40 – The Broadcast TV Networks – ABC CBS NBC FOX and The CW!

Thanks for tuning in to your remote control here

on the Geekcast Radio Network. I'm your announcer,

Optimus Solo. And today, in episode 40, TFG1

Mike and Jan Fusion are going to give you a history

of the broadcast television networks. Join us

as we flip through NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and The

CW. So for TV talk all the time, stop channel

surfing and let us take over your remote control.

Grab that remote control because the GCRN's brand

new, well, kind of old TV podcast is here. We

are calling it Remote Control. I am one of your

hosts, TF2 and Mike. And joining me is that kid

couch potato. Why do you have a talking car on

your couch? It is Jennifer Kaufman. Hello. It's

been a while. It's been about a year since we

did the five episodes of This Is Us Season 1,

and oh my god, that show. We'll talk about that

way later, but oh god. Yeah, this will probably

be slightly less emotional, but I feel like anything

will be slightly less emotional than that. Yeah,

and you know, heaven forbid anybody leave the

crockpot on. Oh god. Yeah, no, let's not. So,

Jen is a writer over at thetelevixen .com. As

I said, you guys would have heard her on the

Mr. Robot episode and the This Is Us episode

we did within the last two or three years. And

this episode, folks, episode 40 of Remote Control,

I have been planning since day one of the podcast.

This is going to be a giant episode because we're

going to talk about all of the broadcast television

networks. ABC, CBS, NBC. See, I didn't forget

them this time, even though they're a network

about nothing. Fox. The WB, UPN, and the CW.

Obviously, the WB and UPN, the CW is their love

child at this point because they went away and

became the CW. But, yeah, we're going to talk

about all of this. Originally, this was going

to be split up into six different podcasts, one

for each network. And I'm like, I can't. But

what you're saying is this could be a six -hour

podcast, technically. You can't be here until

tomorrow morning? I hope not. I don't know. I

don't think I could. I mean, I've sat and done,

I've done a six hour podcast before. It was a

live San Diego comic -con reaction thing. We

were recording live and all that and everything

else, not at the convention, but just, you know,

on streaming or wherever people stream podcast,

but you know, like you stream or whatever, if

that's still in existence. Um, yeah. So I've

sat for a six hour podcast before. It's not fun

at the end. No. No, that's long. Because your

knees will just give out when you go to stand

up. So, yeah, you know, broadcast TV. It's been

around for, well, what is it? Is it NBC? Yeah,

NBC is getting ready to celebrate, or they just

celebrated almost their 80th year? Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. Long. Yep. Yeah. Next year will be NBC's

80th year on the air. So there's that. Before

we get too far into this, we're going to send

it over to our announcer guy, Optimus Sloan.

He's going to give us a little stage dressing

for the show. And now it's time for a quick history

lesson on the broadcast television networks.

Cable television first became available in the

United States in 1948. And according to reports

released by the FCC, traditional cable television

subscriptions in the United States peaked around

the year 2000 at 68 .5 million total subscriptions.

Since then, however, cable subscriptions have

been in slow decline. In the early 1990s, there

were effectively only three major networks. ABC,

CBS, and NBC. Every hit series appearing in the

Nielsen Top 20 television programs and every

successful commercial network telecast of a major

feature film was aired by one of the big three

networks. Some of those hit shows and some of

those hit telecasts would go something like this.

On NBC. the first World Series broadcast in 1947.

In 1952, the debut of The Today Show, the first

early morning news show. We had its first test

color broadcast in 1953, almost a decade ahead

of ABC and CBS. 1954, you had The Tonight Show,

which became the first successful late -night

talk show. 1959, you had Bonanza, one of the

first major series to be broadcast in color.

How about 1960? The first televised presidential

debates between Kennedy and Nixon. You had the

debut of Star Trek on NBC in 1966 to launch that

franchise into stardom. You had the debut of

Saturday Night Live in 1975. How about everybody's

favorite anchor growing up? Tom Brokaw, who debuted

in 1983 on NBC and would stay on the network

until 2004. NBC, who had formerly been owned

by RCA, was acquired by GE in 1986, which led

to the transition under Brandon Tartikoff where

NBC went from last to first in the ratings. The

90s in NBC would have been all about law and

order, the more you know, and must -see TV. In

2004, NBC merged with Universal and then was

bought by Comcast in 2011. Also in 2014, just

a few short years ago, NBC took the mantle as

the top -rated channel for the first time in

over a decade. Let's go to one of the other big

three, ABC. 1954, ABC launches a campaign ushering

in the new ABC with productions from several

studios including MGM, Warner Brothers, and 20th

Century Fox. ABC agrees to finance Walt Disney's

Disneyland in exchange for the right to broadcast

a new Sunday night program called Disneyland.

In 1956, DeMont Television Network goes bankrupt

and ABC finds itself as the third U .S. TV network,

dubbed the Little Third Network. It debuted Monday

Night Football in 1970. And then in 1995, the

Walt Disney Company announced an agreement to

merge with ABC for $19 billion. In 2004, ABC's

average viewership declined, landing the network

in fourth place for the first time. And what

about that other third network, CBS? Had the

likes of Gunsmoke in 1955 and Leave It to Beaver

in 1957. How about one of the longest standing

shows in history, 16 Minutes, which debuted on

CBS in 1968. It also had a resurgence in the

1970s where it gets into first place with the

likes of MASH, which lasted until the 80s. And

then again in the early 90s and 2000s thanks

to the likes of CSI and reality TV shows such

as The Survivor Show. The Big Three networks

dominated the airwaves for decades. A viable

fourth television network would not become competitive

with the Big Three until Fox was founded in October

of 1986. Since its founding, Fox has surpassed

ABC and NBC in the ratings during the early primetime

hours, in which it competes against the longer

established networks, becoming the second most

watched network behind the CBS during the 2000s.

During the 2007 -2008 season, Fox was the highest

rated of the major broadcast networks, as well

as the first non -Big 3 network to reach first

place. From 2004 -2012, Fox also dominated U

.S. television in the lucrative and viewer -rich

18 -49 demographics, in large part due to the

success of its NFL coverage and its top -rated

primetime program, American Idol. Given the network's

success in its primetime and sports offerings,

it has been occasionally included with the Big

Three, in which case the phrase Big Four is used.

Although Fox has firmly established itself as

the nation's fourth major network with its rating

success, it is not considered part of the Big

Three. Among Fox's difference with the Big Three

is its reduced weekday programming. It lacks

national morning and evening news programs. Fox

has its news division consists of cable and radio

operations, but does not provide content for

the broadcast television network's other, than

a weekly news analysis program. Limiting special

breaking news reports and an affiliate news service

for its stations called Fox News Edge, Fox does

not feature any daytime programming. A third

hour of primetime, late -night talk shows, and

Saturday morning children's programming. Fox

had an extensive lineup of children's programs

throughout the 90s called Fox Kids, but sold

the division to the Walt Disney Company in 2001

as part of its sale of cable network Fox Family

Channel, after which 4 Kids Entertainment supplied

the network's children's lineup until 2009. Other

networks eventually launched in an attempt to

not only compete with the big three, as well

as Fox, but these netlets have been unable to

ascend to the same level of success. The WB and

UPN launched in 1995. Like Fox, they both added

nights of primetime programming over the course

of a few years, but the WB was the only one that

aired any on weekends, carrying a Sunday night

lineup for all but its first half season on the

air. While the WB and UPN each had a handful

of popular series during their existences, they

struggled for overall viewership and financial

losses. This led to their respective parent companies,

CBS Corporation and Time Warner, to shut them

down in 2006 to jointly launch The CW, which

initially featured a mix of programs from both

predecessors as well as some newer shows. Today,

the Big Three control only a relatively small

portion of the broadcasting market in the United

States. In the mid -2000s, it was estimated at

a combined 32%. The Big Three's market share

has dwindled considerably as a result of growing

competition from broadcast networks such as Fox

and CW, Spanish -language networks such as Univision

and Telemundo, as well as national cable and

satellite channels such as TNT, ESPN, AMC, and

USA. And of course, the major reason for the

decline in the broadcast channels as of late

is internet services such as Amazon Prime and

Netflix. How long will the big three networks

be relevant? Who knows? But as for now, let's

celebrate the history of the broadcast networks.

Thank you so much, Optimus Solo, and it is time

for the network talk here on Remote Control.

So all three big networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS,

started out as radio companies. I knew this,

but... And I remember listening to each of these

radio companies in the 80s and all that, because

they're obviously still around now, they were

still around then, but transitioning from a radio

company to a television company, that's interesting,

because let's all face it, before TV, radio was

the only entertainment most people had in their

homes. Well, you know, the reason I actually

knew that even before I started sort of paying

more attention to the history of television was

because I used to be super into soap operas when

I was a tween. And interestingly enough, a lot

of the soap operas, not the ones that still exist

because soap operas have kind of died off over

the last two decades. But, you know, a lot of

the popular ones in the 90s that still existed

started on radio, on these networks, and then

transitioned into television. For example, Another

World, I think As the World Turns, One Life to

Live, which have all sadly disappeared, started

on radio. So that's how I kind of knew that these

networks had existed as radios before they started

airing TV shows. And soap operas were some of

the first things some of them started airing.

Yeah, absolutely. And obviously, we all kind

of grew up with the soap operas, whether we were

watching them with our parents or grandmothers,

grandparents, whatever. Every kid knows not to

interrupt grandma when she's watching her stories.

Yes. That's like, exactly. The sad thing with

my grandmother is it transitioned from the soaps

to the judge shows. Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown,

Judge Mathis, Judge whatever, insert judge name

here. And it was crazy. Because we also watched

The People's Court with Judge Joseph A. Wapner

and Doug Llewellyn. as, as the court reporter.

Cause yeah, that, that was the eighties folks.

Um, great decades for television and all of them

are great decades for television. Um, so. 79

years on the air, NBC has become famous for many

programs on their network. Of course, for me,

Knight Rider, The A -Team, all the other action

shows they had were the staples of my childhood

from NBC. Plus they had Alf. Everybody loved

Alf, right? Right? Uh, sure. Yeah, I mean, he

was cute and all, I guess. It wasn't really my

thing. Uh -huh, as well as many other shows.

What shows from NBC have you, not have you seen,

but were you watching as a kid and that kind

of stuff with your parents and all that? What

shows were you allowed to see kind of a thing,

I guess? Well, I guess I should sort of preface

this by the fact that I'm from Canada. So I do

know all of this, hopefully, since I'm trying

to speak with authority about it. I didn't have

the same brand recognition when I was a kid as

to what was what, because I was often watching

it on simulcast on Canadian networks. We do get

the American networks, but a lot of times the

shows are picked up by a Canadian channel, so

we'll watch it on there in a different order,

and we don't really know, or I didn't at the

time know, where it originated from. So I wasn't,

you know, watching it going NBC. I love NBC,

you know. But, you know, in researching a lot

of this, the stuff that comes to mind for me

is, I mean, I didn't really get into this stuff

until the 90s, but stuff like The Cosby Show

and Family Ties, because they were sort of like

in the 80s, they had like the biggest family

shows. I would say those two would be like the

big. If you think of, like, sitcoms in history,

I think Cosby Show and Family Ties are probably

two of the biggest. And those were on NBC. Like,

I never got to watch, like, the Knight Riders

and the Remington Steels when they were first

on. I did watch Cheers, the Golden Girls, shows

like that. But a lot of it I come to sort of

later and figured out the history of it. So yeah,

that's my experience with NBC. Absolutely. For

me, I'm just going to say this right now, folks.

The man doesn't make the show in this case. Actions

being reprehensible and all of that and everything

else. that's real life that to me does not affect

the lessons as a child in the 80s that i learned

from cliff claire and all of that on the huxtables

on the cosby show i can separate his real life

quote unquote criminal acts like i'm not i don't

know i'm not trying to get super in depth with

this with the whole bill cosby crap because it's

depressing as hell but my point here is i can

separate the show from real life i think that

for me that's mostly true I would still watch

it I still I still do on occasion and I think

that there's so much work that went into that

show there's so many brilliant episodes there

are a lot of other brilliant performers on that

show absolutely it does you know I'm not one

of those people that would say well I'm never

watching that again or this is dead to me I hate

that expression by the way I just think it's

so simple and life isn't really that simple.

However, it's hard not to have that leave a stain

on some level in my experience of it, I would

say. But like the little – and it's not – okay,

yeah, it is him. It is his character and all

that. But like the little life lessons, like

the whole – dentist episode with Rudy and her

friend Peter where Peter was scared to go to

the dentist and you go to the dentist and it's

this old frail dentist who like has fake teeth

and basically tries to make the kid feel comfortable

so he can have his cleaning done or you know

it's that kind of lesson or the fact that you

know Rudy's first day of school she shouldn't

have you know made the tuna fish sandwich the

night before kind of a thing you know it's a

brilliant show those lessons are all that's what

makes it so sad because yeah It did so much for

comedy. It did so much for diversity, for showing

an African -American family on television. And

it being the number one comedy for years and

years and years, it did make this huge impact.

And that's why there is a level of kind of, oh,

did it have to be that show that sort of gets

tainted a little bit? You know, I do try to separate

it and I still have a ton of respect for it.

But, you know, you do wish sort of that that

that just obviously you wish that that wasn't

the case. that this show sort of didn't have

that added to its legacy unfortunately i think

is that's part of how i feel about it in the

end yeah absolutely um when it comes to cbs that

network has been on the air hold on are we just

gonna skip over like the 90s you just went oh

the 90s yeah that's true the 90s on nbc uh seinfeld

You skipped over a must -see TV era, which, you

know, it's funny because as I was sort of researching

a little bit of the history, you know, I always

thought NBC had sort of been a juggernaut, but

it wasn't really true. Like, the 80s kind of

made NBC for sure. Yeah. And then the 90s solidified

their position as sort of this huge juggernaut

of TV because you did have friends. You had Seinfeld,

Frasier, Will & Grace, which is back again. Well,

I don't dislike Will & Grace. I have some thoughts

on things that are back again. Yeah. It was so

huge. I mean, when they said must -see TV, I

felt that it, I mean, it was accurate for me

anyway. Like, I was in high school in the 90s,

and everybody watched those shows. You know,

we haven't seen since the 90s. really anything

that everybody watches anymore. And of course

that's just because of the diversification of,

of ways to watch television right now. You're

not, there's no show that people just sit down

and everybody watches it. It just doesn't exist.

But that was still a thing in the nineties. And

yeah, like that was huge. And of course the dramas

too, like ER. So NBC was kind of like king of

my high school years, I guess. Like, and then

that, by that point I understood how networks

worked and what I was watching and, and that

really defined, defined the 90s i think those

those shows particularly yeah NBC in the 90s

is one of those things where I've always come

to certain things and I've made choices. I've

gone one way but not the other. The only way

I can equate it, and I'm going to keep this very

brief, is to animation in the 80s. Transformers

or G .I. Joe? I chose Transformers. Yes, I knew

about the G .I. Joe series and I've seen several

episodes of it, but Transformers was my choice.

In the 90s for NBC, my choice... Because I watched

like six episodes of Friends in the beginning

and I was done. Absolutely done. The only episode

of Friends I actually remember is the one where

they went to the Hootie and the Blowfish concert.

And that's funny because it's like, who remembers

Hootie and the Blowfish, really? Everybody should.

Their songs are still all over the radio. You

know, that was actually the first CD I owned

and I'm super embarrassed about it. I pretend

it wasn't. Gotta love that cracked rear view.

Now I'm okay with it, but of course, when you're

that age and you have something and everybody

hates it two years later, you're like, oh my

god, what did I do? Oh no. The first, not music,

but the first two albums is just... After that

is fine. But the first two, like all those songs

off of Cracked Riverview, anytime I hear those,

I'm like, hey, it's Hootie. Yeah. I mean, so

I like both. I liked Friends and Seinfeld. I

think I would consider myself more of a Friends

fan, although I critically I respect Seinfeld

more. They were doing much more interesting things,

obviously. But it's just a matter of like what

your personal preference is for me. But that

was kind of like the 90s were kind of like NBC's

also their last huge like heyday because they

weren't really able to sustain that into the

2000s as those shows started, you know. ending

their runs they really tried to bring that whole

must see tv thing back try to keep it going and

they never really received um the rating success

that they did in the 90s although there's so

many shows from the 2000s of like the new era

that i think were amazing and they got a lot

of critical acclaim like the office and parks

and rec and community so nbc kind of went into

this space where they were doing really creative

things but they never really got that They struggled

to kind of maintain that position because they

were number one for so long and that kind of

switched up and they've never been able to get

that level back for sure since that era. No,

and the crazy thing with NBC is it's more so

in the last, oh God, 10 years or so, 10 or 15

years or so at this point, since about 2005.

And I don't know if it's the social media angle

or if it's the internet itself or whatever. I

know it's ratings, obviously. But NBC will put

all, like, I get it. It's free to have a Twitter

account or set up a Facebook fan page or whatever

and whether you get verified or not. But obviously

all these networks are going to get verified

no matter what for whatever show they're doing

on whatever social media platform they're using.

Take... This with a grain of salt. The Knight

Rider reboot 10 years ago in 2008. I cannot believe

it's been 10 years since that reboot happened.

Time for another reboot. No. I'm kidding, I'm

kidding, I'm kidding. Please. I don't think my

heart can take it. But they put all this stuff

into the advertisement, the whole Ford thing

and the Mustang and this, that, and the other

thing and everything else. The show only lasted

17 episodes. OK, because by episode 12 or 13,

Ford basically, I think, pulled out or something.

Something happened with that show where the advertising

died down or something happened to where they're

like, oh, and they can blame it on the ratings

all they want. And it could be true. It probably

is for most shows that that eventually die off

is ratings. But like it just kind of disappeared.

You know, take Fox, for example. In 2007, they

had Drive with Nathan Fillion and a bunch of

other people. It was this very short... They

didn't even air the final two episodes until

months and months later. It was six episodes

of a series based on the super secret race kind

of a thing. And that's what I don't like about

the broadcast networks is they'll put all this

stuff into it, get us excited about it, and then

if it doesn't pan out for them, they'll pull

it immediately and not do anything else with

it. I mean, I know that frustration as a fan,

but I really, I get it because it's really so

hard to predict and they have to put everything

into it and they have to put everything into

it because they have to hope that it works. But

if it really doesn't, and in the case of Drive

and Knight Rider, it really didn't. Sometimes

they don't have the ratings, but they have enough

of a bubble, like enough of a cult following

that they will still keep it because it has a

level of – when your fans are really passionate,

advertisers want to reach that stuff. Like Chuck

on NBC never really reached a huge pinnacle,

but – The fans actually used the advertisers

to keep that show on the air. They did a whole

thing with Subway where they were like, we'll

start buying subs if you keep it on the air.

We're going to make your advertisers happy if

you keep the show on the air. And Subway loved

that, obviously. Subway was like, this is great

because you're including us in the narrative.

And Subway actually used community the same way.

So I just think when a show doesn't have either

critical success or any real fans. They can't,

it's so hard for them to keep it on the air.

So I do kind of understand that. But that's funny

because it kind of leads into like, you sent

me this little outline of what you wanted to

talk about. My favorite was these little failure

sections for what were kind of their biggest

failures. So I don't know, would you say like

a Knight Rider reboot would be one of your biggest

NBC failures? Not the 2008 one. Now in the 90s,

they tried to do Team Knight Rider. That was

a failure. Wow, I missed that entirely. Really?

Yeah, Team Knight Rider. Wait, did you say team

or teen? Team. Okay. It was five cars. Yeah,

team. He just got his license. No, no, no. Not

Team Knight Rider. Teen. Not teen. Team Knight

Rider. This was in 1997. Okay. You've seen Revenge,

yes. I have the ABC soap opera. Yes, Jack from

Revenge. So Nick Welcher. Was one of the characters,

one of the actors on Team Knight Rider. Well,

I love him. I may have to watch that now. No,

you really don't. I'm not trying to convince

you to watch it because as a Knight Rider fan,

it is the worst thing in the world. I have actually

never seen an episode of Knight Rider. What?

And here's what you're going to hate me for.

I actually have the complete box set because

I got it for free. And every once in a while,

I push the button and it makes that noise. The

scanner noise, yes. And it's on my shelf right

now. I can see it from here. And I've never actually

watched an episode of it. Oh, my God. Okay, so.

Since we're talking about this, since we're on

NBC, and you know what, folks? I think she was

right. It might take us six hours to get through

all these networks. But here's the thing with

me and Knight Rider. I was... Two, when it premiered,

by the time I was watching most of the first,

second, and third season in reruns in 84, 85,

and 86, obviously 86 it ended. By the time I

was four and six years old, I was glued to that

thing because it's a guy named Michael, my name's

Michael, with a talking car. Yeah, and hello,

it's the 80s. No internet, no cell phones, no

this, no that. But there's a microcomputer in

a car or whatever that talks back to you. And

I actually have photographic proof of this. I

went to the Boston Budweiser Expo in 1986 and

I met David Hasselhoff. I got to pose with him

and I got to sit in kit. Pretty exciting. Yeah.

For a six -year -old, yeah. So, yeah, Knight

Rider's a little gem for me. So in the 90s, when

they decided to do Team Knight Rider, I'm like,

okay. And the crazy thing is, David McCollum

was the villain of that series. Ducky from NCIS

was the villain of that series. That's weird.

You know, I feel like they really couldn't reboot

Knight Rider now, and if they did, what would

they do? Because, like, cars talk to us, right?

Like, not in exactly the same way, but it feels

like you'd be like, yeah, that's my GPS, and

also, who cares? Yeah, that's what they did 10

years ago in 2008. They basically took the whole

thing and whatever. Originally, I think it was

because he had a contract with GM or something.

Originally, Will Arnett was going to be the voice

of Kit, but then they went and got Batman Val

Kilmer to do it. I feel like no one would take

Will Arnett seriously, though, right? When he

speaks, you're like, oh, you're kidding. Everything

he says is a joke. It's really cool. quite weird

to see him try to be serious because he just

doesn't have that voice. It's going to sound

like the car is mocking you the whole time. So

I think he probably made the right choice. Probably.

