on 10/16. It will be followed by airings of The Princess Diaries, Monsters Inc. and The Rookie. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these films, especially the phenomenal Monsters Inc., but wouldn’t it be nicer to turn on a new generation of children to the older Disney movies? The ones they may not be so anxious to rent from the video stores? The ones which their parents may remember from their youth, and therefore can bring the family together to enjoy something that may be a little cheesy or corny by modern standards, but is still fun and family-friendly? And how about bringing back some old Disney cartoons? Original Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck? How great would that be? Too bad it won’t happen.
CBS’s 9 PM Crimetime Saturday is basically the same thing as NBC’s 10 PM rotating Law & Order franchise repeats, except it will draw from all of CBS’s procedural dramas: CSI, CSI: Miami, Without a Trace, Cold Case, etc.
CBS’s 10 PM 48 Hours Mystery was a very innovative newsmagazine 16 years ago when it first premiered: examine one topic or place for 48 hours straight. The “48 hours” part of the examination went by the wayside years ago, but the concept of examining one specific subject matter in depth for the entire hour survives and has evolved into almost a natural extension of the old NBC show Unsolved Mysteries, except “48 hours” doesn’t require the “unsolved” element.
But see, there I’ve gone and spent more time discussing Saturday night then you’ll spend watching it – although you should be watching The Amazing Race when it starts again. Go ahead and do what I do: DiVo it! Still, this must be why TV Guide and EW thought it would be more interesting to discuss the late-night comedy shows. But will this be forever? Or, even in this age of 200 channels and the internet, competition for the major networks which basically didn’t exist in the ’70s or ’80s, could Saturday ever be a TV hotspot again as it once was?
A reminder: Sunday’s (p)review won’t be posted until after tomorrow night.
SATURDAY RECOMMENDATIONS
Don’t miss:
The Amazing Race (6);
The Apprentice (pseudo-encore; extra boardroom)
Worth watching:: 48 Hours Mystery; Depends on the repeat/movie
Tolerable:
Cops;
America’s Most Wanted: America Fights Back
Ouch my eyes! My head! Oh, the pain! Please make it stop!:
So much potential, but nothing specific.
Out of Focus 