"Previously On..."
A recurring look at TV I've watched; recent, notable industry news; items from my memorabilia collection & their significance; and the history of programming as told through the pages of TV Guide.
Survivor S48 (CBS): The season finale last week capped a very emotional and compelling season of one of Broadcast’s most popular and durable series after 25 years. The nurturing relationship between Joe & Eva was quite rare for unscripted television and while there were not as many blindsides as other seasons it was still exciting and even funny, with a great cast.
The Studio (Apple): I loved the first 80% of this series. It is a brilliant satire on the entertainment industry that exposes, with clever nuance, its many foibles. What I admire most is that Seth Rogen did not play a bumbling hero who ultimately tied to do the right thing but instead was a narcissistic buffoon of whom the best can be said is that he loves the movies.
But the final two episodes were a tremendous letdown. They were driven primarily by drug humor which I find boring and lazy, an easy way to fill time with the same joke over and over.
CinemaCon was a great setting for the final two episodes and a behind-the-scenes takedown of the absurd idiosyncrasies of Hollywood but instead the entire focus was on the characters accidentally getting high on mushrooms and trying to recover before the big presentation. I admittedly did laugh at moments but even the resolution where the Continental team managed to get through the event was disjointed, forced and, ultimately, very unsatisfying.
Your Friends And Neighbors (Apple): When I first saw the trailer for this Jon Hamm-led series I was unclear what the tone would be; the mix of light vs. serious was confusing. After giving it a shot I found that it does feature the proper mix of comedy and drama with enough stakes to get invested but still not be overly depressing. Through episode eight there have been no clunkers.
The Four Seasons (Netflix): I was surprised when this was announced as it is obscure and antiquated IP to reboot 44 years after the movie. I was a bit bored in the first episode but not enough to stop watching and found myself enjoying it more and more as it went along. I finished all 8 episodes, which were bolstered by surprising plot twists in E7 and E8, in two days. I look forward to S2.
Doc Martin (Pluto): I had never heard of this British hour-long comedy/drama that ran for 10 season on ITV in the UK until I read that Fox was doing a U.S. remake with Josh Charles. The logline for that adaptation is
Best Medicine centers on Martin Best (Charles), a brilliant surgeon who abruptly leaves his illustrious career in Boston to become the general practitioner in a quaint East Coast fishing village where he spent summers as a child. Unfortunately, Martin’s blunt and borderline rude bedside manner rubs the quirky, needy locals the wrong way, and he quickly alienates the town, even though he’s all they’ve got.
Although Martin can expertly address any medical ailment or mystery in this idiosyncratic town, he’s really just desperate to be left the hell alone. Instead, he keeps getting dragged right smack into the middle of their personal chaos, feuds and fantasies. What the locals don’t know is that Martin’s terse demeanor masks a debilitating new phobia and deep-seated psychological issues that prevent him from experiencing true intimacy with anyone. But tenacity is the creed of everyone in their small village, and the people who live there may be exactly what the doctor ordered
I was intrigued by the description and sought out the original UK version which I found for free on Pluto. The UK premise is very similar. I have watched the first four episodes and enjoyed them very much. Martin Clunes who plays Doc Martin in the original series defines the character much like Peter Falk defined Columbo. I can’t tell if his grumpy schtick will get old during 10 seasons but I plan to keep watching.
Dan Brown Coming To Netflix: The sixth Robert Langdon book doesn’t come out until September 9th but Netflix has announced they will be adapting it into a series run by Carlton Cuse with a date TBD - presumably 2026. This is not the first time a Dan Brown book has been turned into a series - Peacock did it first with The Lost Symbol in 2021 - but that was 12 years after the book was published and Symbol was a prequel to the Da Vinci Code while the book was a sequel.
Significance: Book franchise adaptations are one of the most bankable strategies for streamers so the battle to license the top authors is fierce. Amazon has led this category - even though it has overspent on a few - but Dan Brown has one of the most lucrative fan bases so Netflix’s high bid here adds to its portfolio of action novels turned into series which includes Harlan Coben’s stand-alones, Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer, and Matthew Quirk’s The Night Agent. By getting ahead of the publication, Netflix is assuming the book will sell as well as all the other Langdon novels, which is a good bet. Casting will be key - will it go with a star as the movies did (Tom Hanks) or an unknown as Peacock did?
Wheel of Time Is Cancelled: As noted above Amazon has mastered turning book series into successful Amazon shows with such notable breakouts as Reacher, Bosch, The Boys (graphic novel), The Terminal List, Jack Ryan, and The Summer I Turned Pretty. Two others are Wheel of Time and Rings of Power which are both based on epic novel series and the 7-figure cost that accompanies such an endeavor.