Did you have any other big NBC failures that

you thought were a disaster? Any of their reality

programming half the time. Honestly, reality

television in general is most of the time a pretty

big failure. But like you were saying, all these

dating or marry me shows, all of that kind of

stuff. Yeah, I don't know how many NBC had. I

actually didn't look it up, but I don't know

if they're the biggest offender of that. I'm

pretty sure Fox is definitely the biggest offender.

Oh, absolutely. You know, when I think of NBC

and reality shows, I mean, I mostly think of

The Voice, which I love, because I do like singing

competitions, as long as they're not exploitive,

which it's not. Yeah. I can't think of a lot

of other ones. I don't know. Yeah, not from NBC.

Yeah, not from NBC. And The Voice, so my wife

and I started watching season 13, and we stopped

right after the battles. Is that this season?

No, that's last season. Okay, right, yeah. That's

the last season. So Miley Cyrus and Jennifer

Hudson. Yeah. Not only were we too busy to watch

it, but we just completely lost interest because

the voice over the years that it's been on has

really changed up. how they select songs, whether

the artists select them, whether the coaches

select them, whether they're allowed to even

use them, whether NBC has the rights to do them

kind of a thing. And that's, it's not necessarily

the artists that I have issues with at all. It's

whatever the song selection is. And if I think

that artist can or cannot perform that song well,

or if I even know the song, like right now in

the middle of like. We're like four episodes

behind on season 14, the current season at this

point. We're still on night one of the playoffs.

I'm not even there. I'm still in the blind auditions.

I'm going to have to fix that. I'm going to have

to fix that crap. I normally am, but I just got

busy this year. I think that with the song selection,

it's sort of up to the coaches. Now we're actually

getting into a whole separate voice podcast.

But yeah, I think it's like the coaches sort

of decide whether they're going to... It depends

on the artist. There are some coaches who...

really want to pick songs for their artists and

there are others who kind of let them do their

own thing and sometimes it depends on how creative

they think the person is versus just a good voice

i mean it just i find it interesting but i can

see that i can see the sort of frustration with

that for sure because it isn't consistent yeah

it started out as the show started out as the

coaches kind of picking all the songs kind of

a thing the last two seasons the artists have

been able to pick what song they're going to

do at certain points in the cop, like the, like,

um, not the battles, uh, the knockouts. Yeah.

You know, the knockouts they've gotten to pick

their song and what they're going to do and whatever.

Um, But yeah, I enjoy the voice, but I can't

keep up with it. I just cannot keep up with it.

Well, there's a million episodes. So it's like

kind of sometimes if you're really busy, that's

like the only TV you could watch because you

got to do it twice a week. And sometimes it's

two hours. So, yeah. Yeah, it's like three. It's

like three hours a week. It's two hours on Monday

and one hour on Tuesday. Right. Absolutely. Yeah.

And yeah, absolutely. So. I was thinking of my

biggest failures for NBC, and the big one would

be, for me, it would be Heroes. And I feel like

I'm going to call it a failure because the first

season was so good up until the finale. It is

the most wasted potential and amount of squandered

goodwill for any show that I've sort of ever

seen because it started with this huge bang and

this huge phenomenon. Everyone loved it, and

it was everywhere, and they... just they just

didn't know what to do with it which is kind

of nuts because it's the easiest concept to know

what to do with you have a bunch of people with

superpowers who are everyday people all you have

to do is create a world they live in but they

kept kind of going in all these weird directions

and not knowing how to shoot action sequences

and just being like really all over the place

um and they kept trying to fix it year after

year it did on the air for four years three of

which were terrible And they kept trying to fix

it and it never worked. And they could never

get this level back that they had in year one.

And they even brought it back. I think it was

last year or the year before as Heroes Reborn.

And every time they do it, it just makes it worse.

And it's so sad to me. So it's like a failure

that I'm just actually really upset about because

I was so into that first season. And I still

think about like how it doesn't make any sense

why they couldn't make that work. So that's my

number one. And then do you remember that time

when they thought Emeril Lagasse, the chef, would

be great sitcom star? Do you remember that? Yeah,

not so much. Didn't work. They thought because

he could yell bam while throwing ingredients

into a pot and audiences loved that, that he

would be like a charming sitcom star. Yeah, that

did not go well. That was right up there with

like, what were you thinking, NBC? Yeah, really.

yeah when i saw uh heroes on nbc i'm like oh

so this is a crappier version of that crappy

show mutant x even though i love mutant x mutant

x was first run syndication um yeah back in god

knows when 2001 to 2004 uh it starred um um john

shay as like one of the lead guys yeah um starred

Michael Easton kind of a thing. And that was

more about... It was basically a 90s version

of Xavier vs. Magneto, even though it wasn't

the X -Men, but it was called Mutant X and it

had these two... That's more of a superhero show

to me than Heroes was. Yeah, it wasn't supposed

to be a superhero show. It was a show about everyday

people who could... perform extraordinary feats.

It was supposed to be grounded, and that's what

kind of made the first season work, at least

to me. It felt like a grounded, really interesting

show about humanity, and then... they kind of

took these people and put them in these strange

situations where they lost all level of ground.

You know, it's the cop who suddenly, um, can

hear people, uh, hear people's thoughts. It's

the average person who wakes up one day to find

they're not average anymore. They're extraordinary,

but without, without the suits and without the

superhero conceits, cause it was supposed to

be more grounded in like real life. Um, but yeah,

they just went really, really weird places with

it. So that's, yeah. That's how I feel about

that. Yeah. Yeah. I never get into heroes. I

just didn't. Okay. Are we ready for CBS? I think

so. Okay. 77 years on the air for CBS. For me,

stuff like Airwolf, Magnum P .I., and many more

were the staples of my childhood from CBS. In

the 90s, they did kill it with Walker, Texas

Ranger, Martial Law, and my favorite, Nash Bridges,

as well as so many other shows. CBS has had a

history of comedies, dramas, action shows, all

that kind of stuff, but I honestly think at this

point, from I'd say 2000 and now, Reality TV

is kind of where their niche is. I mean, yes,

they have all these other shows. They have all

the comedies. They have all the action shows.

But again, like we were talking earlier with

NBC and things not really taking off, a lot of

the more recent action shows like Seal Team and

SWAT and that kind of stuff, I don't know. I

hope. I don't know if those are going to continue

past season one. Right. Obviously, CBS is home

to the... ncis trilogy or quadrology or however

many is ncis ncis la uh new orleans who knows

if there's going to be a fourth fifth or sixth

one of those series uh csi and its infinite number

of series i I never saw CSI New York, so I never

really get into that one. I love the original

CSI. The short -lived CSI Cyber was really cool

because they focused on cybercrime. That only

had two seasons. CSI Miami I hate because I hate

David Caruso. That guy never looks at the camera.

Right. I mean, he's looking off to be... He's

got important things to think about that are

in the distance. Uh -huh. Yep. You know, so CBS

is the weirdest one for me because all of those

shows that you mentioned that you loved as a

kid, like I've never seen any of those shows.

And I don't watch any of the CSIs, any of the

NTSAs. I've never seen Criminal Minds. I go to

my way not to watch them on purpose. And what's

interesting is you talk about sort of CBS and

their success, but I would actually argue that

they are the only network. that has actually

been able to maintain a high level of success.

Now, their demo is not great. So what I mean

by that is that old people watch it, and TV hates

old people, which is unfortunate because old

people are awesome, but advertisers do not like

them. So they still get numbers that are quite

high, and CIS still gets great numbers. you know,

overall numbers for comedies like The Big Bang

Theory are huge. They're kind of like the network

that airs the shows that people actually still

watch on broadcast TV that no critics really

love, that nobody thinks are super cool, but

still do the big business. So they kind of took

over from NBC after the must -see TV era as the

network with the most viewers because that's

when the whole CSI thing started. And they really

parlayed that into, we are where all your procedurals

are, and you know what they look like, and you'll

watch all of them, and we love them, and you

love them. And it's, yeah, it's kind of their

thing. And then, of course, they also, yeah,

they had, you know, their reality shows are actually

for younger viewers. Like, they're kind of more

cool. Like, Survivor, obviously, you know, changed

the game. Yeah. So, again, I mentioned earlier

about choices. 18 years ago. I had a choice,

and I watched both of the first seasons of these

shows, and I chose after the first season of

each show. I watched Survivor, and Richard Hatch

won, and I watched Big Brother, and I think Eddie

won the first season of Big Brother, if I remember

correctly. I don't even know if there was a winner.

Yes, there was. But the first season, they didn't

eliminate people, right? They were just in the

house like the UK. They changed the format in

season two. They did change the format, but I'm

pretty sure there was a winner in season one.

So after watching those first seasons of Big

Brother and Survivor, I chose Big Brother. I

had to. I would rather be in... want to know

why you feel like you got to make so many choices

man like you're because i just do you can have

both of the flavors no but see that's no that's

the thing like with this specific choice I would

rather watch a show about indoor people and all

their problems and all that outdoor crap and

eating bugs and eating this and eating that and

having to survive. No. If I want to watch somebody

survive on an island, I'll watch Arrow. Thank

you very much. I mean, sure. Although, don't

also do that. But that's just... I watch both

for a time. And those are the kinds of things

that I can, I can watch or I don't need to watch

because it's not like I have to every couple

of years, I might catch some episodes and then

be into it, but I don't feel like I ever needed

to necessarily watch it from year to year and

be a huge fan of either of those things. So,

you know, so CBS is a weird network for me just

because I, you know, I, I've never been a part

of their procedural culture and I missed a lot

of the classic stuff. that you spoke about so

it's kind of like this weird black hole cbs where

i know it's it's super successful but i'm the

least connected i'm at least emotionally invested

yes and it's success but everybody loves the

grammy awards and the tony awards and the academy

of country music awards come on Do those air

on CBS? I don't know. Yes. Oh, okay. I used to

love the Grammy Awards when I was really into

music. But, yeah, like since my sort of teens,

I haven't followed them. Yep. Absolutely. So

when we get to our top fives later, you'll see

how weird my – you'll probably be like, that's

what you found from CBS? And I'll be like, yeah,

no, it is. It's weird. Yeah. And as I said, CBS

for me, you know, in the 90s, well, you know,

ABC had TGIF and NBC had what they had. CBS,

say how cliche it is or whatever you want to

say about their action shows in the 90s between

Walker, Texas Ranger, Martial Law, and Nash Bridges.

Nash Bridges more than the other two. Those three

shows, like those were the Friday night shows.

Nash Bridges every night, Friday night on CBS

at 10 p .m. I was like, I'm staying up for this.

1996 to 2001, oh yeah, love that show. Right.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, you know, I watched

a couple of episodes of Nash Bridges and I think

I somewhat enjoyed it. It's hard to remember.

It was a long time ago. But what's funny about

that show is how the writers in that room have

gone on to these amazing careers. They're actually

doing a reunion panel, a reunion writers panel

at the Austin Television Festival, ATX Festival

that I'm going to in June. And so it's a Nash

Bridges writers reunion. And you have to film

that for me. i'll pay you whatever you want you

have to film that they will film it and they

will release it so don't worry like it'll be

they'll and they'll release it for free i believe

on their youtube channel um but i try not to

break their rules they don't like you to film

it because they want obviously they want they

want it to be a sister their brand right so i

mean i'll tweet about it i'll tweet about it

but Carlton Hughes, obviously, I think was a

main writer on that show. Glenn Mazzara. And

some other really big names that aren't coming

to mind right now. But it's one of those writers'

rooms that launched the careers of so many. I

think Sean Ryan was in it? That's just what I

was going to say. The Shield, Sean Ryan. A couple

years ago, I went to a Shield writers' reunion,

which was also full of incredible writers that

went on to other big things after that. So there

are certain writers' rooms that are just... actually

kind of made me take nash bridges more seriously

because i had only thought of it as like the

goofy show that had the guy from cheech and chong

in it right like cheech marin it was cheech marin

with don johnson it was basically miami vice

in san francisco right so i never took it all

that seriously but when i started looking at

the the caliber of writers that were on it i

was like i gotta watch this show because all

these people yeah That's amazing. So, I mean,

in researching for this podcast, I went through

the list of CBS shows, and I kind of was like,

oh, that's a classic show I haven't watched.

Oh, that's a classic show I haven't watched.

And I realized, while I don't love their current

programming, I feel like if I were to go back

and watch some of these other shows, I would

probably have more to say about it. It's just,

for whatever reason, I didn't get there. I don't

know if you're into any of the like cyber security

internet type show things like where shows focus

on that kind of CSI cyber it's only two seasons

but it was really cool because it was a different

CSI it wasn't focusing on you know, fingerprints

in Vegas or David Crusoe not looking at the camera

in Miami or whatever the hell Lieutenant Dannon

did in New York. You know, it was, you know,

focusing on cybercrime and basically scaring

the hell out of us and showing us exactly how

vulnerable we really are when it comes to the

internet and all of that. Yeah. I mean, I'd be

interested in that, I think. For some reason,

I think it's because I just sort of made a thing

where I decided I wasn't watching the 12 million

spinoffs that I didn't watch it. But I think

it would appeal to me a little bit more than

the other ones. Who knows? They also had, a couple

years ago, it was very short -lived. It was Kevin

Williamson decided to... do a TV version of scream.

Not really, but it's essentially the, the guy

that did scream did a very short lived series

on CBS called stalker. Basically. Watch that.

Oh my God. Not all of it. Not all of it. Oh,

that show. I kind of enjoyed it. Weirdly. I think

I, I, I remember watching it on my iPad while

I was at the gym and like running. And then I

felt like kind of, I was like, I can, first of

all, I didn't even try to stop me. I'll run away.

But it was just, like, a perfect running show.

Like, it was just kind of, like, silly and a

little bit, like, you know, but you're motivated

to, like, be in shape because you have to beat

the bad people. I don't know. It worked. Yeah,

exactly. Right now, you know, you mentioned their

comedies, Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon, Superior

Donuts. I love Superior Donuts. That's an awesome

show. I haven't watched, but I've heard amazing

things about it. It's Judd Hirsch, Katie Segal.

It's got a bunch of other people in it. I don't

remember off the top of my head, but it is super,

super funny. If you've ever seen anything with

Joe, just anything with that guy, it's just super

funny. Are you having issues over there? Yeah,

did this just change? Yeah, because I can hear

myself. Oh, you know what? I think my microphone

actually might have been off the whole time,

and now it's on. Oh. Well... I could hear you

the whole time. If I couldn't have heard you,

I would have said something. So, okay. It was

probably using my other sound, right? Oh, probably.

I can just go back to that. Yeah, yeah. You can

hear yourself now through this? Not now, no.

I could a minute ago. I can't now. But I also

don't want to be using a totally different type

of sound than I was using. Well, you sound fine.

So maybe it doesn't matter either way. Yeah.

It just sounded like it came unplugged or something.

I think a button clicked. Something happened,

I don't know. Alright, 52 .28 edit point. Yeah.

So, yeah, CBS and all of their shows. What a

network. So their comedies are the most successful,

which is interesting to note because they are,

you know, like the Big Bang Theory and Mom and,

you know, a couple years ago, Two and a Half

Men, Two Broke Girls for a while. They get the

overall viewers that nobody else gets. And it's

interesting to note that they're sort of like

the only network, for the most part, really doing

single camera comedies. Because... Or not single

camera. I'm sorry. That's the opposite. Multi

-camera. Yes. Everyone else is doing single -camera

comedies. Everyone switched over to that, and

they tend to be a lot more critically acclaimed

and a lot more edgy. But, you know, again, the

viewers are going to these older formats that

are considered not cool by TV people, right?

Like nobody really considers a lot of these shows

to be cool shows, but they are the ones that

people still watch the most. Yeah, and I've always

and I will forever defend the Big Bang Theory.

Everybody's like, oh, it's just, you know, pot

shots at geeks and nerds and yada, yada, yada,

and Chuck was so much better. Well, Chuck hadn't

lasted 11 or 12 years, now did it? You know,

it's not just that, though. It's like them taking

all the pot shots about, oh, it's just, you know,

it's just actors making fun of geeks and whatever

else. The way I look at the Big Bang Theory is,

yes, that's what it was in the beginning. Yes,

they... have referenced star wars yes sheldon

used to have will wheaton on his enemies list

yada yada yada you know death to star trek or

whatever um but here's the thing since the big

bang theory premiered in 2007 the writers on

that show have evolved the characters so much

that it isn't what it was 11 years ago Eleven

years ago in the very first episode, hell, even

in the episode in season three when they did

the flashback and we finally found out how Leonard

and Sheldon really met each other and all of

that with the elevator explosion and whatever

else, because the experiment and all that. Like,

even by then, you wouldn't have seen any of these

people, any of these characters, Sheldon, Leonard,

Howard, or Raj. Howard, Sheldon, and Leonard

are all now married. Howard and Bernadette have

two kids or three kids or however many unseen

kids that they have. You know, Leonard and Penny

are married. Sheldon and Amy are married. You

wouldn't have seen Sheldon get married. Season

one of The Big Bang Theory, the earth would probably

explode before that would have happened. So I

see the show as more as an evolution of their

characters than... Constantly making fun of geek

culture. Yeah, I think for me, and I used to

watch the Big Bang Theory and I don't anymore,

but I think for me the problem is that it's gone

on so long. And honestly, I feel like, in my

personal opinion, I don't think that any sitcom

or comedy should really go on longer than, I

don't know, seven years at the most. And that's

because I think they're based on peeling back

layers of... of surprising comedy that you wouldn't

really predict and so while the characters have

evolved i think the issue that i started to have

with it was i i really felt that the humor didn't

hit anymore because i could predict what the

humor was going to be and i've i felt that with

a lot of shows as much as i love the you know

american version of the office it works the best

shows of any sitcom are season two and three

because season one is always getting to know

the characters they're not really sure how the

comedy is going to work they're kind of developing

their style season two and season three they've

really hit the mark and everything they do is

surprising they peel back these layers in surprising

ways um you know by season four or five, it's

okay. Then it starts to get really stale. So

that was just my only issue. I think that it

is a great show, but it just has been on the

air for a very long time. And so when I do tune

in now, I find myself not surprised by the way

the characters react to each other, by what the

jokes are going to be. So that's the part that

I just feel like it's tough with comedies that

go on for a very long time. That's the only thing

I would say about that. Absolutely. All right.

Let's get to the 70 -year -old network that would

be the Disney -owned American Broadcasting Company,

which the only thing I remember from that network

is the soaps. That's it. Right. Like, I can't

believe you wrote that. No. He wrote, like, 67

years. I can't think of anything on NBC, ABC.

And the funny thing is I had just done the research

on ABC and I was like, this is the best network.

I love this network. Read this. And I'm like,

what? How dare you? So, wow. Really? No, no,

not. Not, no, not really. ABC in the last five

or ten years, probably not my thing, but ABC

before, like, yeah, that was just, like, but

I mean, come on. It's so the opposite. ABC in

the last five or ten years is the thing, man.

Oh, my God. I don't know. So, okay, what, if

you had, let's go back to the 80s and 90s then.

What's ABC for you? Well, the 90s would have

to be TGIF. I mean. hanging with Mr. Cooper,

Boy Meets World, Family Matters. And here's the

thing, folks. Was it late? Was it earlier? Sometime

last year, I believe, Hulu, here in the States,

got rights to basically add Thank God It's Hulu,

and they added all of the TGIF shows to Hulu.

I don't know how long they're going to be there,

but they're still currently there. I'm in the

middle of, and I haven't actually gone any further,

I've gotten up to... Episode 8 of Season 1 of

Family Matters, everybody always remembers it.

Oh, Erica, did I do that? Up to the first 8 episodes

almost has nothing to do with Jaleel White's

character at all. It has to do with the Winslow

family and how they're living in the Chicago

area. It has to do with them more than it does

with tape. Yes, obviously by the end of the first

season going forward to it's... eighth ninth

tenth whatever season they ended up being at

yeah yeah it's it kind of became about him but

i was fortunate actually i think that's a little

bit unfortunate that's happened but he became

the breakout star and and then they started building

these zany episodes around him but that was never

the intention as you can see that he wasn't even

in it yeah absolutely um boy meets world i love

that show um We're in the middle of actually

doing a podcast covering it season by season

at this point. Really? Yes. I should listen to

that. I mean, that's fascinating. We haven't

released any. We've only released the very first,

the introductory episode. Originally, it was

going to be a 100 -episode podcast. We were going

to review every single episode of the show per,

you know, two or three episodes per podcast.

Right. We switched it up, and we're just doing...

We're doing all seven seasons, we're doing them

in two parts, so one episode will be part, like,

we're basically halving the season, because most

of those episodes are, most of those seasons

are 22, 23 minute, 22, 23 long episodes, you

know. Yeah. episode length as far as how many

episodes they have per season. So if it's 22,

it's 12 and 12 or whatever it is and whatever.

So it's easy enough to break it into halves.

So we're doing that and we're going to do all

seven seasons of that show plus all three seasons

of Girl Meets World. Yeah. Oh, wow. Girl Meets

World. Did you watch Girl Meets World? Oh, yeah.

Really? Oh, yeah. If it's a straight up sequel

to the original, I will probably watch it. Fascinating.

That is fascinating. I mean, yeah, I think what's

interesting about I mean, so ABC was kind of

a big deal, I think, even before NBC, like they

were sort of a bigger success. Yeah. I think,

you know, they did stuff like Six Million Dollar

Man, Charlie's Angels, like a lot of that fantasy

kind of stuff earlier than the 80s. So they had

like success in the 70s. Right. Like we haven't

really talked a lot about that kind of stuff.

The Love Boat, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, these

are things I know of that I don't know very well.

Obviously, I was not like a huge Love Boat fan.

But I was a huge fan of one of their shows, Soap,

which you said you remembered ABC from the soap

operas, which it's not. It is a parody of a soap

opera. Yeah. Comedy parody of a soap opera. That's

really, it was sort of like. very critically

acclaimed because it was doing stuff with the

format that people had never seen plus it was

doing stuff with um billy crystal played a gay

character um who sort of was on the series um

they had some diversity there was just a lot

of they were dealing with a lot of issues that

people hadn't really done at that point um and

i actually you know watched it all on dvd recently

and fell in love with it so that's kind of a

highlight from like early abc for me But, you

know, the TGIF stuff is funny because it feels

like they were the place for family, for really

family friendly comedies in the 80s and 90s.

But unlike NBC, they were kind of like the ones

you the guilty pleasure ones. Right. Like NBC

had, you know, the Cosby's and Cheers and they

had. uh family ties right and abc like full house

and perfect strangers and who's the boss the

kind of ones that like everybody loved but we're

a little bit sillier right like a little bit

sillier and so that's kind of i mean and or schmaltzy

right like full house is known for being the

schmaltziest thing you might ever watch yeah

i mean come on you got uh let's see you got oh

my lanta that's where that came from was full

house that's where i got famous anyway that this

is from a list. You're not just naming expressions

from Full House that you know off by heart, are

you? Are you kidding me? I say these to my wife

all the time. I'm like, cut it out. You got it,

dude. Oh, nuts. Oh, my lanta. No, I do the Full

House bit with her all the time. She hates it.

How rude. Exactly how rude. Have mercy. I know

them all by heart. Wow, okay. Normal by heart.

You were asking about, you know, youth and what

you, you know, actually watching these things

when you were younger. And I think I would have

the strongest connection or a young Jennifer

would have the strongest connection to this content

because it's very like I used to watch this.

I think there was a network in Canada that had

a bunch of them that ran in reruns right before

dinner. So Growing Pains and Full House and Who's

the Boss and Family Matters were shows that I

watched every day in reruns. on these Canadian

networks. And so that's something that stuck

with me. I think those would be the ones that

I actually know a lot about for sure. And I always

thought, I didn't realize that TGIF does not

stand for Thank Goodness It's Friday. I mean,

it does in the real world, but apparently it

stood for Thank Goodness It's Funny. That could

be. And it was supposed to be like a double entendre

because it's on Friday, but also they were using

the TGIF expression, but Thank Goodness It's

Funny. When I was a kid, obviously it would be

reruns because this show would have happened

20 years before I was born. Basically, Batman

in reruns. Oh my god. The Adam West version.

The Adam West Batman. It was originally on ABC.

Yeah, you just don't know. What I don't understand

is, and please, somebody, maybe you can explain

it to me, maybe the listeners can explain it

to me, how the hell did MacGyver premiere on

ABC 85 to 92, but yet the reboot is on CBS? That

makes no sense to me whatsoever. Well, actually,

it could depend on who the production company

was. That's true. If the production company,

I mean, there's different things that happen,

right? Or is it possible that MacGyver went over

to CBS at some point? I don't know. You know,

that happens. Jag. Yeah. I don't know. I don't

remember. I know nothing about MacGyver, except

I feel like when I watched the trailers for the

new MacGyver that I was like, they kind of made

him like he was so young and he looked like a

member of Hanson. And I thought I don't really

feel like I trust this guy to be really good

at anything. Other ABC shows that I remember.

Didn't watch all of this because it just got

too weird, but Desperate Housewives, I've seen

that. The Wonder Years. I tried re -watching

The Wonder Years recently. I just can't. I just

cannot. Really? yeah i know well so my fave my

favorite like abc is kind of like what my guess

my spoiler my favorite network is sort of like

the cwwb type stuff but um ABC, I kind of have

a little bit of a love affair with because of

the early 2000s. And my very favorite story is,

so they had fallen in the year 2003 to 2004.

They'd fallen to fourth place, which was huge

because they used to be a big deal. They'd fallen

to fourth place. They were down 10 points in

a season and they were kind of like screwed essentially.

And the network fired the guy who was overseeing

the network at the time. His, his name was Lloyd

Braun and they fired him because ratings sucked.

And he also had just spent $13 million on an

as yet to be aired pilot, a little thing called

lost, which they were like, this is, this is

going to be a disaster. Spoiler alert, it was

not a disaster. So the funny thing is, in his

tenure, right before he got fired, because they

all greenlight the stuff for the next season

before the next season, he greenlit Lost, he

greenlit Desperate Housewives, and he greenlit

Grey's Anatomy. And then he got fired. And then,

of course, 2004 to 2005 season, these things

started airing, and they were juggernauts. And

they came out of nowhere because they weren't

reboots. They weren't spinoffs. They didn't have

big stars in them. They weren't parts of big

properties. They were bona fide, you know, somewhat

surprise hits. Both of those shows, Lost and

Desperate Housewives. And then Grey's Anatomy

premiered midseason and sort of the same thing.

So it was kind of a fun story because... abc

went back to second place and number one in the

demo for a really long time and like they were

winning all these emmys and all these critics

awards and it was just like a huge deal and it

was my probably my favorite year in television

i think because i was so obsessed with lost at

the time and i just think it's a i just think

it's a great it's a great little story so that's

my that's story time that was my story time yeah

i watched the first season of lost because hello

it's Charlie, what's his name from Party of Five?

It's Matthew Fox as one of the main characters.

And I never, I just could not get back into the

show after the first season. I'll try to give

it another try eventually, but... It might be

coming up later in our discussion in a list form,

and I'll give you my little thoughts then. But

it made such an impact on television. That's

for sure. Oh, absolutely it did. You know what

the number one thing I think that it did, which

is kind of a funny thing, is it popularized the

flashback thing. You know how you watch Arrow

and you talk about the island and everything?

People weren't really doing the double narrative,

flashback, real -time narrative before Lost.

A flashback would be a thing that happened that

was like a little backstory. But the whole, we're

going to do two stories and half of it takes

place in the past and half of it takes place

in present time, they sort of popularized that

and now everybody does it, especially when they're

trying to give these deep backstories to characters.

It's almost getting too much now. The cool thing

about ABC... is in the early days not early early

days but in you know the 60s and 70s and that

kind of stuff children and adult animation they

had the bugs bunny show from 1960 to 62 they

had the jetsons from 62 to 63 and then 85 to

87 johnny quest from 64 to 65 They had like one

episode of Star Wars Rebels, the current Star

Wars cartoon in 2014. They had Top Cat from 61

to 62. And then quote unquote adult animation.

This I would say is one of ABC's biggest failures.

Clerks, the animated series. Which I didn't watch

because I love the movie, and then everyone said

it was so bad, and I just thought, well, you're

not really selling it to me, so I'm not going

to watch it. It's only six episodes. The only

cool thing, and I still use it to this day, about

it is one of the voice actors that I know that

I've been wanting to interview for a while now,

Kevin Michael Richardson. He voices a narrator

in one of the episodes, and he basically says

this, and I'll play this clip here. And it's

just such a funny, funny thing. So yeah, I'd

say Clerks is one of their biggest failures.

The Critic with, what's his name? John Lovitz.

So there's that. The Flintstones from 60 to 66.

So yeah, I mean, ABC getting in on the animation

thing. And I know all the networks have had animation

things in the past, but most of animation that

I know of is first run syndication. So wherever

the heck it lands, it lands. There isn't real,

you know. In the 80s, the syndication stuff,

like, you know, Thundercats, it could be on channel

38 one day, which might be Fox, or it could be

on channel 41 the next day, which might be, who

knows. Yeah, I actually didn't know all of that.

That's fascinating because now I think of adult

animation as sort of being the first -run adult

animation as mostly being Fox, right? Fox, yeah.

So I wasn't aware of all of that stuff. That's

pretty cool. I like personally where ABC is going

now because they've sort of spearheaded the resurgence

of family comedies for the most part, and most

of them are single camera. Modern Family, obviously

huge success for them. Not my favorite, but I

respect it. Again, that's a show that's been

on the air for too long for me. I liked it at

first, and then I'm like, it's too long. The

Middle, The Goldbergs, Fresh Off the Boat, Black

-ish, Speechless. And some of those last ones,

I just really respect what they're doing with

diversity because they're sort of the network

now with family comedies. that are a type of

families that you don't normally get to see.

So Black -ish is obviously an African -American

family. Fresh off the boat is Asian. And Speechless

is about someone with cerebral palsy who is in

a wheelchair. So it's just, I love that. I think

they're doing so many interesting and important

things with those shows. There was just a study

released about how many shows have sort of multiple

African -American writers in their writer rooms

overall. And ABC did really well. ABC had a,

I'm not. Everyone still needs to do better, let

me be clear. But ABC did better than a lot of

the other broadcasters and some of the cable

networks at having diverse writers' rooms. So

I just think, yeah. I need to check out Speechless.

I have not yet. It's good. It's good. I love

the family comedies. I think, to me, they're

using the single -camera format, but getting

back to the way I felt about it. Like the Goldbergs,

for example, it feels like you're watching a

show that could have been on the air in the 90s,

except for the way it's filmed is slightly different.

But the spirit is the same. The Goldbergs is,

you know, the Goldbergs and sort of Black -ish

are probably my two favorites, maybe fresh off

the boat as well. But I think they're both really

good. Yeah, absolutely. So you said your failure,

your big failure was... The Clarks for ABC, yeah.

I would say for me... The Inhumans was ABC, right?

That just aired? I think so, yeah. It was on

Hulu or something or other. I don't remember

where that ended up. Well, that's a big bomb.

And interestingly, ABC has that relationship

with Marvel because obviously they're the same

company. Disney, yeah. Yeah, the non -Netflix

Marvel shows have mostly, up until this point,

now they're starting to go other places too,

had aired on ABC. And they never really took

off. It's sort of an overall kind of failure

for them because Agents of S .H .I .E .L .D.

was a bit of a disappointment agent carter was

really what was wonderful but nobody watched

it yeah i loved it like i watched like part of

the first season of agent carter i absolutely

loved that that was more interesting to me than

finding out that phil colson's death was faked

or this or he was brought like that ruined like

them creating agents of what i call agents of

shit because hell no uh like them creating that

show and saying hey colson's actually alive basically

they're trying to take away all of his moment

that he had in the first Avengers movie, and

I'm like, nope, don't care. I watched, like,

the first seven episodes of the first season

of Agents of S .H .I .E .L .D., and I've never

gone back, because I just did not care about

any of the characters. Yeah, I could forgive

them for the Coulson thing, even though it was

a cheap trick, but I understood they wanted to

capitalize on his popularity, and it is a fake

world. They kind of did explain it pretty well

afterwards, so it was interesting, but, you know,

the problem was it just... it felt like a weird

side plot to the Marvel universe that didn't

have the impact and really didn't, you know,

didn't land for the most part. And then, but

the Inhumans was, it was, it was like the Julie

of television, you know, where it's the kind

of thing where people's like, this is the worst

thing I've ever watched. And you're like, okay,

maybe it is. Let's give it a shot. And then,

you know, lots of things have been bad. Maybe

you're over -exaggerating. And then you watch

it and you literally are like, i feel like i

have to turn this off because i it's so bad that

like it's not even funny bad it's just bad yeah

yeah it was it was it was bad i would say that

was bad That was bad. We should probably mention

Roseanne as well because that was their sort

of critically acclaimed comedy from the past

that has now become a current, very divisive

comedy, I would say. A comedy that you either

are really happy is back or think it's the worst

thing to happen in the world. Yeah. Karen and

I have watched the first episode. We have not

watched past that. Where do you lie on the divisive

scale of Roseanne? I... I'm like... Okay, so

we all know how Roseanne and Jackie were in the

old show. The sisters. Yeah. First episode. Of

course she voted for Trump. Of course Jackie

voted for him. But did that really have to be

a thing for the first episode of the new show?

Did that really have to be the big argument between

the two of them that basically makes them not

want to speak to each other ever again kind of

a thing? Yeah. This is so hilarious to me, though,

about Dan. When in the beginning she goes, Dan!

What? What? I'm awake. I was sleeping. Oh, I

thought you were dead. Why does everybody always

think I'm dead? Because he's got the CPAP mask

and all that. And I'm like, oh, God, that's going

to be me in about six months. Yeah. Yeah. But,

yeah, no, I've only seen the first episode of

The Roseanne Show, the new version, so I can't

really say either way. I didn't watch it, to

be honest. I guess I'm glad it's kind of back,

but I don't know. Honestly, you know what? My

feeling on things being back, I sort of touched

on it with Will and Grace, is I don't think it's

a good idea for broadcast television, which is

what we're talking about right now, because it

feels like you're trying to bring it back to

the same space that it once sort of excelled

at. And you're trying to recapture that week

to week glory that it had. And I don't think

that it's the right format to do it because it's

sort of like it feels out of place, like you're

in the wrong time and it doesn't make sense.

And you're just kind of like it's like it's this

time period, but it's not. And it's back again,

but it feels slightly different. It's never going

to feel the same. Right. When you bring something

back and you put it on, say, Netflix, it's different

because it's a different format. You're binging

it. You're watching episode to episode. You're

choosing. It just feels like it's a slightly

new thing. So it feels like you're experiencing

it in a new way, and therefore you're kind of

happy to go back to it. Like with the Gilmore

Girls. That was a perfect example of something

that did sort of need a wrap -up because of the

way that it ended. Or Fuller House, even, even

though I don't think it's great, but it makes

sense, and it sort of fits where it is, right?

I don't think that most of, like, Will and Grace,

to me, just feel, like, it feels like I wake

up and I'm like, oh, my God, am I in college?

What's happening? So it's, yeah, you know. Yeah.

With Roseanne, see, for me, again, it goes back

to how we watch TV now. I do not, like. We DVR

stuff and whatever, and we'll watch it whenever.

But for me, most of the time, I can watch whatever

I want to watch on Hulu or Netflix or whatever.

Most of the shows that are ABC, any of these

networks that we're talking about in this podcast,

as long as they show up on Hulu, I'll watch them

when I want to watch them. I don't feel like...

It isn't like 20, 30 years ago when you had to

be locked into, oh my God, you have to sit in

front of your television at this time or you

have to record it at this time on your VCR. For

those of you that don't know and are too young,

a VCR was a video cassette recorder. You put

this giant tape in this giant machine and you

hit the button. You couldn't just hit the button

on a remote and the machine did it for you. Yeah.

Anyway. It was a big deal. It was a big deal.

And don't even get me started on Betamax because

that's a whole other discussion. I never went

down that route. You're absolutely right. We

watch television differently. But I sort of think

of the shows that I DVR as somewhat different

than the ones that I stream because A, they have

commercials that I still have to fast forward

through. And B, they still feel more current.

They record every week. I understand when they

record. They just feel like a piece of the current

landscape where streaming shows sort of exist

in their own universe in a way. But this is why

I love the streaming shows. Me too! As long as

you pay for a little bit. I pay like $12 a month

for Hulu for whatever it is, the main package

or whatever. So I pay $12 a month and I can watch

Roseanne commercial free. Or I can watch whatever

commercial. I can watch Boy Meets World commercial.

I don't have to worry about it. I don't have

to worry about sitting there. My wife loves fast

-forwarding through commercials. I'm like, just

let them play. We can go to the bathroom. We

can do this. We can do that. We can get something

to eat. Just let the commercials play. Oh, I

can't let them play. She's so OCD about it. She's

like, I cannot let them play. I must fast forward.

Well, they're the worst, right? But that, yeah,

I mean, that's funny. It's true. We watch them

in different ways. It's actually, I mean, here

we are having a conversation about broadcast

television while we discuss why broadcast television

isn't the best thing anymore. Wow. Yeah, kind

of. Anything else on ABC? I think that those

were my ABC thoughts. I don't know. Alright,

so 32 years ago, Fox was the young upstart, and

they were the Attitude Network. Wow. Okay. They

were the 16 -year -old Rebellion Network at the

time. They were just... No apologies. Nothing.

just put it out and if it hits it hits and if

people like it they like it the main show i'm

thinking about with this is kind of akin to what

uh cbs had a long time ago in the 70s uh al bundy

is the new archie bunker essentially yeah married

with children it's yeah i mean that that sort

of that sort of started sort of started the reputation

of Fox. And I know it must have been scandalous

because I wasn't allowed to watch it as a child.

It was like, that was one of the shows that I

was just, for some reason, not allowed to watch.

So it must have been somewhat controversial.

Yeah, kind of was. Like, I got in trouble as

a kid, not from my mom, but from my stepmother

at the time. Thank God that's over with. For

watching The Simpsons. And I'm like, there's

nothing, like, eat my shorts. Okay, sure, whatever.

But, you know, it's like, it was like the very

first episode of The Simpsons. Also, I feel like

that's not really a very, as far as insults go,

that one seems pretty light. Obviously, yeah.

But, I don't know. basically i was told anytime

i went to my dad's at the time i could never

watch the simpsons because it was too violent

it was too this it was too that and this is you

know 89 90 this is still in the you know not

necessarily mothers against drunk driving but

you know all the pta things of oh you know, Simpson's

did a whole episode about Marge writing into

the TV network about, you know, how, how violent

itchy and scratchy was and how, how, how impressionable

children are and this, that, and everything.

Look, like I said earlier with separating Cosby

in the real world versus the show, for me, I've

always been able to disassociate television and,

you know, fake stuff with real, like just because

I see, you know, Bart Simpson, try to skateboard

naked over the Springfield Gorge doesn't mean

I'm going to go down to the nearest Cranberry

Bog and try to do the same damn thing. I know

better. For sure, and also I don't think The

Simpsons is glorifying those things either. That's

the difference. I understand why parents wouldn't

want their kids watching a show that was... delighted

in violence that was aimed for adults. Something

that was really graphic and delighted in its

graphic violence. First of all, this is a cartoon.

I really feel there's only so graphic a cartoon

can get because they're not real people. They

are animated. And secondly, the Simpsons is making

a comment on stuff. It's commenting on society.

It's not suggesting you should do these things

or that these things are good. I mean, you just

said it. Mars wrote a letter about it. And so

it was a whole episode commenting on that interaction

between the PTA and society. And it's just a

smart. show although admittedly never one of

my favorites um because i didn't really get into

it growing up i felt like it was for me i felt

it was more of a boy thing i don't know why i

just felt like it wasn't really my thing but

maybe because maggie was too young and lisa was

too stuck up with her intelligence It was just

the type of humor. It felt like the kind of thing

the boys in my class were into, and I wasn't

into that kind of thing. It just seemed more

male -oriented, I guess. More like sports or

something. I don't know. For me, Fox was 90210.

I mean, that was... Everybody watched that. I

actually got permission to watch 90210 because

my mom sat down and watched the first episode

with me. It was the episode where Brenda got

robbed at the Peach Pit. It was handled very

respectfully. She was scared. She got robbed

at gunpoint. And my mother was like, well, that

was a little, you know, I guess it was a little

scary. I think I must have been like 11 or 12.

And she's like, but, you know, they did a very

good job. Like, it didn't feel like it was exploitive.

So I was then allowed to watch it by myself.

Although I believe my mom continued to watch

it every week because she was interested. She

just wanted to see Dylan and Brandon take their

shirts off. That's all that was. I don't know

which one her favorite was. I was definitely

a Brandon girl because even at that age, I could

tell that Terry was very old. He wasn't my favorite.

You're right. They were the network that were

appealing to teens. They were appealing to young

people. Other stuff was like Melrose Place, Party

of Five, In Living Color. Uh, so they, yeah,

they really weren't afraid to kind of go after

that, that young demo, uh, that now a lot of

people go after, but at the time you kind of

felt like you had to have a wider thing. They

were like, no, we're okay. That, that we're basically

appealing to, to young people who are just in

that demo. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I liked 90210

and I watched 90210, but for me, I don't know

why, but. Melrose Place was where it was at.

We're going to get into how you had to choose

between the two again, aren't we? No, actually,

I watched all three. I watched 90210, Melrose

Place, and Party of Five because at least with

90210 and Melrose Place, they kind of tied together

because Kelly had a thing for Jake in the beginning.

That was the backdoor pilot, right? That was

the backdoor pilot. She drove there on the back

of his motorbike and right into that cool low

ride. by the pool oh god that building yeah those

apartments oh my god oh i uh yeah those shows

were yeah i was really into all of them and and

um they just felt like they were designed for

me rather than for adults so yeah which i appreciated

i mean Yeah, Party of Five was this strange thing.

It was great. It was a great show. I don't want

to say anything negative about it, because I

don't have anything negative about it to say,

but it was one of those strange animals where

that was kind of the first, I think, at least

on Fox, the first 90s show where they put...

Technically four out of the five children because

you can't really fault baby Owen. You know, between

Charlie and Julia and Bailey and Claudia. I'm

impressed you know all their names. I had forgotten

all of that. Yeah, I'm a useless fountain of

knowledge over here. You know, between those

four, you know. character actors and those actors

and those characters and that and just putting

them on tv and having to keep up with all of

each of their because all of their interests

and x points were all different the only thing

that really brought the entire family together

was the salinger restaurant yeah um and you know

just the whole the whole show absolutely loved

it with melrose place When it hit Netflix and

then it went off Netflix a while ago and went

to Hulu. I don't know if it's still on Hulu or

not. I went back and I watched through the first

two seasons a couple years ago. And I cannot

believe how long that Keith storyline took. I

don't remember a single storyline. I remember

that I really wanted Billy to be with Allison.

Oh, and that woman who kept coming back from

the dead all the time. The one who ended up on...

That was Kimberly. Yep, that was March Across.

Right, like, that's actually when I kind of didn't

like, like, I liked the first couple of seasons

of My Ownest Place when it was a little bit,

they were trying to ground it in that same, because

90210, for the most part, for most of its seasons,

was always a little bit like... Here are real

teens with real problems. Brandon always dated

a new girl every week that had an issue. Like,

Brandon, his job essentially was to date a girl

and learn about issues. Like, this is the girl

that's an alcoholic. This is the girl with a

baby. This is the girl who lives on the wrong

side of the tracks. This is the girl who is a

professional figure skater and never has time

for anything else but figure skating. Wait, he

dated Nancy Kerrigan? You better watch out. Tonya

Harding might come after them. Right. But they

did try to ground it in a sense that these were

sort of real kids. And it got really soapy once

the parents left the show. And then it was just

like a revolving door of musical beds. But before

that, it kind of had a grounding. And Melrose

Place tried to do that. And then Melrose Place

realized that their audience actually was people

who wanted to see other people fake drown in

pools. And then come back with new faces and

wigs. And that's when I kind of lost interest

because I was not into that. Oh, no, I loved

all of that. Like, I think I checked out around

season four or so, but, like, right after Rob

Estes joined. Rob Estes and Lisa Rena joined

the cast. After they did, I liked their characters,

because I liked Rob from Silk Stockings. Right.

You know, so that was okay, but, yeah, no. So

bad. One of my favorite episodes of 90210 is

the graduation episode. Not the episode Donna

Martin graduates, but the actual graduation episode

where they go up to the cliff and they do the

West Beverly High 93 sign and all of that. I

love that episode. That was a season finale and

that was great. It was fantastic. I actually

think they actually did play a compilation video

at the breakfast graduation of all the girls

that Brandon had dated. And I remember even then

going, how did you get footage of that? Like,

you're really just playing a compilation show

to the audience of episodes of the show, but,

like, you weren't on those dates. Who filmed

those dates? Exactly. My early foray into things

they don't really explain properly on TV and

just accept that you'll go along with it. Yeah.

Because I was like, really? This is not behind

-the -scenes footage. No. Yeah. Fuck. I was going

to say, one cool thing that they did with 90210

and that thing was they were the first network

to start airing these episodes over the summer.

Like they would film extra ones and have a summer,

a mini summer season sort of of these shows.

So 90210, a couple of seasons, it was the years

where Brandon worked at the beach club and then

the year where Kelly and Brenda went to Paris.

So they would actually have like 30 episodes

a year instead of 22 because they were capitalizing

on this teen audience who had nothing else to

watch in the summer because that was when reruns

were the thing and they didn't have 10 million

reality shows and mid -season shows or summer

shows. And I remember that that was really cool

because it was so frustrating when you didn't

have new episodes. So the fact that they did

that with 90210 and it really worked for them,

like it helped. build the audience it helped

um you know sort of keep that going so that you

really just flowed right into the next season

um and they did that years later with the oc

as well for the first couple of seasons which

i mean nobody would make 30 episodes now but

that was kind of a hook that they had like let's

just keep this train rolling yeah with 90210

i was like when when um a certain um bayside

high schooler showed up i was like whoa Wow,

Kelly Kapowski grew up. Holy crap. Because Tiffany

Amber Thiessen, saved by the bell, came in as

Valerie in 90210. Yeah. Oh, my God. That was

sort of the very beginning of them going for

the more... Jugular thing. Salacious storylines,

the more stealing my boyfriend type stuff. Yeah.

Yep, yep. All right, Fox also, obviously, animation

giant. As they, you know, grew on. By 92, they

had the X -Men cartoon. X -Men the animated series.

They had... 94, they had Spider -Man the animated...

Basically, Fox and Marvel had a huge deal back

then. Obviously, Fox and Marvel still have a

huge deal today. And all of that. But just...

Like, I remember Fox Kids. I remember that first

animation block before it eventually became like

4KidsTV or whatever else. And just... What was

so cool about Fox Animation in the 90s was the

Fox Kids block on the TV. And I believe it was

either Saturday or Sunday. I think it was Saturday

because I don't think they wanted to compete

with Casey Kasem on Sundays. It was the Fox Kids

countdown with Chris Leary on the radio. So it

was absolutely amazing. But Fox Animation, that

was groundbreaking as well as what the rest of

that network was doing. And now they've sort

of continued their animation thing, but built

on the, but with the stuff as we talked about.

Yeah. Yeah. The Seth MacFarlane, like Seth MacFarlane

times, essentially. I'm so not like, I've seen

various episodes of family guy. I'm not a fan

of that show at all. I'm not a fan either. So

we actually agree on that. There we go. I actually,

it's, it's not. I appreciate some of the smart

commentary, but there's also a lot of stuff in

there that I think is kind of stupid and also

sometimes a little bit misogynistic and other

times just repetitive and dumb. My husband loves

it, and he likes to watch it when he goes to

sleep, and it drives me nuts because now I have

seen... A ton of episodes of a show that I don't

even like, like 12 times. So I actually know

a ton about what happens in the episodes, unfortunately.

My wife, when we first met, she was like, I can't

sleep with anything. It has to be completely

silent. Yada, yada, yada. And for me, I've always,

my entire life, I've had to fall asleep with

the radio on or something. Obviously, radio,

you put sleep timer. TVs, you can put sleep timers

on them now. But I always had to fall asleep

with something playing in the background. And

since about 2014, for me on TV, it's been the

Investigation Discovery Network, which is a whole

other discussion for a whole other day. What

kind of stuff do you have, man? Oh, see, to that,

like, your neighbor is a serial killer or your

evil twin slash stepbrother. Also a serial killer.

Here's the thing. It depends on who's narrating

stuff. Take Forensic Files. Peter Thomas narrates

that. I can fall asleep to Forensic Files. I

can fall asleep to Homicide Hunter, which is

Lieutenant Joe Kenda, because Kenda has one of

the best narration voices ever. Oh man, I can

fall asleep to that. The thing about the Investigation

Discovery Network, yes, it does, and I know I'm

veering off of the topic here, but it is still

television, folks. The thing with ID is it has

the standard stupid like daytime commercials

of, oh, you get this catheter and you'll be set

for, you know, that, you know, that or, you know,

this lawyer, this way. It does have that. But

most of the time at night, the commercials that

ID runs is basically ads for their own shows.

So it's a lot different than a regular network.

And I can just. Sometimes I fall asleep watching

something and being interested and never going

back and seeing that episode again because I

don't remember what the episode title was or

anything. So you're watching like real TV with

real commercials then? When I'm trying to fall

asleep, yes. Ah, see we do Netflix and then we

don't need a sleep timer because after three

episodes it just tells us Are you still watching?

So obviously we don't click continue. Yes, exactly.

um but yeah that's notable but far um oh the

x files that was that's a huge thing so they

not only i guess that's an example of another

cutting edge kind of thing they were doing because

people weren't really doing like the creepy sci

-fi the creepy thing they were kind of willing

to have that niche audience and trust that it

would build into something that was culty which

it did um that's kind of been like one of their

classic shows, I guess. The thing with Fox, and

I'll mention this later with ABC because I forgot

to mention it when we were talking about that.

The thing with Fox is again, choices. And I did

watch two or three episodes of The X -Files.

I'm not that kind of TV watcher, movie watcher,

anything. I just can't get into that kind of

stuff. But again, I had a choice and I know my

choice was poor because it only lasted one season.

It was X -Files and The Adventures of Briscoe

County Jr. I feel like that's a strange two options

to choose from. There was no third option? Well,

I think Briscoe ran Sundays at 9 or whatever

night X -Files was on. It was the episode before

I was going to say Netflix. Wow. The episode

before X -Files aired. So it was the show before.

So that's the only reason why. And I seem to

remember that it had aired Adventures of Briscoe

County Jr. and X -Files aired back to back. I

don't remember. I didn't watch X -Files a lot

at the time, but I had a ton of friends who were

obsessed with it. And now I'm trying to watch

it on Netflix. We're kind of going through it

slowly. And there are episodes that I love, and

there are some that I think are really boring.

Even though I like both the characters. Obviously,

that was a show that's an example of brilliant

casting, right? Like any other two people, a

match show just doesn't work. But creating those

characters and those two people, I mean, they're

both... amazing in it and their pairing is amazing

i believe someone correct me if i'm wrong but

the x files uh like sort of um instigated the

idea of shipping like you calling it that and

also i think when you combine people's ship names

i think they had a name i don't know what it

was it was Oh, God. Was it Skulder? That can't

be right. Or Mully? Skulder, yeah. Mully or Skulder.

There may have been a fan debate about it, but

it's certainly like the fanfic was tight. So

that's a legacy there. And that's another show

that's back on the air now. And it's second rebooted

season, I believe, at the moment. So it lasted

multiple seasons after that. And then when they

moved into the 2000s, you got stuff like the

OCA mentioned House 24, Prison Break. I always

feel like Fox was willing to take risks on really

interesting concepts. that other people kind

of wouldn't. And maybe that's because their audience

was younger, but they weren't afraid to go for

something that was clearly serialized and wasn't

a procedural or something that had a really strange

format or something that just was weird subject

matter. And a lot of their shows got canceled

after one season. I mean, a lot of shows get

canceled after one season, but a lot of really

good shows on Fox got canceled because it's so

hard to find that audience. maintain it um when

i was going through their list thing i noticed

was that there were so many shows i loved there

were only one season long where there wasn't

as many on other networks a lot of shows there

were one season i was like well there was a reason

for that but yeah yeah for me it was uh once

again my I guess following of Tiffany Amber Thiessen,

she showed up on the very short -lived two -series

Fastlane with Peter Fastinelli and Bill Bellamy

and all that about the cops out in L .A. and

everything else. So there was that. That was

two seasons. Fox, for me, for shows in the early

2000s, Boston Public. I love that one. I'm still

waiting for the damn complete series DVD set.

Come on already. Or at least it should stream

somewhere. Somewhere, yeah. I've never seen it

pop up anywhere. And it is a show that I would

really like to revisit. Because I know that as

far as David E. Kelly shows go, it was kind of

considered the bastard stepchild. Like people

were more into Boston Legal or The Practice.

I always liked Boston Public. I thought that

was my favorite. Boston Public was amazing because

of several things. One, it was Chai McBride as

the principal. Yeah, yeah. And two, you had the

youngest new kid as one of the teachers, Joey

McIntyre. I was going to say that, but I didn't

think you were going to say that because that

was like a later season, and I don't think he

even lasted that long or the show got canceled.

But I was so excited. Yeah, he lasted pretty

long. And you also had Jerry Ryan on there, you

know, Seven of Nine as a teacher. They did do

that thing where David E. Kelly has a bad habit

of bringing new characters in constantly, but

I think it worked on that show. Yeah, absolutely.

You had mentioned the OC. I loved the OC. Surprising.

Okay, okay. No, I loved... Of the OC. Yeah? I

still, I bought the series finale on iTunes and

I still go back and watch it every now and then.

That show, oh my god. When CW Seed started happening,

when CW launched their secondary app where they

have all their syndicated type stuff, the OC

showed up on there and I watched it a couple

years ago again. Just... Those first two seasons,

season three was kind of weird for me, but don't

forget about season four. Season four was pretty

good though. Yeah. I actually liked the, the

new Taylor. Like I thought that was a good, cause

I never thought Marissa was that interesting.

So I mean, nobody did right. Everyone thought

she was kind of like melodramatic and annoying.

I assume. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. Taylor.

what's so it and the only reason why that i'm

even besides my enjoyment of the oc that i even

want to bring it up now is because it actually

ties into later because uh hello caitlin shows

up at another show as another character on another

network yes will afford i'm like hey that's caitlin

from the oc what are you doing you know caitlin

from the oc because they did have an earlier

caitlin who appeared in an episode i think it

was cheyenne woodley and then really yes so at

the very beginning of the oc i think there's

like maybe it'd been the pilot or something they

didn't really know they weren't planning on really

doing anything with that character and and they

just cast her and um when they brought the character

back and wanted to turn him into like a little

teen vixen I believe Cheyenne was either too

young or too young looking or didn't have the

right thing. And obviously she went on to be

like a very successful actress as well. But it

was something to do with, you know, sometimes

they think ahead and sometimes they're just like,

oh, this is a throwaway part. And then they realize

they want to do something with that character

and they have to recast it because they didn't

have the right person to really do what they

want to do with it. I believe that I could be

completely wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's

the two. I know there was another actress. I'm

pretty sure it's Cheyenne Woodley. Interesting.

But, you know, this cast, I mean, Peter Gallagher,

Kelly Rowan as the Coens, as the parents, Ben

McKenzie as Ryan Atwood, just the whole show

just felt really cool. Like, this to me is what

I want to see out of Orange County. I don't want

to see Real Housewives. Yeah. To me, what separated

it was the dialogue, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Clever writing. quippy so i think what when it

was bad for me it was bad because it let it got

bogged down in the melodrama and didn't have

enough of the quippy stuff that made it work

when it worked for me it balanced the two of

those things it still had you know the crazy

teen drama plot lines but it also had the um

the unusual dialogue the unusual banter that

whole summer seth thing and both parents also

being really Clever, especially Peter Gallagher.

So I think it needed both of those things because

otherwise it wouldn't have worked. And I think

when it didn't work, maybe in season three, it

was because it didn't have enough of that of

that humor to it. Well, season three was when

Marissa died, right? That worked. Well, OK, but

I'm saying like the whole thing with her going

down her spiral of being in Mexico and all of

that and the whole. That girl did not know what

she wanted, but she was just a hot mess. Yeah.

She was a hot mess. She was. And looking at an

old photo of this cast and seeing Ben and compared

to where he is now on Gotham, I'm like, oh my

god, Ryan Atwood really has grown up, hasn't

he? And I never watched Gotham, but I do remember

him on Southland. Southland. Yeah, which was

great. That was also very adult, comparatively.

Yeah, it was. Were there any, I don't think I

have any super successes. The successes are sort

of what we talked about. Yeah. I don't have any

major failures, although, you know, I mean, they

did a lot of things wrong, but there was nothing

I particularly stuck out with me. Yeah, no, I

mean, it just really depends because. It depends

on what type of TV you want to aim at for Fox.

Because, you know, like I said to you off air,

when bears attack or, you know, America's Funniest

Pets or America's Funniest People or this or

that or whatever. A hundred percent. Yeah, there's

a billion of those. And they were really guilty

of that. And they were guilty of some of the

worst of those. When reality shows, when primetime

reality shows kind of became a thing, Survivor

being the first one, And then they took on different

formats. ABC was the one that launched The Bachelor,

which launched the modern love dating reality

show. But Fox was basically like, oh, could this

get any tackier? Yes, hold my beer. And they

created some of the worst. Just off the top of

my head, you know. A guy who pretends he's a

millionaire but is secretly broke and trying

to woo a bunch of ladies. A girl who thinks she's

going to be on The Bachelor but actually is meeting

average guys who they – which are not really

– they basically – they proceed to mock people

who are overweight, people who are short, people

who are nerds, people who have social issues

called Average Joe. And then it's like, can she

fall in love with someone even though they're

just average? And it's disgusting. There was

a show about women who were tricked into dating

gay guys. So, yeah, I would say that I said to

you off air, I feel like, you know, were those

failures? It's hard to say because a lot of them

were huge successes for Fox, but I think that

we can agree that they're moral failures. Oh,

yes, absolutely. Once again, talking about the

animation, besides the animation domination,

the primetime animation with the Simpsons and

all of that, just looking through there, I mean,

like I said, 1992 with X -Men, but also Batman

the Animated Series. I mean, you know, first

kind of, you know, primetime cartoon for that.

You had, let's see, what else is in here? I like

Bob's Burgers. I think that stands apart from

the Seth MacFarlane stuff. It would be my favorite.

And also Futurama, which is another Matt, I always

pronounce his name wrong, Matt Groening? Is it

Matt Groening? groaning groaning grinding i don't

know the creator of the simpsons but yeah i kind

of enjoy that one um yeah i think the non king

of the hill i quite enjoyed often as well yeah

so i think the non -sath mcfarland stuff is the

adult animated non -sath mcfarland is a little

bit more my thing absolutely um all right so

let's see here oh i think we're getting to my

favorite part yeah i think so too but first we

have to spend time in 1993 25 years ago both

of these networks started in the same year the

wb and upn i'm so excited which would eventually

you know go on to have a love child named the

cd the the cdw wow the the the cw there we go

um wb oh man oh my god michigan j frog wb like

this Even more so than Fox's Fox was kind of

like my early teens. That's where everyone wanted

to be. And this, though, defines where people

wanted to be when I was in high school. The W.

Like it was a place that you wanted to hang out

with all those people. So I think that I read

and I could be wrong that like they used to do.

Before the launch of the stuff that we're all

familiar with, they sort of did a lot of the

African -American comedies like Sister, Sister

and the Wayans Brothers, because then they later

started doing comedies like Moesha. So there

was that strain and of like kind of the half

hour comedies that were a little bit more sometimes

edgy, sometimes a little bit more youthful, like

half hour comedies aimed at teens. Right. Which

you don't normally see on on primetime of the

other broadcasters. But their first foray into

the world of sort of these teen dramas was actually

Seventh Heaven. Yes. And I, I'm just going to

say this right now. Oh my God. I'm so worried.

What are you going to say? Well, I, my mom was

Roman Catholic and later Baptist and all of that.

And I believe in God and heaven and hell and

all that. I'm so not a church goer. I'm not a

church person. So Seventh Heaven didn't really

appeal to me. into a fight about you were like

this is the best show ever and i was gonna be

like i'm out no oh no i hate it so much it's

in the world and i it's the over earnestness

of it it's the the schlockiness of it it just

doesn't feel like who are these people these

are not real people like these are not this is

not how teenagers behave around their parents

like i don't agree with any of this You knew.

But it was very, very successful for them. Very

successful. It remained one of their top -rated

shows. Actually, it's surprising because you

don't think of it as one of their top shows because

it wasn't cool. but it actually was one of their

top rated shows more so than the ones that are

actually cool because it did have this devoted

conservative audience who I guess enjoyed this

kind of thing. You know, they enjoyed the preacher

and his, you know, don't get me wrong. I'm not

like trying to slam conservatives. I'm not trying

to slam people who have good family values, but

I am trying to slam a really boring storylines.

Exactly. don't have any real drama because you've

actually, they've done nothing. Like you came

home and there was a joint in your textbook and

it turned out to belong to a friend and everybody's

happy. And that's the end of the episode. Well,

that's nothing. Right. So that was their number

one, but I think the show that really defined

the network, the one that made it a cool place

to be the one that kickstarted everything that

came after it was. Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Oh, wow. For a second there, I thought you were

going to say something else because that something

else is now 20 years old as of this year. Is

it Dawson's Creek? Yeah. But Dawson's Creek came

later. So Buffy was 97. Yeah, 97. Yeah. Buffy

kind of started the whole vision of the network

of what it was going to be from then on. And

then that led to stuff like Dawson's Creek, which

also was a huge sensation on its own. But, you

know, and a ton of shows like it, like Charmed,

Felicity, Smallville, Roswell, of course, the

spinoff Angel. But like that idea of these, you

know, teen kind of shows, I guess it was kind

of a new iteration of 90210 because Fox had grown

up by that point into an adult network. And so

this was now where teens wanted to go. Did you

have favorites out of those? Actually, no, we

can't do that because we're not talking about

our top ones. Not our top ones, but yeah, I watched

up to season three of Buffy when they graduated

high school. That's kind of when I stopped. I

think the only episode I saw past that was the

series finale in season 7. Because I jumped over

to the more awesome show, Angel. I said I jumped

over. I didn't make a choice. I jumped ship on

Buffy. Once they graduated high school, I was

done. To me, they're both good for specific reasons,

which I'll talk about later. But, I mean, I love

them, obviously. You know, what's so funny about

the WB was how, you know, it wasn't a very high

-rated network. And none of these shows were

considered to be really high -rated. But, again,

it was a place that every teenager talked about

and knew everything about. And they were they

were sort of like, you know, Dawson's Creek stars

on the cover of like every magazine. They were

like it was like this huge thing that everyone

culturally that everyone was sort of into because

everyone wanted to know what young people loved.

Right. And I remember they used to do these commercials

where all of the stars in the WB would like it

was they were at a nightclub and like they would

all show up and they were all kind of dancing

together in this one space. And they were really

trying to sell you this idea that this is a place

where you hang out with your friends, right?

Your friends from Roswell, your friends from

Dawson's Creek, your friends from Buffy. Come

be part of this group of really cool teenagers.

It was so calculated and smart, I think. Yeah,

it was. Yeah, for these shows, like, okay, so

obviously Angel. I think the reason why I jumped

from Buffy to Angel is because... That whole

after high school thing where I don't know what

I'm going to be doing. Should I stay in Sunnydale?

Should I go here? Should I go there? Should I

do this? What adventures are we going to get

into? And I'm sure at some point I will go back

and watch other episodes of Buffy. Everyone praises

that musical episode and I watched it once and

I'm like... it's good but it's not like the end

all be all well it's hard it's important to remember

like if you're judging it against other musicals

oh no i wasn't i was just judging it against

itself just just against the other episodes of

the show the format and the way they use the

format that was really right right i think obviously

like you know it's not i think it's actually

pretty good it's i think it's better than most

um because doing a musical episode became a thing

that people did and some of them were really

bad and some of them were pretty good but i think

that to me stands as the top one not just because

they actually took time with the music and i

think a lot of it's really catchy but also because

the reason for the musical made complete sense.

And it, it had to do with, you know, it had to

do with magic, but it also was a narrative device

to get inside the characters minds because they

couldn't, they kept singing the things that they

would never say out loud. So it, which actually

is what people do in a musical because normally

they just sing stuff and we're supposed to imagine

that the other characters can't hear them, you

know, but they actually played with that. I thought

that was. Yeah. Yeah, Angel, I just like the

whole private eye, you know, nighttime kind of

thing. And as that show progressed and all of

this, like, episode 100, when Lindsay came back

and the whole end of the world thing and all,

it was just done so well. And actually, the reason

why I enjoy Angel more is because Charisma Carpenter,

as Cordelia, jumped over with him. And they actually

progressed Cordy as a character more than what

she was on Buffy. Like, I get it. Buffy, she

was only there through high school, and then

she obviously followed Angel to L .A. But who

knows what Cordy would have turned into if she

stayed on Buffy. Well, they had to because she

was the second lead, essentially, in that show

for the most part. Obviously, yeah. And Buffy,

you know, they progressed Willow a ton. Xander,

they didn't really progress a ton. They did a

little bit, but... you know willow sort of got

the most radical change on that show and and

some of the other characters but cordelia while

she was there was still somewhat of a side character

so they gave her a little bit of depth but she

was mostly there to be a certain type of person

whereas on angel she she was the second lead

she had to develop beyond that i think and that

was so cool yeah they did a great job The fact

that in season four they did the whole beast

Storyline with her being taken over by whatever

the hell and all of this and all of that and

Jasmine and everything else It's so funny because

the voice for Jasmine like the male voice when

Remember what I'm talking about, right? Yeah,

I just watched it recently, actually, yeah. Okay,

so. The voice that's in people's heads and, like,

that speaks to angels and that speaks to the

people, yeah. Yeah, so that is Peter Renaday.

Peter Renaday was the original voice of Master

Splinter in the 87 Turtles cartoon. Really? Yes.

That sounds kind of familiar. Yes, absolutely.

Loved that. Yeah. I absolutely love that. But

Angel, I love the action in it. I love the things

that Angel had to deal with. I love the fact

that they eventually brought Faith back and,

to a lesser extent, brought Wesley back. I mean,

yes, Wesley does grow as a character, and that's

great. Are you dissing Wesley? Oh, God. I don't

know who's worse, him or Giles. What are you

doing against British people? okay well i mean

that's a whole other conversation we should obviously

have a later date because a later date yeah plenty

to say about this world and you know yes absolutely

But, yeah, so, I mean, WB kind of had that vibe.

And then they also did, like we mentioned, they

kind of did some comedies, and they were known

for stuff like Sabrina the Teenage Witch as well

and Reba, other comedies like that. So they had

that to a lesser extent on their schedule. And

then sort of in the early 2000s, they tried to

broaden a little bit successfully with stuff

like the Gilmore Girls because it was more multi

-generational. So kind of like Seventh Heaven

is multi -generational except not awful. That

was a big success for them. But they kind of

hit that snag because once their hit shows started

aging and their original audience was getting

out of college, so right around the time, you

know, 2000, 2003, 2004, then they kind of ended

up in trouble. ratings wise because they they

weren't able to kind of hit that sweet spot and

they weren't getting the young hip kids anymore

yeah because smallville can only take you so

far well i mean yeah it's really hard it's really

hard to to get a new audience growing with your

audience is easier Getting a new one requires

going back and kind of relaunch. I mean, it kind

of requires this relaunch thing. So we'll talk

about the attempts of that. Sort of the last

thing that premiered on the WB that was a big

success was Supernatural, which, I mean, it's

crazy to think that premiered on the WB, but

it did. In 2005, the last year of the WB, Supernatural

premiered. And when we talk about CW, we can

talk about the fact that it's still on. It's

still on. That's crazy. I always felt the WB

was more female focused, but it's interesting

to hear that. I mean, obviously you watched a

lot of these shows, so maybe it wasn't as female

focused as I thought. I guess I only say that

because up until Smallville, it sort of felt

like most of their leads were women. Yeah. And

I mean, like I said, Angel kind of, you know,

I mean, and technically. and what's his name?

Yeah, but that was... Pacey and Dawson, but that's

a completely other thing. I think they were girly

men. They should talk to Hans and Franz because

they're girly men. Sorry, it's a bad Saturday

Night Live joke. Oh, God. In a negative way,

I just mean that the show sort of felt like it

had the sensibility of how people wanted people

to speak and be emotional rather than how men

actually talk to each other, I think, maybe.

Yep, absolutely. But yeah, I mean, Smallville

was a huge hit, and they did do things right.

What's strange to me is that, holy crap, Green

Arrow is now Kevin Pearson. Yeah, you know, I

always loved that version of the Green Arrow,

the one that wasn't so mad all the time, I guess.

Like, I know that obviously they're going to

do a different thing with it, but... He was kind

of like the sassy, fun, sarcastic guy, the guy

with the twinkle in his eye. That's much more

a character that I want to follow than the doom

and gloom guy, I think. Yeah, yeah. But yeah,

I mean, you know, Smallville, I liked it up to

a certain point, and then I kind of dropped,

I think I liked it up to about season five. I

dropped off for season six. Of course, bringing

in Supergirl in Season 7 means I would, you know,

come back to it. And then, obviously, Season

8, 9, and 10. I don't know. The WB also had,

very short -lived, only had one season. This

probably could be considered one of their biggest

failures. But it's not necessarily, it is the

show's fault, but it isn't necessarily really

because it's a whole Warner Brothers, DC Comics

kind of thing. Apparently, since Adam West, you

can't have Batman on television for some odd

reason. But the WB decided to do Birds of Prey.

Was that any good? It was okay. It's probably

one of the worst shows on the network if you're

talking to other people that aren't me because

I actually enjoyed it. But it was like one season.

It was like 13 episodes. Um, basically kind of

focused on the fact that, um, Helena Huntress

is, is, um, basically she's Batman and Catwoman's

daughter or something or other. And you bring

in like Aunt, um, Aunt Laurel or something. Like

an adult version of Black Canary shows up and

it turns out to be Rebecca Donaldson. Or I should

say Rebecca Donaldson. whatever jesse's last

name was on it's laurie laughlin essentially

oh right yes so you know um it was all right

it's it's kind of a cult thing at this point

like people it's one of those guilty pleasure

like oh i kind of want to not really but i kind

of want to watch this and remember this and whatever

but i mean Unless it's animation, like, live

-action Batman stuff on television has always

been frowned upon. I don't know why. There's

some deal somewhere that says you can't have

Bat... Look at Goth... Well, don't look at Gotham,

but look at Gotham. I mean, it's young Bruce

Wayne. Like, there's no... Nothing. They hint

at the Joker. They show versions of the Joker.

Obviously, Mackenzie plays Jim Gordon, not necessarily

Commissioner, but in the younger days kind of

a thing. Gotham is essentially Law and Order

with Batman characters. So, and this, you think

this is a, I always assume that it was a creative

choice that people made because they either didn't

want to take it on or they wanted to do a different

way. You actually think that it's like a deal?

I think it's something to do with the deal that

they had. It's something. I forget. There was

some whole bat embargo that had happened at one

point where you could not, no, I'm not kidding.

It is a thing. It is a thing. And I don't know

why, but. That's fascinating. I did not know

that. I just thought that they were trying to

avoid like, you know, a little bit in the way

that Smallville was for the law. I mean, now,

of course, they've done more like they've they've

put Superman in places like in Supergirl. But.

I thought Smallville was just trying to avoid

the, the pitfalls of putting, you know, Clark

as Superman in a cape. And so I just assumed

that that was kind of the way people were attacking

the Batman problem. Not that they couldn't, but

that just, they were like, I don't know if we

should, because if we do it wrong, it's going

to be a disaster. Yeah. Who knows? But that's

interesting. I did not know that there was a

bat embargo. Yep. There, there, there is, there

was, this was a while ago, obviously, but like,

Like I said, outside of animation, Batman has

not appeared on TV in a full thing since 66.

Wow, okay. Cool. Alright, anything else about

the WB? No, I think that covers it. Do you like

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So come on and walk through the world with us.

So up next, folks, 25 years ago also we have

UPN. What the hell did that stand for? I don't

even remember. The UP Network? I don't know.

UPN something. I don't know. That's all I got.

UP Network. I didn't even mean it that way, but

now that you say it out loud, yeah. I don't know.

So UPN had a lot of shows that people liked probably,

but didn't last too long. UPN was really only

around for about six years or so, I think. Yeah,

that's the way it's looking. Well, I thought

it started... I could have sworn it started in

the early... It's like mid -90s. Deadly Games

is the first show that I can see here that was

1995. It lasted for 10 years. They were both

in existence, WB and UPN, until... The merger.

The merger, which we'll talk about at the end

of this. Shows on the UPN included stuff like

All Souls, The Beat. Buffy was on there for two

years. Or three years. 2001 to 2003. The Burning

Zone, Deadly Games, Freedom, Haunted, Jake 2

.0, Kevin Hill, Live Shot, Legacy, Legend, Level

9, The Love Boat, The Next Wave. Why? Why? I

don't know. I don't want to know. Nowhere Man.

Obviously, the biggest thing out of this one,

besides Star Trek, Enterprise, and Voyager, which

why the hell anyone would watch Enterprises beyond

me, is obviously Veronica Mars was the biggest

thing out of the UPN. Well, I mean, here's the

thing. It's not so much because it did not rate

at all. No, it really wasn't. It was a very,

very poorly rated show. And I actually so I think

to me, UPN, like I actually don't I've heard

of some of the shows that you just mentioned.

I have never watched any of them. But to me,

UPN was a place for for a place for comedies

featuring African -Americans and for an African

-American audience. which really didn't have

anywhere else at that point because places like

BET weren't doing scripted series. And every

once in a while, at this point, networks were

white as all hell. So they were not really greenlighting

things. Really, I mean, it's true. For every

Fresh Prince, there were a ton of shows that

didn't feature a single African -American lead,

most of them. So shows like Girlfriends, which

was huge, a huge show. I think it lasted six

years. Malcolm and Eddie. And I'm sorry, actually,

Moesha is I think I said Moesha was on the WB,

but it's not. It was on UPN. So I have to I have

to go back and like fact check myself. Eve, all

of us. So. their comedy lineup was sort of primarily

in that space. And then their drama lineup tended

to be like, that's sci -fi -ish kind of, you

know, quirky stuff that you mentioned. But it

did have that successful audience simply because,

you know, there was, yeah, no one else was showing

this type of programming, which was why when

it ended up merging with the CW, it was actually

a little bit sad because all of that stuff kind

of got lost because it didn't have a space. Like

we can talk about that a little bit later, but

that was sort of how I saw UPN. at the time and

it's interesting that you mentioned Veronica

Mars because Veronica Mars debuted so it debuted

two years before the CW merger so its first season

happened in I believe 2003 no sorry 2004 to 2005

and it was very poorly rated although to be fair

most things on UPN were not that highly rated

yeah no well it's like you know when you have

everything that's low rated they're not going

to cancel a lot because they don't have a lot

of options so it actually gives you time to grow

But it was so critically acclaimed, and UPN had

never experienced this before, that they tried

to build their next year's programming around

it, which was really weird because it wasn't

a big hit. So the year 2005 to 2006, they had

this promo for UPN called Where the Girls Are,

and it featured Veronica Mars and two new shows

that they had greenlit. both of which were pretty

awful. One of them starred Shannon Doherty as

like a matchmaker. But I just found that to be

a really weird choice because yes, I know they

wanted to, you know, parlay that critical success

into a different vision for the network. But

also, you know, if no one's watching the show,

I don't think you can really use it as a lead

in for other things. Right. So it was a little

bit strange. Yeah, it was very strange. But yes,

it's the show that people remember because it

had such a cult following. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, UPN stuff... I don't know. You mentioned

the whole Buffy thing, which was sort of... That's

when they... After Buffy Season 5, there was

sort of like this fight with the WB where...

I guess they didn't have the deal worked out.

So the season five finale of Buffy was they threatened

to make it a series finale if they actually promoted

it that way as a marketing tactic to scare them

into making a deal. But it never happened, and

UPN stole them away. They also stole Roswell

as well. So they stole Roswell. So they were

really trying to cut into that audience, which

is so ironic because then they became one network.

But yeah, that was sort of their thing. Yeah,

absolutely. Yeah, like I said, the UPN, I paid

attention to a couple of the things on there.

Not a lot of the comedy stuff, but some of the

dramas. I would catch the comedies here and there,

but I don't know. I was more of a WB kind of

guy, I guess. Well, yeah, me too. So... But I

don't have much more to say about that. No, no,

that's very, very short, yeah. Fortunately, it's

the one I know the least about. It might have

been, you know, 25 years ago that the thing launched,

but yeah, no. So about 11 or 12 years ago, they

had a love child called the CW. Woo -hoo! Woo

-hoo. Yeah. And about six years ago, the superhero

shows started. Yeah. So I have I have the beginning

of the CW. That's very interesting because. When

they launched the CW, it was kind of a – it's

so fascinating to me because it was such a unique

opportunity, but it was such a disaster because

when they launched it, they literally had one

new show that year. It was called – because what

they had done was they had combined some of the

stuff from UPN, some of the stuff from the WB,

mostly the WB, although they still had a comedy

block at that point. They had, I think, All About

Us and Eve. They had Everybody Hates Chris from

UPN, which we did not mention, but it was a great

show. I actually did watch that, and it was a

really critically acclaimed, clever show that

was loosely based on Chris Rock's childhood,

but very, very funny show with Terry Crews as

the father. So they had a couple of those shows,

and then they had this one show called Runaway,

which starred the wife from, I think her name's

Leslie something, Leslie Hope, maybe, the wife

from the first season of 24, and Donnie Wahlberg

as the dad. and it was a show about this family

on the run because he had been accused of a crime.

It lasted three episodes. Oh, it aired three

episodes. Actually, it was on Netflix for a while,

and I got to watch all of them. It's pretty good.

However, it was, you know, not a success. But

when they launched this network, they had all

of these aging shows. So they were trying to

have this new thing, and yet what they had was,

you know, Smallville season eight, you know,

One Tree Hill season four, the tenth season of

Seventh Heaven, Gilmore Girls in its last, and...

reviled season um and then they had stuff like

Veronica Mars which they were trying to pair

with the Gilmore Girls and create this thing

which again nobody had really watched even though

it was a great show so it was a really bizarre

thing the only thing that really stood out was

Supernatural which was a you know almost brand

new series that was in its second season that

kind of gave them something because otherwise

it was like the same lagging ratings that had

been on the WB because all of those shows had

already started to slide in the ratings by the

time they launched this new network with all

of these shows that were over six years old.

It was very weird. Yeah, it was very, very, very

weird. Yeah, I don't know, but the CW since then,

though, with their own content and... And all

of that. It's been really good. I think so too.

Although I'm not a big fan of this, of their

superhero stuff. I think probably as much as

you are, but I think that, I think that that

helped them relaunch a little bit. Like that

when arrow, when arrow came out, I think that

they had been sort of ever since they launched,

they had been on this weird space where all of

those shows finally got canceled and they had

nothing new that everyone was really excited

about. Probably until arrow made it's big. I

love the CW superhero shows, but certain parts

of certain ones of those shows. I will maintain

my opinion. Arrow season 1 and season 2 are great.

Seasons 3, 4, and 5 are absolutely awful, horrible,

to mediocre. Because Season 3, they tried to

pull a Batman. Season 4, they tried to pull an

Owlicity or whatever the hell ship name you want

to give Oliver and Felicity. Season 5 was just

weird. Season 6 is kind of back on form with

Season 1 and 2, so that's great. But Season...

I think it was Season 3? Yeah. I think it was

Season 3 that they... lit up and did The Flash

because they introduced The Flash in... The Scientist?

It's like season 3, episode 8 and 9, I believe.

I think one of the episodes was called The Scientist.

So basically, it's a backdoor into what The Flash

is going to be. Same thing with The Flash, doing

that to Legends and all that. Supergirl was a

slightly different animal, because Supergirl

originally started on CBS and then went to the

CW. Yeah. Supergirl... I liked it in the beginning.

Season three is just abysmal. Well, I haven't

gotten to season three yet. I'm on the very last

episode of season two because I'm watching it

on Netflix. Okay, well. I heard you ranting.

I heard, I should say. I saw you ranting about

it earlier on Facebook. I don't know. And also,

I know that everyone hates Mon -El, but I, so

far, love him. So, I don't know. Am I weird?

Maybe I'm weird. No, it's not about Mon -El at

this point. Oh, no, it is for women. People are

like, so anti -feminist. Yes, but what I'm saying

is, for me, why I think the show is currently

really, really bad. Okay, so for the longest

time, if you asked me what my favorite of the

superhero shows would be, it would rotate between

Flash and Legends being one or two. Flash has

pretty much always been in my number one spot.

Flash, let's say Flash, Legends. Hey, you're

giving me your top five already, man. No, I'm

not. I might be, you never know. I would then

say Supergirl and Arrow or whatever, but basically

Arrow and Supergirl have kind of switched where

Supergirl is just meh at this point and Arrow's

gotten a hell of a lot better this year. Yeah.

Karen and I, we've grown at Supergirl so much

and we don't know why we still watch it. It's

just so bad. Well, yeah, I mean, I haven't gotten

there. I know that some people didn't like Season

2 either, which I really did enjoy it, so it's

hard to say. Season 2 was okay. Yeah. I think

that it's worth noting that, you know, whatever

you think of all of these properties, they've

certainly done a much more successful job at

creating a DC world. on the cw with these properties

than they have in the films in films absolutely

no i've always of course not talking about like

classic dc films like the original supermans

and and various iterations no no the current

yeah yeah but the current state of the dc film

universe yeah i absolutely agree other than wonder

woman it's a pretty big yeah yeah it is a very

much big disaster but i've always said that Television

is where DC lies with CW. It's the best it can

be. I think that's true. I mean, I think they,

so I do respect that. I think there's varying

levels of success there and everyone has their

own opinions and thoughts on different shows.

You know, I always, I worry a little bit from

my perspective that because the CW, although

this is changing because they're going to start

adding Sunday programming. um, next year because

the CW, you know, does only eight and nine programs.

They only do, um, you know, eight o 'clock shows,

nine o 'clock shows. They don't do a 10 o 'clock

shows and they only do the five days a week.

It's sort of sometimes it feels to me like the

CW is becoming this DC superhero network. And

I find that a little frustrating cause I like

a little more variety in my, my broadcasters.

Um, but I will say that, you know, they have

done a pretty good job. And stuff like Legends,

to me, is the most impressive because the first

season of that was just boring to me. That whole

plot line, it was too serious. They didn't know

what they were doing. And then when they finally

got into that second season and they realized,

oh, this show is a campy show. This is a campy

nut show that we have to be doing. And it worked.

All of a sudden they really knew what they were

doing. I've loved Legends since season one. Yes,

there are a few episodes in season one that are

kind of meh, but... Legends to me is the fun

show. Legends and Flash are kind of the fun show.

Flash can be a little too emo at times. It got

that way, yeah. It didn't start that way, but

it got that way. No, yeah, absolutely. Season

2 and Season 3, a little bit of the emo there.

But it's not horrible in Season 2 or Season 3

of The Flash, where it's been consistent. With

Legends, I feel from Episode 1, it's been consistent.

Yes, the whole... um vandal sat she said randall

wow vandal vandal savage i'm like wait a second

when's dante gonna show up he's not even supposed

to be here today um the whole thing with vandal

savage and and hawk man and hot girl kind of

got old at first but what i love about legends

is how Blake Neely does the music for that show.

Every time they do a Western episode, I am so

happy. And I am the last person on earth that

actually enjoys Westerns. But I just love that.

I love the music in the show. I love that by

now where they are in season three, and I don't

know how far you've watched. Actually, I only

watched the end of season two. Okay, so you're

okay. I won't spoil season three for you. Yeah.

I try to catch up for these crossovers, which

is actually kind of hard because it's super confusing

and it's hard. And I'd be honest, I gave up on

Arrow, so I don't care anymore. When the crossovers

come over for Arrow, I'm just like, I accept

that I don't know what the hell is going on.

There were characters in the last crossover I

watched, and I was like, who are these people?

Okay, the last crossover you watched was Invasion,

right? Yes. Okay. When you watch Crisis on Earth

X, you don't necessarily need to watch, because

you're not watching Arrow, you may not be watching

all of the shows. Oh, no, I'll try to watch the

other ones, because I like them. Okay, and that's

fine. I'm just saying Crisis on Earth X might

be the one crossover that you don't need to have

to have watched every single episode of all of

the shows that cross over with it. As far as

I know, you almost never have to watch Supergirl,

because it's usually just Barry showing up going,

oh, by the way, there's a problem, come here,

and then she pops over. and it almost never matters

except for the musical one except for the musical

one yeah that was a good episode yeah um yeah

but yeah so the cw with the superhero shows absolutely

love that you said they're gonna start doing

sunday programming i think it'd be kind of cool

but like i loved it at the time when they had

Supergirl on Monday, Flash and Legends on Tuesday,

or Flash on Tuesday, Arrow on Wednesday, and

Legends on Thursday. I liked the five night a

week. If it's one show, if it's Supergirl and

something else, like their other comedies on

Monday, Flash and let's say Riverdale on Tuesday,

Arrow and Supernatural on Wednesday, and then

Legends and something else on Thursday or whatever,

I like that. There was one advertisement that

they did. superheroes all week long right here

on the CW or something or other. And I absolutely

loved that at the time. And this whole shift

now of having Riverdale and whatever else is

on Wednesdays, I forget what it is. It might

be Supernatural, but I forget. No idea. I don't

know. But Monday and Tuesday is Supergirl and

Flash and Legends when Legends is on. Or it was.

Now it's Black Lightning or whatever. What? Then

they skip Wednesday and go to Thursday with Arrow.

And I'm like, I don't even remember the last.

I've been watching Arrow Season 6, but I could

not tell you in the last three weeks what the

last episode it was that I watched because I've

lost count. Right. Okay. What are my what? You

mentioned Black Lightning, and I was just curious

because that's another iteration. So it's a superhero

show in the DC universe but not connected to

the Arrowverse. Oh, it is. They've connected

it now. Oh, damn it. I hope they weren't going

to do that because the creators said they weren't

going to do that. They said they weren't, but

they did because there was a... I bet they were

pressured into it because I don't think those

guys would do that. Probably. I just wonder what

your thoughts were on Black Lightning. I have

not had a chance to check it out yet. Really?

I want to, yeah, I want to, but I have not had

a chance to check it out yet. I liked it because

it was different. And now I'm a little annoyed

that it might not be so different, but we'll

see. We'll see. Okay. So I think it was when

they came back, like after Christmas break, like

there was an ad on, it was one of their traditional

CW superhero ads. Yeah. Where they, oh, you know.

time to get back to work kind of a thing. I'll

have to see if I can, I'm trying to find it now.

I'll find it for you after the show and show

it to you. Um, but basically what it was, was

everybody's in the locker room and everyone has

their own locker, like flashes speeding in and

super girls flying in and arrows shooting arrows.

Why are you shooting arrows at people? I don't

know, whatever, but like there's this whole thing

and the whole thing is time to get back to work

at the end of it. they flash to a locker it's

a lightning bolt and he says something about

oh i guess they forgot about the new guy or something

or other oh god so i'll try to see if i can find

that for you to show you but i think that they

have decided to tie it in i don't know if he's

gonna be part of the big crossover next year

or whatever. Um, who knows? Um, cause it feel,

it feels so far to me from that show that it's

grounded in a different world. So I'm very busy

how they would do this because it's, it feels

more like, yeah, like a grounded series that

isn't so much about, I mean, I can't imagine

like the invasion thing happening. Like that

would be so weird on that show. So I don't know.

You'd have, you'll have to see. Um, Another thing

to note about the CW is, as I mentioned, they

came over when they merged with some comedy shows.

I think there was one night where they had four

comedy shows, all brought over from UPN, I believe.

There might have been one new comedy that year.

decided to ditch that i believe but by the next

year they had cut it down to two and then they

got rid of the comedy department altogether to

focus on drama um and so they've never really

revisited that since um which is you know it's

interesting they're the only network that doesn't

have half hour shows um you know it would be

interesting to see what they would do with that

i think they they're you know they're pretty

full with sunday programming who knows but um

They're also famous for not canceling anything.

And I think it's because they, if something,

if they like, I mean, they'll cancel some things,

don't get me wrong, but they will premiere, you

know, a bunch of new shows and almost all of

them will get renewed except for maybe one. And

I think this year it'll be Valor that doesn't

get renewed. I'm pretty sure that's already happened.

I actually don't know, but I mean, they've renewed

Dynasty and I was thinking like the new Dynasty

and I thought, well, why on earth would you do

that? But they did. And I think it's because

they, you know, they tend to do this thing where

they will, you know, not, they'll air things

for half the year on purpose rather than all,

you know, Oh, they never show repeats almost.

Um, and if, and they give these things time to

grow, um, you know, I zombie is a show that has

never delivered ratings for them. And yet it's

been back and it's, it's third season now, the

hundred same, same thing. And I appreciate it

because I like these shows, but I do marvel a

little bit at the business model because I think,

you know, you know, yeah where are your slots

you have no slots left and you keep on giving

these things a second life and so that's just

kind of their their mo is that if something is

really poorly rated on the cw and now my to be

my my favorite favorite show in the cw which

i'll talk about my top five is the lowest rated

show on the cw that's not good no no no but it's

okay because it's already been renewed for season

four So I guess what I'm saying is I'm actually

quite happy that they do that because otherwise

I would be in trouble. I would lose all my shows.

Yes, you would. So, yeah, that's the CW for me.

I thought it was a fun little love child, and

there's a lot of current shows on it that I adore

for their ingenuity and stuff like that that

I'll talk about. Yeah, absolutely. So we're going

to take a quick break, folks. We're going to

come back after this with our top five shows

from each of these networks. We'll be back in

a moment. Kid? Yes? Shut up. Beyond the Night

is the GCRN's latest review podcast. We are covering

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.radio or geekcastradio .com. All right, folks,

it is time for our final part of the episode.

I know we've been going a long time, but, hey,

this is a big topic to talk about. It's time

for the TV Top Fives. Each of us have made our

own top five lists of our favorite shows from

each of the networks. We have not seen each other's

lists at all, so these are going to be complete

surprises to both of us. We're going to start

with NBC first for top five. What is your number

five? Okay, just to be clear, I didn't know they

were supposed to be in a specific order, and

I can't Sophie's Choice my TV children like that.

So they're just five in no particular order.

I cannot be doing that. That would kill me. It

would kill me to narrow this down to five. If

I had to put them in an order, I'd be dead right

now. So I'm just going to say them. So my top

five are The Good Place, Scrubs, Parks and Recreation,

Friday Night Lights, and The West Wing. Okay.

Those are my top five, and I guess, I don't know

if we're supposed to give reasons. Yeah, absolutely,

yeah. Sure, so, because I don't think we talked

about any of these when we talked about NBC.

You may note that my top five lists tend to not

be always the most popular shows. The Good Place

is currently on and so far it's aired two seasons

and it's just so inventive. And I kind of like

to include something current that's currently

airing if there is something that I think is

brilliant. So that's kind of my current contribution.

Scrubs. I don't know if you're a Scrubs fan,

but it's a brilliant comedy that was always kind

of like a middling rating success. It aired for

eight years on NBC before. Jumping over to ABC

for what we don't like to consider part of the

original show, we like to call it Scrubs the

New Class because it was just a weird mashup

of people, new characters and whatnot. When it

was on Netflix in Canada, which it is no longer,

that was my bedtime show. Then they took it off

Netflix and I had a heart attack. I don't know

who I can write to, but somebody better put that

crap back on because it's upsetting. Parks and

Rec, another NBC comedy, huge critical success.

mildly successful in the ratings uh another show

that i have re -watched many times friday night

lights another critical success and pretty poorly

rated show that actually kind of i think it paired

with direct tv in the last couple seasons so

direct tv would air it first and nbc would air

it second because direct tv uh put out part of

the money to keep it on the air for five seasons

brilliant drama And The West Wing, which was

a huge success in both fields, like Emmys up

the wazoo. Aaron Sorkin, who is probably my top

favorite writer of all time. I'm actually rewatching

it right now. It lasted seven seasons, and it's

just a brilliant show. I don't know. Are any

of those shows that you have A, watched, or B,

appreciate? I appreciate almost all TV, but I

have not seen almost all TV. So I've wanted to

get into the West Wing, but I just have not yet.

So I don't know. Again, have to make a choice

because there's just too much. Of course. I'm

just curious. Just way too much. Yeah, some of

them I have seen, some of them I haven't. Are

you a fan of Scrubs at all? Oh, yeah. I love

Scrubs. Scrubs was awesome. Yeah. Scrubs was

cool. Scrubs is probably the greatest comedy

version of ER. Oh, yeah. I love it. I love Scrubs.

Yeah, I love Scrubs. For me, unlike Jen, I can

actually rank my shows and make choices. Okay.

I know because all you've talked about this whole

episode is the difficult choices you've made,

so I'm not surprised. Number five for NBC is

Seinfeld. I mean, it's a show about nothing that

is absolutely hilarious and it's funnier than

Friends and it doesn't have Phoebe who annoys

the hell out of me. You know, between... the

Festivus for the rest of us, between anything

Kramer does, Elaine's bad dancing, the comedy

stand -up stuff that Jerry does in between, the

bizarro Jerry world. That was a great episode.

I just absolutely love Seinfeld. It's just so,

so damn good. And then number four would be Mad

About You. Talk about a comedy about relationships.

Or at least one relationship. I love Paul and

Jamie Buckman. These two characters are just

absolutely hilarious. Number three would be the

A -Team. I just love it when a plan comes together.

You know, between Hannibal and Murdoch and Faceman

and, of course, B .A. I pity the fool. Which,

the sad thing is, I don't think he said that

maybe once the entire series. I just don't think

Mr. G said... I think he said it once throughout

the entire series. Yeah. And then there's Alf

at number two, because Alf is just hilarious.

I wanted to be... Brian from ALF. I wanted to

be Benji Gregory's character Brian from ALF because

ALF is essentially a giant talking dog. I mean,

yeah, he's an alien from Melmac and he got his

own animated series. He had his own comic books.

Um, but just ALF and ALF kind of At least not

necessarily to me because I always listen to

the music anyway, but basically introduced a

lot of people in the late 80s to early 90s to

Bob Seger again with that season three when he

was lip syncing to old time rock and roll. Absolutely

love Alf. And of course, it's NBC, my number

one, of course, classic Knight Rider. Interesting.

Have to go with a classic. And again, this is

just a... You know, a fun list of my favorites.

Am I saying these are my favorite best shows

of all time from this network? No, probably not.

But Knight Rider is always going to rank close

to the top for me, no matter what kind of TV

ranking list it is, because I just love that

show. Like I said, it has episodes that really

had reached out to me as a kid. It was an action

show. It was, hey, jump in my car and, you know.

Turtle boost around the world. That's right.

You can't not do that when someone says get in

my car. Well, that's interesting. So your list

is all pre, I think, pre -98 or so, right? Yeah,

pretty much, yeah. My list is nothing after 1999.

West Wing debuted in 1999, so the majority of

it happened in the new millennium, and pretty

much everything else did. Did you have any honorable

mentions? Because I, again, terrible at... I

mean, I love so many things, and I hate having

to choose between them. So I had a couple of

honorable mentions. I had honorable mentions

for This Is Us and Parenthood for both making

the most amount of tears come out of my eyes

ever. I honorable mentioned The Cosby Show because,

as I said earlier, that's where I kind of drew

the line. It would have been on my list for sure.

one of the top shows, but I just, I kind of felt

a little bit icky putting it on the list. I still

love it, but I just didn't want to like put it

on the top. Uh, and the golden girls, because

those lady bosses are totally still my idols.

So those were kind of my, my honorable mentions.

Were there any that like almost made it for you?

For me, it was, um, Oh, God, what was the other

one? This is really bad. The DVD set finally

came out, but it's a really short -lived show.

It's one of those Fastlane type of shows. It

was NBC in 94. This was after Knight Rider. This

was before Team Knight Rider, but it was better

than Team Knight Rider, even though it's still

cheesy as all hell. Viper from NBC. I don't remember

that at all. Yeah, it's basically... It's a basically

morphing car. It's not kid. It doesn't talk or

anything, but it does have transform stuff. So,

yeah. I don't know. I'm sure there's other things

from NBC. I will say that... NBC... Like, more...

Not necessarily most currently, but more currently.

They... have had shows that I liked, but they

never actually, you know, let them go anywhere.

Like Christian Slater and, uh, my own worst enemy

from a few years ago. Well, Christian Slater

was known as the show killer for a while. Cause

like before Mr. Robot, he had so many first,

first seasons of a billion shows. And then there

was, there was my own worst enemy on, I think

he was on a show. He was on a show where. he

was solving crimes. I think it was like unforgettable

or unforgiven. And there was a show. Unforgettable

was ABC. That was with, um, what's her name?

Poppy Montgomery. I know that's why it's not

called that, but it's something similar to that

or forgiven or something. I don't know. Forget,

forget it. Who knows that? And remember the show

he was breaking? He was a comedy show where he

was breaking into like, it was called breaking

in. And it was like, um, yeah, he did. There

was another one too. It was like four before

he did, uh, Mr. Robot. He was just like, like

kryptonite yeah sadly yeah um yep okay let's

go to cbs what do you got oh we're going to cbs

now okay i thought we were going to abc because

i got my map it's because of the sheet when you

forgot to write down okay so uh cbs and this

is yeah you'll find a lot of these are probably

pretty weird and i would like to say again that

as i was reading the list of shows on cbs there

were so many that uh i did not put on because

i have not seen them but i feel like would have

probably had a spot on my list so uh we have

murder she wrote which is my favorite type of

crime solving ever. It's where a non -law person

just explains the crime for everybody, including

the criminal, but they sound really authoritative,

so the guy just confesses. This is what you did

and how you did it. Oh, you're damn it. You're

right. You got me. That kind of crime. would

later be used with an Australian accent and the

mentalist. Cause he basically, it was the same

show, except he was younger and had an Australian

accent. He constantly was like, let me spell

it out for you. How this cram happened. And they

were like, damn it. You're right. Best type of

friends. Only ever, you don't even need to get

them to confess on a stand. Cause they just confess

right in the interrogation room. Um, life in

pieces, which is a current. comedy um i don't

know if you've seen it but it's a family comedy

that kind of has four different stories in the

same family that sometimes intertwine sometimes

they don't but it's all kind of like little mini

mini episodes mini kind of stories within uh

one family i think it's so relatable cast is

insane it's got colin hanks and um diane weist

and james brolin and several other amazing people

um it's still on it just got renewed It's one

of the only comedies on CBS that is kind of not

a traditional type comedy, and I love it. Joan

of Arcadia. There's a two -season show from the

early 2000s where a young girl believes that

she is speaking to God because God comes and

tells her that she's speaking to God. God looks

different in every episode. Sometimes it's an

old lady. Sometimes it's just random people being

God, but she always knows who God is. It was

really critically acclaimed, very clever. It

just kind of lost its steam in the second season

and never really got to do anything else. And

I was always really disappointed because it was

very interesting. I Love Lucy, probably the oldest

thing and one of the only older things. on my

list but i feel like you just can't to me it's

just like something you have to include like

if i had a list on cbs and it didn't have i love

lucy i would feel weird so that's sort of why

it's on there it's just it's just classic um

and and actually i can say this one is my number

one if i had to order them the good wife so uh

the good wife uh aired i believe eight full seasons

seven or eight it ran off the air maybe two years

ago uh it was with um A lawyer whose husband.

goes to jail for maybe the first season, and

she goes back to law school. She goes back to

being a lawyer. She was technically a lawyer

but had not practiced in years, and it's all

about the firm and the different characters.

I think it's the first show that I've watched

where the interpersonal dynamics are as intriguing

as the cases. Normally one or the other of those

things is better. The cases are either really

stupid and it's all about the relationships and

the drama, or it's all about the cases and the

people are kind of boring or don't have personal

lives. Every element of the show, from the lawyers

that she faced, from the judges that would rotate,

and they all had these insane personalities.

Everything was so detailed and perfect, I think.

And they reinvented it every season somehow,

and it always kept its steam until the very end.

I think it's, yeah, probably one of my top shows

of all time, but definitely number one on CBS.

Awesome. All right, CBS for me. Well, I'm just

going to go for it. I don't care. I have other

favorites, but how can you not have The Big Bang

Theory on a list? Like, seriously? Like I said

before, the show has just eclipsed all of its

original comedy. It still has its original comedy,

but it has that thing of where the characters

are... getting developed and being developed

and telling more stories. It's not just about

the jokes anymore. Yes, it still has the laugh

track, but it's such a good show. Number four

would be Bull with Michael Weatherly. Absolutely

love that. It's essentially Tony DiNozzo as a

trial scientist, even though I know it's a completely

different character. Number three is Airwolf.

It's a giant attack helicopter. It's absolutely

amazing. Number two is All in the Family. I don't

care what anyone says. Archie Bunker spoke his

mind, folks. We don't live in a world like that

anymore where you can do that. Listen, the workers

of nature won't wait for no deadbeat who takes

all morning to shave. And number one is Nash

Bridges. went back to that that's great yeah

a couple more a couple a few more modern shows

on that list for you for sure yeah a few more

yeah yeah did you have any almost mentions on

your uh on your radar um for cbs not really i'm

i was looking and looking and looking for other

honorable mentions from them um But, nah, probably

not. What about you? Any other honorables for

you? Well, yeah, like I said, a ton that I didn't

see, like I wrote down Cagney and Lacey because

I was like, I feel like obviously I would love

this show, WKRP in Cincinnati, and stuff like

All in the Family. Like, I just haven't watched

it, and I'm sure it's brilliant. But the main

one is How I Met Your Mother because it would

have 100 % been... on this list if it hadn't

produced a finale that made me want to break

everything so it like went through all nine seasons

and then just screwed it up in the end but i

still love it i just i can't put it on the best

of list because i i think they bungled the ending

so badly um yeah it's just and you know how frustrating

it is when that happens oh yeah yeah yeah absolutely

All right, now we can get to ABC, your favorite.

Yes. Am I going first? Yes, you're going first.

All right, so I have Soap, which I already mentioned

before, which was the sort of half -hour parody

of soap operas with this crazy family, families,

I should say, tons of different characters. It

was exactly the format of a soap opera, except...

funny and hysterical uh but it also did have

a lot of real moments and real heart and tackled

real issues and it was just i don't think there's

ever been anything like it on television for

sure um also murder one So Murder One was a crime

show that aired in the, I believe, the late 90s.

I think it aired 97, 98. And it was a Stephen

Bochco series. And it was one of the first series

that started that did like first broadcast series

that had a serialized plot line. So the whole

idea was the whole season revolved around this

one case. Now, they did have minor cases in each

episode and different things. But the whole idea

was they were. this law firm was defending a

client and trying to find out the truth about

this one murder for the whole season, which at

the time was really inventive and it really created

that kind of serialized must watch the next episode

type of thing that you didn't get with Law and

Order. So that was kind of a, it's kind of a

landmark moment for me that really drew me in.

Then I have Lois and Clark, which, yeah, which,

you know, admittedly when I watch it now, I can't

say that it necessarily lives up to today's standards

of what I would think would be a brilliant show

now, but it was such a likable show, and those

two characters, they're a perfect romantic comedy.

I mean, it essentially took Superman and turned

it into a romantic comedy, which is not something

that you would normally imagine, but that's what

it was. I mean, Superman was almost supliferous.

It was about Clark, and I really liked how it

was about... you know, the real people and the

real dynamics behind that. And it was clever

and funny and the villains were great. And it

was, it was just an enjoyable show, even though,

you know, it can be a little hokey when you rewatch

it, but I have very fond memories of it. My mom

and I used to watch it together. It was huge

for me. And then sports night. So sports night

is, if anybody doesn't know, it is a. two season

series also by Aaron Sorkin, my all time favorite

TV writer. It aired from 1998 to 2000 and it

was a comedy set in the world of sports broadcasting.

It was. It was shot as a single camera in a strange

way at the time. People weren't really doing

that. It tried to have a laugh track because

the studio made them, and it didn't work, and

they cut it out because it was inventive. It

did the walk and talk and the speaking 90 miles

an hour type conversation, and it was just, again,

not like anything that came before it. nothing

since is identical to it it's that's the show

that i re -watch over and over because it's only

two seasons and it's so easy to get through and

i know all of the lines and it's just it's kind

of my comfort chicken soup show i adore it there

you go no that's awesome number one and i actually

can say this is number one too for many reasons

would be lost and it exists as number one because

it's the most defining experience I ever had

watching television. So, you know, were there

a lot of plot problems? Did the show necessarily

end in a way that I wanted to? Not really, but

those characters were, they just became a part

of my life. They became a whole week to week,

you know, water cooler moment where you analyze

everything. I joined. you know, online groups

because of it. I made new friends because of

it. It was like this staple of my life that sort

of changed the way that I watch television forever.

And it changed the landscape of television. And

I kind of had to put aside all of the weird stuff

that maybe didn't come together. And for me,

what lasts is that they took all these risks.

They did these fantastic things and they created

a world where the people mattered so much in

and amongst all the weirdness. It's just. To

me, yeah, again, number one experience that I

had watching television. Just that while I was

a fan of Lost, it was my life. Yeah, I remember

people like, oh, let's go have a Lost party.

Let's have an episode watching party. That's

kind of where that kind of started. Right, yeah.

I remember all that. Like I said earlier in the

episode, I will eventually, when I can find the

time to dedicate to it, get... see if i can get

into lost but i did watch part of that first

season and i don't know i just couldn't at the

time i just couldn't focus on it i guess all

right for me it's kind of modern but also throwback

for abc for me uh number five would have to be

the catch which i don't think is coming back

i think it got canceled which sucks so a shondaland

show you're yeah like uh you know sorry shondaland

that being the chandra rhymes type stable of

writers. Really? Interesting. Okay. Yeah, the

catch was awesome. I really dug that. This was

the Peter Krause one, right? Yeah. The more recent

one. The one with, um, what's her name? Um, oh

god, I should know her name. The Killing's name,

I can't remember. Yeah, something like that.

Yep, yep, that's exactly, yep. Basically where

it's... Yeah, it's, um... Yeah, Mariel Enos,

Peter Krause, Almy Ballard, Jay Hayden. Yep,

that show. Cool. Absolutely loved that show.

I thought that show was so interesting, so fun.

Just this whole cat and mouse kind of less of

Tom Hanks, Leo DiCaprio, catch me if you can

kind of a thing. Just really dug the show. I

wish it had more. Sadly, like I said, it was

canceled May 11th of last year. Damn it. Wow,

you know the day. That hurt. That must have hurt.

Yeah. Well, I looked it up, so I cheated. Fair

enough. Number four would be Boy Meets World.

As I said earlier, this is pretty, you know,

watching back, more so the... The later years,

not necessarily the kid seasons. By the time

they get to high school and college age and that

kind of thing, just learning all those lessons

and going on that journey with Corey and Sean

and Topanga and Minkus and Mr. Feeney and all

that. And hey, look! Kit from Knight Rider is

an actual adult that teaches people. That's awesome.

Because William Daniels was the voice of Kit

on Knight Rider. But, yeah, absolutely love Boy

Meets World. Like I said, has a lot of early,

you know, graduating high school, like, life

-type lessons, like where you're going to go

in your life and how are you going to survive

and that kind of thing. Absolutely love Boy Meets

World. You already mentioned it, but I had already

had it on my list. I actually had it at number

one at one point, but Lois and Clark, The New

Adventures of Superman. Woo -hoo! I love this

show. I recently rewatched this about a year

and a half ago. Where's Lois? She was here just

a second ago. Probably scared witless, poor thing.

Don't worry. I'll have you out of that thing

in no time. Okay, let's see now. Do I disconnect

the black wire or the white one? Lois, I think

you've got some explaining to do. Clucky, if

we're going to be partners and we're going to

be married, I want to be part of the act. Lois,

there are things I do you can do. Me Superman.

Me super wife. Us super in trouble. Could you

hold this argument until later and get us out

of here? I knew this was going to happen. First

you know how I am. I just absolutely love...

Love, love, love Lois and Clark. And I love,

and I knew they were going to do this, but I

love that they brought Dean back as Kara's dad

in Supergirl. And they brought back Helen Slater,

who was the original Supergirl in the 84 film,

as her mom. They also brought back Terry Hatcher

as Mon -El's mom. Yes. So, yeah, absolutely.

loved lois and clark it was just a fun little

thing i kind of the jimmy olsen thing in that

show was kind of weird because you had one actor

for like the first two seasons and then justin

whalen took over i never got that i did they

did they i never understood why they ditched

the first guy who i really liked i had nothing

yeah i had nothing against justin whalen but

i was like were they like you know what we've

done this for two years and we realized you're

not working Yeah, I'm not sure how that works

out. I did not pay that much attention to it.

Not sure. Number two, Dharma and Greg. I love

Dharma and Greg. It is just so funny. Thomas

Gibson and Jenna Elfman just absolutely kill

it. And all the co -stars. I mean, you've got

a Murray on that show. You've got Joel Murray.

Bill Murray's brother on that show is Pete. You've

got... Mitchell Ryan as Greg's dad, who most

everyone should remember Mitchell Ryan was one

of the villains from Lethal Weapon in 1987. He

was one of the guys that was funding the bad

guys in the original Lethal Weapon movie. So,

very, very cool. Love Darwin Greg. Number one,

she's got many wigs, she's got many outfits,

and she's a spy. It's Alias. Alias was my lost.

I was into Alias. We're both J .J. Abrams shows,

sort of. Yes, I know, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

Alias was ass -kicking. I remember specifically

when the giant special edition Rimbaldi box DVD

set came out. I spent two days watching all five

seasons. I went through the whole show in two

days. Dedication. Yeah. Exactly. What I loved

about Alias was just basically, you know, Sydney

being the badass that she is. The spy stuff,

all the acting in that. You basically have two

future DC actors in that show. Because you have

Carl Lumley, who would eventually go on to not

only play what he's playing now in Supergirl

as John's dad, but he also voiced John Jones

himself in the Justice League cartoon. You also

have, oh God, he just left the show, Victor Garber

as her father in that show as Jack Bristow, Martin

Stein on Legends. But, yeah, absolutely love

Alias would be my number one pick for ABC. And

that was actually one of my honorable mentions,

which didn't quite make it just for the – I guess

it was too similar to Lost, and I was looking

to make my list a little diverse in that sense.

But I did love it. I actually got into it after

because of Lost because I was basically like,

oh, now I have to – you know when you're obsessed

with something and you're like, I must now know

everything that these people have done, and I

must research it, and I must – and so – It led

me down that road. The J .J. Abrams thing led

me to Alias, and I watched the first two seasons

on DVD and then started watching from season

four on TV because, of course, Alias came out

first. My other honorable mention for ABC was

sort of a funny one. It's the most improved award

for overcoming the worst title, and that's Cougar

Town. Cougar Town ended up being just a really

great friend comedy, zany comedy about people

in their 40s who are kind of living in a cul

-de -sac and have a really interesting... culture

together the way they speak like it was you know

one of those inside community type things very

similar in that sense and they and they ended

up taking that title which literally was the

worst title of all time because initially the

show the very loose premise of the show was that

this is a woman who just got divorced and she

was in her 40s and she's hot and she's gonna

start dating younger men and that lasted for

like maybe three episodes there was a couple

of minor plot lines and then it's like no this

is just a show about people and their friends

but they took that title And made it a running

gag, much like a lot of the other great running

gags in the show. And every time the title would

come up, it would say something under it, like

ridiculous. And my favorite was, titles are hard,

you try coming up with one. But it was just kind

of like a running gag. completely outlived that

title there was actually talk about changing

it when they did the second season but they all

realized you know what now people are not going

to know what it is we might as well just accept

that we named this something stupid and uh and

move on which they did absolutely did you have

any um for abc uh any of the other tgifs i did

enjoy step by step every now and then because

again that was seeing patrick duffy on tv again

and we hadn't seen him since bobby ewing on dallas

on cbs um their one saturday morning programming

i like that stuff um was that the um was that

the stuff with like where saved by the bell was

or is that a different thing i'm thinking um

Kind of, but one Saturday morning originally

was animated stuff. Oh, okay. I'm thinking it

was animated, yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. All right.

Now for Fox. What do you got? Okay. For Fox,

my list is, okay, I've got Brooklyn Nine -Nine.

which is currently airing. It's a comedy about

a police station, which you don't normally see,

starring Andre Brouwer as the... I just forgot

the name of the person who runs the police station.

Captain. Captain. The captain, of course. Chief,

captain, something like that. And Andy Samberg

and Terry Crews and a cast of really amazing

people. I just think it's a really clever show.

It's not like too insidery and too kind of super

hyper witty like community. It's a cross between

a traditional comedy. And something with a little

bit more kind of character to it. And I like

that it's a really nice, diverse show. You know,

there's there's African -American cast, a lot

of letters to Latinx women. It just it's, you

know, a good mix of characters from a good variety

of backgrounds. They tackle really kind of cool

stories. They all LGBT stuff. One of the sort

of the central plot lines is that the you know,

the the captain played by Andre Brower is an.

a black LGBT black gay man and that sort of you

know held him back so far in his career until

he became captain and but you know none of these

characters are stereotypical it's just a really

good well -rounded comedy so that would be on

my list I also have as we talked about 90210

Because, you know, it's not something I necessarily

would rewatch a lot. I don't feel I have rewatched

the earlier seasons, you know, on DVD. It's not

something I would come back to. But again, defining

experience for me of watching it. And so that

kind of puts it on that list. I have House as

well, which is something I actually got into

after, not while it was on. So it was already

off the air for a couple of years before I started

watching it. And then I really fell in love with

it. It's so smart. It, you know, that character

is just such a dominant force. Like it's just,

it's really, I mean, it's really Sherlock Holmes,

except for they're solving medical mysteries.

You know, it's not really your typical medical

show where people are getting rushed into the

ER and there's blood everywhere, or it's all

about the drama. It's a mystery. It's a mystery

using medical medicine and it's using. non -traditional

medicine whereas most most shows are about surgeons

right most medical shows are about surgeons because

that's what's interesting to people except for

scrubs actually scrubs is also partly about surgeons

but mostly about um in what what they call the

other thing i just they call it like internal

Internal medicine. Diagnose something. But the

regular doctors that you see who just try to

diagnose you and treat you and aren't cutting

you open. Yeah. So it's like House, though, is

a genius who solves medical mysteries that nobody

else can. But it's mostly about treating people

with medicine and that. So it's kind of a different

thing. Just a really, really smart, well -done

show. I also have 24, which is another example

of Fox trying something that no one else had

done at this point. Hyper serialized show. Every

episode is a new hour in a day. It's it's shot,

you know, minute to minute as it would unfold.

Although, I mean, they take liberties. Sometimes

they drive places and you're like, come on, that's

you could not get there in 10 minutes. But, you

know, other than that, you know, for the most

part, it was a really. great stab at something

that no one had done before and what I think

is so interesting about 24 specifically is that

It kind of predated the binge fest that now goes

on, right? So now everybody is used to watching

shows in binge format, which they weren't at

the time when 24 premiered, which I believe was

2002 or something like that. 2001, I think. Yeah,

okay, so very early on. Oh, yeah. When that show

came out on DVD, it sparked this whole thing

of people catching up on it, which wasn't necessarily

– people did watch stuff on DVD, but TV shows

were just starting to come out on DVD in terms

of everything coming out. watching them to catch

up and people would do this crazy thing where

they would stay up for 24 hours and sort of watch

all episodes of 24 um you know and now we live

in a world where people get to do that anytime

they want with netflix and it becomes a part

of the experience you know become shows are designed

to be binged oftentimes so 24 kind of was in

my estimation the beginning of that a little

bit And I just think it's I love it for that,

for the fact that it was doing something different.

I mean, obviously, 24 had a lot of really bad

seasons and a lot of really bad plot lines. But

overall, what it did for TV was was fascinating.

And then I have Firefly, which is. The one, the

sassy short one -season Joss Whedon show that

has probably inspired, like, the most cultish,

you know, television show fans of one season

that I've ever seen, The Brown Coats. It takes

place in a futuristic space world that's also

kind of a cowboy world, where people swear in

Chinese. So it's a very strange show, and it

really never found its audience on TV, and Fox

had no idea what to do with it. They aired the

episodes out of order. was uh kind of a disaster

but you know even people who aren't into buffing

angel some people think buffing angel a little

hokey firefly is sort of uh has its own separate

fans like aside from that that just sort of feel

this is a really special show and of course the

cast Nathan Fillion uh heading that up um Gina

Torres Alan Tudyk um just lots of people that

would go on to other really cool things Summer

Glau um it's and again there's something about

a show even though of course I wish it had gone

on for more than one season there's something

about a show that you can uh just watch a lot

because it only is certain amount of episodes

i feel that way with sports night too because

i can you know watch two seasons and i'm done

i'm re -watching west wing and i love it but

i'm like this is gonna take a while yeah this

is gonna take a long while every time i want

to pop in firefly it's like 13 episodes and i'm

out of there and there's something special about

that i think yep Yeah, Firefly was, I tried watching

it and then they said something about, oh, watch

the Serenity or something or other, the movie

or whatever it was to get into the show. And

I'm like, if I have to watch a movie to get into

a show, I'm probably not going to get into the

show. I have since tried going back and watching

it, but it just didn't connect with me. I don't

know why. I didn't watch it at the time, which

was weird because I was a huge Buffy and Angel

fan. I watched them week to week, and I only

briefly heard about it. And you'd think I would

have tuned in because of my huge fandom, but

I didn't. And I just decided to pick it up on

DVD, like almost everybody else who got into

the show because nobody watched it on TV. Nope.

All righty then. For me, from Fox, we have Boston

Public again. taking place in the boston area

i'm originally from boston massachusetts so there's

that uh and just a show about like i know we've

had other shows that are based you know on teachers

and schools and things like that but just you

know just the way this show um portrayed the

life of the teacher and the life of the students

and and how all of that intertwined just absolutely

love that Number four is The O .C. It was such

a great show. Yeah, season three kind of eh,

but the first two seasons and season four, absolutely

love. That ending was just so cool of how that

show ended. Number three is Fast Lane. Again,

short show, very short show, like a year and

a half. Sort of like two seasons, but not really.

Just absolutely love the action in that show.

Love the characters. Love the way it all played

out. The only thing I dislike about Fastlane,

and it's not necessarily the show's fault, it's

more of licensing and permissions and all that.

Hopefully the new DVD set that I just saw, it's

getting re -released. So it was released a few

years ago on DVD and it's getting re -released.

Hopefully they can get the music stuff straightened

out because that's what my biggest gripe about.

TV on DVD. If they cannot get the rights, regardless

of cost, they're a TV network. They spend all

kinds of money on stuff, or the DVD companies,

or whatever. Like, I mean... You know, it's something...

sometimes not a cost thing it's sometimes i mean

sometimes it is but sometimes it's just that

the people only license the rights for that for

for air because now of course they get them to

sign a contract that says this is wherever we

air this we're airing this music right but they

didn't at the time and sometimes those rights

just either aren't available or the person is

making a deal that, like, is almost impossible.

That's why it took The Wonder Years so long because

you remember the music in that show, right? Oh,

yeah, absolutely. And if you release The Wonder

Years without that music, it's a disaster. On

some shows, like, I watched episodes of Roswell

and things where they just substituted a different

song. But you can't do that with The Wonder Years.

So it's just sometimes it's a case of, like,

they're like, oh, crap, we have to figure this

out because people want this and we have to –

and it's hard sometimes. This is a sign. Yeah,

absolutely. And the thing with Fastlane is it's

not really all of the music. It's like two songs

for two episodes. Because those were the songs

that fit that scene for that episode or whatever.

Number two, Married with Children. You just gotta

love the Bundys. I mean, come on. It's just so

hilariously good and bad. Just how... dysfunctional

that family is and you know the Bundys were essentially

what the Kardashians are now except the Bundys

weren't as bad um number one Melrose Place hands

down absolutely love Melrose Place the drama

the action the explosions the fake wigs the many

deaths All of that. Just absolutely love it.

Yeah, Melrose Place. We talked about Melrose

Place. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy, that show.

So crazy. Absolutely. All right. Any honorable

mentions for that one? Stuff that almost made

the list? Yeah. Fox, what do you got? Well, for

me, I noticed... mentioned it earlier but I think

Fox is sort of the king of the one and done brilliant

seasons like Firefly is a perfect example because

again it's a weird show that you know who else

would make that so I noticed a lot of stuff on

the list that almost they almost picked but there

was all really short -lived um Wonderfalls um

The Good Guys I don't know if you remember The

Good Guys it started Bradley Whitford and Colin

Hanks and it was like Bradley Whitford was kind

of like this weird Starsky and Hutch character

caught in the 90s who was like an old school

cop who like you know had the must it was like

really kind of a bizarre hour long comedy and

pitch, which was last year got canceled from

last season. It was about the first female player

in the baseball league. I thought it was so amazing

by the same creator of this is us. Yeah. And

again, I just noticed how many shows they had

on their list that kind of lasted one season,

but we're really, really good. I had a bunch

of one -and -done honorable mentions where I

was like, oh god, yeah, this whole list can't

be shows that only lasted one season, but I love

them all. Yeah, Fox for honorable mentions, oh

god, there are just too many. The Simpsons, Futurama,

honestly, any of the animation that they've ever

done. Batman the Animated Series, X -Men, Spider

-Man, all that, there's just way too much. I

just couldn't even get into all that honorable

mention stuff with Fox. Okay, so for the WB and

UPN, we are combining them into one five list.

I only have one show from UPN on my list, kind

of. I think, well, technically two. And I also

have a tie on my list because I just could not

choose both of them. What do you got for your

WVUPN top five? Okay, so I'm going to start with

Everybody Hates Chris, which I mentioned. I kind

of put this on my list. It is a very good show,

but I also put it on my list because I felt like

I wanted a comedy on there. And as I mentioned,

it's sort of like a comedy that's loosely based

on Chris Rock's childhood. Chris Rock narrates

the voice of – he does the – Opening narration

and things, yeah. Yeah, I don't know what you

call that when it's a kid, but he's doing, I

guess, the Wonder Years kind of thing, right?

Where it's an adult voice narrating. The actor

is amazing. I cannot remember his name right

now, but he went on to be on The Walking Dead

later. Got killed because everyone on The Walking

Dead gets killed. And then Terry Crews played

the father. It was just a really smart comedy.

I think it stood out from the other comedies

on UPN, which were good, but not necessarily

as clever. and as critically acclaimed in this

one was that. I also have Veronica Mars. So that's

another UPN show that we talked about that was

a huge cult success, very low rated, but was

about this teenage girl who... you know kind

of works with her father as a sort of private

eye but it's mostly you know the first season

of Veronica Mars is essentially brilliant and

the other two are okay and I mean they're pretty

good but the first season was conceived as a

as a novel and then made into a series so every

character that she meets in high school is an

intricate part of this one murder mystery of

her her best friend and it's there's nothing

out of place it's so well put together everything

has its spot uh it was a little hard to take

that and kind of translate all those characters

into new things but uh the writing was great

the acting is insane kristen bell um you know

was the lead and it was just a fantastic show

that that yeah it was definitely the best thing

the wb ever did for sure um then i have uh everwood

everwood uh is a wb series lasted four seasons

which is like my heart like it is a show about

a doctor whose wife passes away he's a really

busy doctor brain surgeon hot shot and he's never

really you know spent a lot of time taking care

of his family and being that caregiver his wife

dies and he up and moves his family to this small

town called everwood colorado and proceeds to

change his life offer free medical care to people

in the small town and reconnect with his kids

and it's about small town living it's about family

it's it's just it's so emotional but also very

clever and funny it's actually a greg berlanti

series and you will know greg berlanti from the

fact that before greg berlanti became the king

of superhero shows he did small family oriented

shows like jack and bobby and um this show everwood

so he got his start on the wb as as a kind of

writer of these very um smart family oriented

shows and so yeah Very cool. And my number one,

which is number one, is Buffy. But I would like

to caveat that I didn't put Angel on the list,

not because I don't think it's as good as the

other ones, but because I felt like I couldn't

have them both on the list for me. So Buffy gets

number one, and it's like Angel's in there. It's

in there because it's part of the whole thing.

But that's obviously WB and UPN, and we know

what that is because we've talked about it a

ton. yeah absolutely for me uh number five is

birds of prey again it's one it's 13 episodes

it's it's kind of okay birds of prey i'm gonna

sit there and say this right now i'm not equating

Birds of Prey to Firefly as far as quality, okay?

I'm just equating it to it because of 13 episodes,

it's one season, it's one and done. It shows

Harley Quinn in a slightly different way. It

actually, it's so funny to me because we've all

seen Ferris Bueller, right? Yes. Okay, good.

Sloane in Ferris Bueller, Mia Sara? Yeah. She's

Harley. Really? In this show, I'm pretty sure,

yeah. And it just, it was one of those shows

that just kind of hit at the moment and didn't

really let go at the time, even though it was

only, you know, one season. And it was cool to

have a Batman show on TV. It just was. I don't

know. It's just one of those things. Yes, yeah.

Basically, Sloane Peterson from Ferris Bueller

is Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey. That's cool.

Yeah, it's... Number four is my tie, because

I could not pick. Sabrina the Teenage Witch and

Sister, Sister. I could never have imagined that.

That is amazing. I'm learning so many new things.

I love Sabrina for all the things they did with

that show, with all the things they did with

her. I love Sister Sister for how diverse it

was and how interesting it was having the whole

twin thing and twins living in different, you

know. with different parents and um hello the

return of jack a because jackie harry is the

mom in that show yeah we hadn't seen her since

227 if anyone even remembers 227 um but absolutely

love those two shows number three is seven days

again can only time travel for seven you know

seven days into the past or whatever to basically

save the world kind of a thing very very cool

and fun sci -fi show from upn I'm cheating on

this one. Number two, the new Batman Adventures.

Because it was on Kids WB. That's still WB. I

know. Well, it's cartoon. It's not live action.

But just, I mean, it's basically a continuation

of Batman the Animated Series. This is the one

where they had two very specific amazing episodes

in it. They had Over the Edge and Old Wounds.

Over the Edge is basically Batgirl's fear of...

her father, Commissioner Gordon, because Barbara

Gordon is Batgirl, finding out who Batman is

and who she is and how it's all, you know, basically,

you know, it's all gonna die. The whole world's

gonna explode. So, absolutely love that. And

the other one is Old Wounds. Old Wounds basically

tells us the story of how Dick Grayson stopped

being Robin in the series. So, and then obviously

he went on to become Nightwing, so. Just absolutely

love that. And number one has to be Angel, because

it just has to be, because Angel is just hilarious.

That show is so funny. There's one specific episode

that just, the funny part of that show, it's

all right there. Is it Smile Time? Oh, yeah.

Damn right it's Smile Time. Right. Oh, smile

time. I know you hate Wesley. Do you like Cordelia?

What do you think? Were there other characters

that were your favorites or that you didn't like?

On Angel? I liked pretty much everybody. Lindsay

was a little grating at times. He could be a

little... Lila was alright. Once Wesley stopped

being the... wesley wyndham price part of himself

once he stopped being what he was on buffy once

he stopped like when wesley first gets introduced

on the show he's basically oh i'm a demon hunter

i'm this i'm riding a motorcycle you know once

he stopped all the hunter that's what he called

himself yeah yeah like once he stopped all of

that i was fine with wesley once you know you

know he and um uh fred and all that happened

i was fine with that i i understand why they

did this but i hate that they turned fred into

illyria i did too although when i you know what

i think everything changes with time so at the

time i was so mad i was so mad because i loved

fred so much i loved her and i was so angry that

i was gonna have to watch this show with her

but she wasn't really her and i but you know

Of course, the show ended up ending that year,

which wasn't the intention at the time, but it

did two things. It meant I could look back on

the show and then not feel like I really had

to live without Fred for very long, and it allowed

me to appreciate what Illyria did. You know,

I don't know, like hindsight, it's kind of like

time heals all wounds. Right. So all the things

that Joss did to me and he did a lot of mean

stuff. Joss always would say, I'm not giving

people what they want. I'm giving people what

they need. And that meant that he would hurt

you. He would hurt you as a viewer because he

would do mean things to your characters. And

at the time, you know, you were like, I'm not

going to forgive you, man. You know, at the hundredth

episode with Cordelia, like I, I took to whatever.

There was no social media. I think I was ranting

on MSN Messenger. I have no idea. But I was mad.

But when you look back on it, it was brilliant,

and it was what needed to happen, and it was

beautiful. Well, yeah, because he was lost at

that point. He needed a reset. He needed a redo

button. He needed somebody to set him back on

his path. Especially after season four and everything

she went through in season four, what better

way to give her a send -off than to have her

come back as kind of this ghost of Christmas

past type thing and just send him on. his way

and okay in the very beginning you know you asked

me if I if there were other characters I liked

didn't like I love Doyle to a certain point but

Doyle after a while kind of got a little annoying

I understand the actor you know very, very hard

personal life with all of the stuff that had

happened with him. Um, and may that man rest

in peace. But the character of Doyle at first,

I was like, Oh God, come on. But once the whole

vision thing happened and passing to Cordy and

I'm like, okay, so Cordy's now going to have

the visions. I love the, um, uh, the apartment

episode. The Dennis, Dennis and his mother and

all. I love that episode. Um, So once Doyle gave

the visions to her and obviously she had to become

part demon to not, you know, have her hair fall

out or her limbs fall off from, you know, being

psychically torn from these visions things. And

then she gives them to Angel in the 100th episode.

And I'm like, oh, that's genius. Yeah. That's

just frigging genius. It took me a while. It

took me years to really realize at the end. Oh,

and you're welcome. It's because of the kiss.

It's because of her giving him the visions. Yeah.

You know, and just absolutely love. I love that.

I love the final two episodes. Not fade away

the series finale. Oh. It was everything I wanted

that show to be. I know they kind of jumped the

gun at the time with the WB wanting that sixth

season and asking for it and things like that

and all that. And back then, asking for stuff

from networks wasn't exactly highly advised before

your final ratings were in kind of a thing. I

know. But I just absolutely love that finale.

It was impressive mostly because... it wasn't

planned i mean i mean yeah that's like the buffy

knew their finale was coming and they had a lot

of time to build up to it and they did a very

good job and most most most shows do nowadays

and not i mean not shows that are in one season

but normally if you go for three seasons or more

you get the respect of sort of someone saying

this will be your last season so you know, they

didn't know that that was going to happen and

they only had, you know, a couple episodes to

really bring us to that emotional conclusion.

And, you know, when you do rewatch it, some,

there are some parts of it that do feel rushed,

not that final episode, but just sort of, you

feel like a lot of the stuff that Angel reveals

would be nice to come over a couple episodes

and like build up, but they didn't have that.

And so what they delivered with that finale on

the timeline they had was pretty incredible,

that emotional wallop that they packed. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, and just those. you know i love them bringing

con i mean this is kind of turning into an angel

jam but i love them bringing connor back because

to me the biggest disappointment angel was connor

and it's not because it's because i liked the

idea of that and i liked the actor and i liked

him but they never let him get over anything

he like i thought they were going to bring him

in and he was going to be difficult and they

were going to bring him around he'd be an interesting

part of the team they just kicked him into the

ground he was the most annoying person and it

just felt like I didn't want him to be that because

I felt like he had so much potential. You know,

he had super strength. He had this interesting

story. So when they brought him back a couple

times in season five, I was so impressed. I was

so happy that he finally got to be what I thought

he should have been, you know? I love the...

in the finale when Angel basically says, take

today, go do whatever you want to do because,

you know, we're probably not going to survive

the night thing. And he goes and he sees Connor

and whatever else later in the office against

Hamilton. Connor shows up and, Connor, what are

you doing here? You show up out of the blue and

the world isn't ending? Come on. I know. You

know, I just absolutely love that. It was great

to see that potential, I thought. It was. Absolutely,

yeah. and just how that, and like me personally,

I kind of want to slay the dragon. I'm like,

okay, that's the way that show is going to go

out on a bang. Yeah. They did a fantastic job.

So that's, I mean, yeah, it would have totally

been on my list if I, if I, I feel like by putting

Buffy, I honored Angel. Yeah. The only thing

with season five that was kind of, I mean, it

was there and that's fine, but the whole search

for Buffy was kind of that, that kind of, rated

on me for the couple episodes that he and spike

went to italy and whatever that was a little

much it was just one episode and i was glad i

was glad that they didn't have anything with

her i mean they they couldn't really at the time

anyway i mean she was she wasn't going to do

it but i I did like whenever Andrew came back,

because I really enjoy Andrew. You probably never

watched all the episodes with Andrew in the first

place, so it didn't really mean that much to

you. Yeah. But I thought his interactions with

Spike were always funny, so it was good to kind

of see that whole thing. Yeah, I remember him.

I just haven't seen a lot of the other seasons

for Buffy. Yeah. Okay, one last list, folks,

and then we're going to get the heck out of here.

We've got the list of the CW shows, top five.

What do you got? Okay, so my top five CW shows.

I have a feeling they're going to be completely

opposite. Well, maybe one. We'll see. So number

five is a show you may never even have heard

of. It's Aliens in America. I've heard of it,

but I don't think I've ever seen it. Okay, so.

I believe this was the first or second year of

the CW when they still had this comedy block,

and it was paired with Everybody Hates Chris.

It was a series about this Midwestern, I believe

they were Minnesota, Minnesota. I'm sorry to

anyone from Minnesota whose accent I just completely

butchered. And they wanted to get a foreign exchange

student. for their son. They wanted to basically

get a foreign exchange student for their son

because they thought it'd be nice for him to

have a friend and help him be more popular because

he wasn't popular. And they had seen these like

Swedish people coming over and like being this

great friends to people. And so she ordered essentially

this foreign exchange student. She calls it ordering.

And instead they get this Muslim kid from Pakistan.

and she's you know the first episode is basically

about her tactfully trying to figure out how

to send this kid back oh no I know. It sounds

offensive, but here's the thing. It's not. It

was so beautifully handled. Like, essentially,

because she wanted this, you know, Aryan god

for her son to hang out with, and she's like,

well, this is going to make him more unpopular,

right? But her son immediately loves this kid.

You know, they become fast friends, and, you

know, she's trying to think of how to, you know,

deal with this situation, and then she sits down

and has a talk with this kid, and he tells her

some stuff about his life, and she realizes he's

this lost kid who's had, you know, he had, I

think, his... father may have died or something

and he's and she kind of her heart goes out to

him and and of course she decides that he should

stay and the whole series which is only one season

is really just about the culture clash between

the two and the things they learn about each

other um And it's, you know what, it's not overly

earnest. So, you know, they are poking fun at

some things, but they're doing it in a really

responsible way. They're doing it in a way that,

you know, and this is coming from a person who's

obviously not Muslim, so I can't speak for, you

know, that group of people and how they would

feel about it. But I felt like, you know, there

was a show in Canada called Little Mosque on

the Prairie, which was about a group of... It's

about a Muslim mosque and a church living next

to each other and all these conflicts. And I

felt they were trying so hard not to offend anybody

that they weren't funny. And I think what this

show did was it enabled people to be funny and

to have funny culture classes and things. But

I felt that they were super respectful. it's

one of those shows where I don't think so few

people watched it. It's like most people forgot

it existed, but it always sticks that in my mind

because I just thought it was so sweet and, um,

you know, well done and tackles an issue that,

you know, people are sort of afraid to tackle

in a really kind of heartwarming way without

being overly earnest about it. So that's one,

uh, then heart of Dixie, uh, Which was a CW show

that starred... Rachel Bilson. Thank you, Rachel

Bilson from The O .C. So I'm assuming maybe you

watched... No, I have not. You didn't follow

her. No, I didn't follow her. I thought you would

have checked out an episode just because she

was on The O .C. Nope. Okay. So, yeah. But it

was a very cute, very charming little series

about she's a New York doctor, goes to a small

town to sort of take over work in a practice

that a father she didn't know she had left her.

his half of the practice. And it's, it's, uh,

it's got Scott Porter from Friday night lights.

Um, one of my favorite characters, uh, Wade Kinsella,

who is the sort of like the hot, um, you know,

bad boy kind of dude in town, just a really fun,

feel good female show. Totally female, super,

super chick. chick stuff but i just enjoyed it

very much and then loved everyone in it um number

three is supernatural which i'm gonna call the

cw show uh for two reasons one didn't have room

for it on my wb list two it's technically i mean

it's it's aired 12 of its 13 seasons on the cw

It originated in the WB, so I feel it's fair

to call it a CW show. Absolutely. What can you

say about Supernatural? Man, the show's been

on the air for 13 years. Look, it's not as brilliant

as it used to be. The first five seasons of Supernatural,

which were the original series conceived by creator

Eric Kripke, are brilliant. After that, it has

its moments. It has some bad stuff. It has some

good stuff. But what really keeps the show amazing

is these two guys who are insanely charismatic

together. super funny carry that entire show

on most of their own shoulders with some several

you know rotating characters but and and it's

just in 13 years i can still tune in an episode

and see them together and see the show and be

entertained like i think that's incredible um

and and it's never dipped in popularity. Like

it's still one of the top rated shows on the

CW, which is insane. And it's moved around a

billion times. Like, how do you, I don't know

how it's a magic formula and they'll keep doing

it forever. Like they're best friends in real

life. They live in Austin. And I just, I think

it's the best. Yeah. It's kind of nice to see

Whitney from Smallville season one, actually

go on to do a show by himself. Cause Jensen Ackles

was. Originally in Smallville. No, but he was,

but he wasn't in season one. You're wrong about

that. Whitney was Eric Johnson, I believe. He

was in season four. He played the coach of the

high school team, and he was dating Lana. Yeah,

I remember he was dating Lana, but I could have

sworn he was in season one. There was a Whitney.

He wasn't Whitney, but Whitney was Eric Johnson

who... Went on to other things that I can't remember.

But yeah, he was in season four. Jensen Ackles

actually has a history throughout the WB and

other stuff of kind of appearing on a lot of

these shows in one season or in varying capacities.

He actually got his major start on Days of Our

Lives playing Sammy's twin brother, Eric. in

case anyone's interested. And I love, I already

knew of him and was familiar with him. And of

course, Jared Padalecki was on the Gilmore Girls

as Dean, which is always super confusing because

like, you know, he's Dean, but then he's not

Dean on the other show. Someone else is Dean.

It's a very, it's a mind frack for sure. But

that show, yeah. What can you say about that

show? Then my number two, and actually I won't

call it number two. I'll just say it's on the

list, is Jane the Virgin, a current CW show that

is a remake of a telenovela that is done in telenovela

style, but it's sort of tongue -in -cheek, sort

of pokes fun at the genre. It's zany telenovela

plot lines. The premise of the show is that a

23 -year -old virgin is accidentally artificially

inseminated, so you know it starts off a little

weird. the emotion is so rooted. It's a great

Latina family at the heart of the show. Just

incredible series that tackles, you know, a lot

of current issues and topics and everything while

maintaining this, you know, crazy zany thing

on one hand and this, you know, emotional powerhouse

thing on the other. It's brilliant. I love it.

Yeah, I've seen bits and pieces of Jane the Virgin.

Doesn't she eventually not be a virgin anymore?

Well, I mean, come on, she has to be. That's

not the point. Eventually. I know, I know, but

I'm just saying. I'm just saying. They cross

out the title at the beginning of every episode

now and say Jane the and write something new.

They know what they're doing. That's funny. It's

always like Jane the something else. I can't

remember like Jane the daughter or Jane the whatever

is happening in the episode. It's pretty clever.

That's cool. That's very clever. That's very

cool. All right. My number one. I think this

would be number one just because of what it is.

Crazy Ex -Girlfriend, which is also a current

and the lowest rated show on all broadcast television.

It is a musical. sort of there are about two

or three musical musical parodies this musical

but they're all kind of you know fun parody songs

about a a girl who turns out to have severe mental

illness issues and she moves to this small town

for a guy but it's really about uh an odd character

who's you know coming to terms with her own narcissism

and a bunch of other things it's i don't even

know how to describe it you just have to watch

it it's like I love it so much. I feel like there's

never been anything like it on TV. I listen to

the soundtrack constantly and sing it and get

the weirdest looks from everyone in my life.

But it's just... The people aren't always likable.

They tackle these strange issues, including mental

illness, in a really real way. And yet it's hysterical.

Yeah, I'm so glad they keep renewing it. I think

partly it's because the CW renews everything,

but it's also partly because critics love it.

It gets nominated for these Critics' Choice Awards.

It's been nominated for Golden Globes. It's won

Golden Globes, and the CW likes the cachet of

having it. What I will say is it's nice to me

that the CW has room for... These shows, like

Crazy Ex -Girlfriend and Jane the Virgin, which

are obviously my two favorite current shows in

the CW, in and amongst all of the mostly superhero

content that they have. Yeah. Yeah. Any honorable

mentions for you? Yeah, actually, the first few

seasons of The 100 before it got really bad.

I know you'll be like, there's no superhero shows

on your list. And I'm like, no, there weren't.

I think I felt like the ones I do like are so

interchangeable for me that I was like, I don't

know if I'd pick one. And I kind of like the

other stuff more. So I, you know, if I had to

pick one of them, it'd probably be The Flash.

But yeah. Yeah. For me, it's okay. So my top

five is an amalgamation because we're doing,

you know, CW. WB. They're doing all of it kind

of together thing a little here. It's more so

for the crossover than anything else. Number

five is Reba. It's friggin' Reba McIntyre in

a comedy. I just absolutely love that show. I

thought that was so fun. Her and her... that

she has on that show. It was a strange, interesting

comedy because it's always crazy to me when music

stars or even comedy stars try to do sitcoms

like this show, like the Bill Engvall show that

Bill Engvall has tried to do a couple of times,

or the Jeff Foxworthy. It's just so crazy to

me to try to get like... You might be a redneck

if into a sitcom style thing. So I just absolutely

loved the Reba comedy. Number four, these four

and three are going to probably surprise you.

Number four, I kind of knew it from the end of

season one, but it took me until season six to

really find out the true answer. Dan was Gossip

Girl the whole damn time. What? I loved that

show. Was he? Was he? You didn't know that? I

didn't watch it. Really? Oh, you didn't watch

it. Okay. Yeah, Dan ended up being gossip. Because

he was in the situation every time. Well, like,

why would he do that? I don't know. You'll have

to watch the... Yeah, you'll have to watch 4,

5, and 6 to find out. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I

loved Gossip Girl, mainly for not necessarily

the stories that it was telling, but I loved

seeing what music they were going to use in the

show. Look, when Prince Charming found Cinderella's

slipper, they didn't accuse him of having a foot

fetish. And you're Prince Charming? Serena. What

are you doing? Do you know this young man? She

doesn't know me. Nobody knows me. It's cool.

It's fine. So you'll pick me up at 8? You really

go out with some guy you don't know? Well, you

can't be worse than the guys I do know. This

was back in the day when WB, CW, whatever, would

also basically tell you what major song at the

end of each show. The end of the show, before

they hit the other credits for the next show,

they'll say, oh, tonight's... musical act was

this. You can get it here or something or other.

That's one of the reasons why I loved it. But

I love the stories. Kelly Rutherford is in it.

She played one of the characters on Melrose Place

at one point or another. She did. Yeah, but I

just absolutely just thought that show was just

so interesting. And it's not LA. It's not California.

It's New York. It's Upper East Side. It's this.

It's that. Another one of those short -lived,

one -season shows. Ringer. Absolutely dug Ringer.

Just the premise of it. Oh, I forgot about that.

I loved Ringer. Interesting. Ringer was so cool

because Ringer is essentially Buffy without the

vampires. Buffy is twins. And it's basically

Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Mr. Fantastic

because Ian Gruffud is in the show. He was Mr.

Fantastic in the first Fantastic Four film. I

just love this story. Oh, and also another crossover.

Luke Cage is in that. As Malcolm. Oh, yeah. I

know him from The Good Wife. He played a really

interesting character on that, but I'd forgotten

that he was in The Ringer. Yep. Yeah, I just...

this show did was it, it was a murder mystery

type show and high society, this and high society,

that, and Oh my God, what are you going to do?

How are you going to escape this? How is your

twin going to do this? You know, and just how

it all unfolded. Just absolutely dug that. Uh,

number two is the flash. Um, flash. It's probably

my most consistent enjoyment of the CW superheroes.

As I said before, Arrow and Supergirl and Legends

kind of all have this thing, even though my number

one is going to be a contradiction of what I'm

saying right now. The Flash at times does get

a little tiring, but it does have the most consistency

out of the big, you know, superhero stuff. However...

Legends knocks it out of the park at number one.

I know you said you're gearing up to watch season

three of Legends, right? Yeah, because I watch

them when they come on. In Canada, we have a

streaming service called Crave. We don't have

Hulu or anything. Crave is where... arrow and

the flash and legends live and so basically at

you have to wait until this the season ends and

then probably part of the summer and then it'll

it'll show up on crave next year like so it's

kind of kind of like that like so that's i i'm

always a season behind because i wait until it

shows up on crave because it airs on arch it

airs on its own crave is owned by like a canadian

channel called ctv and so well it's owned by

bell which is part of ctv so ctv airs it now

on air so one once it's finished airing they'll

allow it to go on their streaming service crave

but they won't do that before then so normally

i just have so much stuff that i'm currently

watching that i wait for that and so i'm always

like a season behind do you guys not have netflix

in canada no i know you guys don't have hulu

we have netflix but we have different stuff on

netflix because of the deals so i understand

that but let the cw stuff should apply to all

of north america because season three is on there

right now and the reason is because it basically

if a canadian network is airing that show currently

it's not gonna it's not going to do that next

day cw thing but because it doesn't otherwise

then why would they buy the rights to air it

if canadians can watch it on netflix now um so

a lot of the cw stuff for example jane the virgin

uh riverdale uh i zombie the hundred that applies

to them because no canadian networks are airing

those but ctv our big kind of network airs arrow

it airs legends it airs um and The Flash. And

so they have bought the rights to air those on

their streaming channel. Supergirl is on Netflix,

but not day -to -day because it does air on a

different channel here, and then it'll show up

on Netflix towards the end of the season. So

it's kind of all over the place. Crazy Ex -Girlfriend,

which I'm so mad about, isn't even on Netflix

because it's owned by, it airs on this channel

we have called W, and they don't even have a

streaming service, and no one has the rights

to do it, or I don't know. It's really annoying.

annoying canada is sometimes hard guys we love

it here believe me but we we obviously hear what

happens with you and so sometimes we want the

things that you guys have at that moment and

we don't have them like we have other stuff on

netflix that i think you guys don't even have

but it's just different and you and you can't

trust when people are talking about watching

stuff on netflix you're like okay but that's

your netflix i don't know that yeah i um I was

recording with somebody for another show, and

their connection, I guess you guys were having

storms in the Guelph area. The storms were really,

really bad, and it was interfering with the internet.

And I'm like, oh, come and live in Canada. We

have free healthcare, but we have crappy internet

service. I'm like, I want the internet service

more than the healthcare at this point. Also,

we don't have crappy internet service. I'm sure

maybe they have crappy internet service in Guelph,

but I have an amazing fiber optic internet service

provided by Bell, who's actually the company

that owns CTV and Crave, which I was just talking

about. And they have terrible customer service,

so I don't want to toot their horn or anything.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, everyone. He doesn't have

terrible customer service in the tech industry.

However, their internet service is amazing. Their

actual service, the actual speed, it's amazing.

It's so fast. It's for my cable and my internet.

It's all through fiber optic by the same company,

all installed. And I will give them a shout out

in the sense that it's really fast and awesome.

Sweet. So I don't know about this Guelph person.

Maybe they should get fiber optic internet. Maybe

they should. I'll say one thing really quickly

because I realized as I was going through that

I skipped on my WB list. because i was kind of

reading it out of order and so i only did four

and i skipped one of my all -time favorite shows

which was this is why you go number five to number

one i know but i really when i wrote it down

i wasn't kind of like writing them in special

order i don't know man i skipped the gilmore

girls huge because it's like again that's like

top 10 all -time all networks so oops I just

wanted to say, I mean, we all know what the Gilmore

girls is. I don't need to explain it, but I just,

I couldn't let that lie because people would

think that I didn't love it. And I do. I'm so

sorry. That's okay. All right. We're going to

take one final break, folks. We'll be back after

this. Yeah, this will do. You guys ready? I was

more ready. Okay, let's suit up. Let's hit it.

Hold up, hockey man. Box is getting ready to

get ready. They say the suit makes the man, but

in my case, the man also made the suit. I'm trying

to keep it simple. Unlike Harry Allen over here,

you still need to shave. Wait, when you said

suit up, you meant like right now? I'm hungry.

Yes, now. We've been suiting up for 20 minutes.

I mean, am I the only one who suits up one leg

at a time? Well, yeah, it's a skirt, so... I

don't have to deal with legs and zippers and

stuff like that. Okay. The new guide. Charge.

All right, we are back, and we're going to close

this thing out here, folks. I do have one final

small topic, the future of the networks, where

we see each one going. I have no idea where these

networks are going because it's always constantly

changing. Yeah, I think where they're going is

to continue to try to find ways to compete with

streaming, essentially. You know what? Where

they're going is wherever they can stay relevant,

I guess, right? That's kind of the hard thing.

Um, cause it's hard. It's hard when they, you

know, you can't, they can't do things the way

that Netflix can do them, uh, just based on the

structure of what they have. And, uh, you know,

you notice it more when I try to watch a new

drama. Sometimes I feel, I feel the frustration

with the structure, with the commercial breaks.

I can, yeah, it's there. So the, I think they're

going to try whatever they can to maintain some

level of relevancy and, uh, We shall see. We

shall see. I think they need to adopt the 13

episode plan or something. Well, some of them

do. Not for all their shows, but they never used

to even consider it. And now you're seeing shows

like, well, This Is Us, I think only does like

17 or 18 episodes. The Good Place does, I want

to say 10, 10 or 13 at the most. And, yeah, you're

seeing a willingness by the networks to do these

shorter series orders, whether it's because it's

creative or because they know that they need

more content, so they do a sum of a little bit

more. I think iZombie only does 13. Legends of

Tomorrow doesn't do the full 22, does it? No,

its first season was 16. This third season was

15. 18 maybe? No, but I mean like, like more

so like the big, like NBC, CBS, ABC, like the

22, 23 episode long comedy, you know, comedy

seasons. Like I get it, but come on. Yeah. They're

starting to come around a little bit. Like I

said, like the good place does it and that's

NBC, but, but it's, I think Brooklyn nine, nine

has had truncated seasons. Uh, what the, yeah,

it could, they could, they're, they're getting

into it a little bit more, but they're not, I

mean, there's, they, They still have to deal

with the whole commercial thing, and their whole

structure is just very different. So we shall

see. Yes, we shall see. Okay, what have you got

going on in the land of social media? Well, I

think you said at the beginning, you know, I

still rate for the Televixen .com, and that's

pretty much my main thing that I'd like to promote.

I'm on social media. I enjoy it. That's sort

of my main project. I try to podcast here and

there with people like I'm doing with you right

now. Everyone should definitely check out the

Televixen. It's entering its 10th year. The Televixen

is a decade old right now. She's looking great.

For a 10 -year -old, she's looking great. She

needs to update that TV, dang it. Well, I heard

she's getting a makeover this year. Oh, really?

We shall see, yeah. But please come and check

out thetelevixen .com. There's always lots of

great articles and interviews and all kinds of

fun things. Cool. Awesome. All right. Thank you

for joining us here on Remote Control. There

are several ways to get in contact with us to

lay feedback for the show. You can catch us on...

Twitter at geekcastradio. I am at tf2andmike.

What is your Twitter if you'd like to give it

out? My Twitter is at kitcouchpotato. That's

K -I -T, a couch, and a potato. There you go.

You can find us on Facebook. It's Facebook .com.

I don't think we have a username yet, but basically

just go over to Facebook, folks, search Remote

Control. We have Facebook .com slash Geekcast

Radio Network for all the other network updates

and all that good stuff. Next time around, we're

going to be talking Counterpart Season 9. Wow.

No. Season 1, Episode 9 and 10 with myself and

DJ Valentine. So we're going to do that. And

then after that, folks, the Summer of Superheroes

begins because we're going to tackle every season

of the CW Superhero Shows. Between Episode 42

and Episode 50. We're going to tackle it all,

folks. So you're never getting out of your seats,

guys. That sounds really intimidating. Yeah,

pretty much. I can't wait to hear. We're doing

two seasons per podcast. So Arrow Season 1 and

2 will be one podcast. Arrow Season 3 and Flash

Season 1 will be another pod. We're doing it

all. I'm going all in. So the Summer of Superheroes

begins after next time. For now, I am TFG1 Mike

with... Oh, that's me. I'm Jennifer. Hi. That's

you. That's her. That's the crazy Canadian up

there. Tune in next time when we will all be

fighting over the remote control. And now, here

is our announcer with the closing. You've been

tuned in to Remote Control, the Geekcast Radio

Network's modern TV podcast. Join TFG1 Mike and

the rest of the RCTV crew next time for a new

modern TV topic. I'm your announcer Optimus Solo

and remember to think of us the next time you

pick up the remote controller.