Significance: Amazon is finally realizing it doesn’t need eye-popping budgets to find audiences. Neither Wheel nor Rings has been as popular as their cost requires per Luminate data. Rings of Power S2 ranks #10 out of all Amazon series since 2023 for minutes viewed and the top season of Wheel of Time is S2 at #18. While Wheel is the “cheaper” of the two at a reported annual cost of $100M it is about time for Amazon to realize it doesn’t need either and likely, without Jen Salke at the helm, ending these series may be easier. Don’t get me wrong, Salke oversaw many hit shows during her reign and got unnecessary bad press when she left but it does seem like the new regime is more cost conscious. It is time for Prime to create more Reachers and less Tolkiens. In fact, Rings of Power should not return after its third season for which it was recently renewed.
S.W.A.T: The Show That Will Not Die. Sony recently announced a spin-off of it’s just-concluded 8-season CBS reboot of the Aaron Spelling 1970’s crime drama. On the surface, this news sounds ordinary - spin-offs happen all the time. S.W.A.T’s story however is anything but ordinary.
The original show lasted only two seasons on ABC and was cancelled due to growing concerns at the time about violence on TV.
Sony’s reboot went to CBS in 2017, the perfect home for it.
At the end of S6 the show was cancelled only to be revived after showrunner Shawn Ryan stepped in to reduce its budget for a 7th and “final season”.
Then the show was renewed for season 8 in 24/25 which it turns out was the last. Very few shows are cancelled and quickly uncanceled twice - Family Guy is one of the few others
According to Deadline, a new show called S.W.A.T: Exiles, which currently has no distribution home, came together very quickly and will feature S.W.A.T star Shemar Moore teaming up with an entirely new team. It is rare for a Broadcast spin-off to get green-lit by a studio without a place to air.
Significance: This is a prime example of proper, although slow, IP management. S.W.A.T began as a spinoff of another 1970s Spelling show The Rookies. When it ended it went into the Spelling library which was sold to Columbia in 1982 which then was sold to Sony in 1989. A movie was released 14 years later (2003) starring Samuel L Jackson and Collin Farrell which made $200M worldwide but there was no sequel. Then it was another 14 years to the CBS version and now to a second series. This IP that began in 1974 and looked to fade away after two years is more lucrative than ever in 2025 and could easily generate more spin-offs in future years.
This Book Was A Cash Cow For Warner Brothers and NBC 24 Years After Publication: Many people are not aware that ER, one of the most successful TV shows of all time and led to the existence of The Pitt this year, is based on a 1970 non-fiction book called Five Patients written by Michael Crichton. In the picture below is my copy of the advanced proof for Five Patients (I have not read it yet) which is also signed by him. Without this book there would not have been an ER, produced by Warner, and NBC would have looked very different in the 1990s.
Johnny Carson Needs Money: In this fascinating signed document dated 12/16/1968 Johnny Carson borrows $135,000 from Manufacturer’s Hanover, the Rockefeller Center branch, guaranteed by NBC. The annual interest rate is 6.75%, due quarterly, and if Carson does not make payments NBC will deduct what they owe from his salary. Its is unclear what this was for - he was not getting divorced at the time.
Articles, ads, and listings in TV Guide from its debut as a national magazine in 1953 thru the ending of its publication in digest form in 2005 tell the story of the best and worst of programming over those 52 years. This section of “Previously On” will cover highlights and lowlights from my personal collection. If I do not own a physical copy it will not be featured here.
This first installation covers the 1972/73 Fall Preview which is dated the week of 9/9/72 (TV Guides went Saturday-Friday). In the heyday of TV Guide, the Fall Preview pages covering new TV shows marked their official debut to the world which is why they are worth archiving and chronicling.
The 1972 / 73 season was quite successful with five new series that are particularly notable while this issue also documents two other important TV events.
The Bob Newhart Show ran six seasons (1972-78) on CBS and is still recognized as one of the most cerebral sitcoms of all time. It further made its mark on TV history when the final scene of the 1980s series Newhart was set in the universe of the 70’s series and is recognized as the best series finale of all time. Here is The Bob Newhart Show’s official debut on paper.
While I do not like MASH it is of course considered one of the best half-hour shows of all time, and is one of the most successful movie-to-TV adaptations lasting 11 seasons on CBS. Here is how the show was introduced to the public.
Maude symbolized how women’s rights were a focus of the country in the 1970s better than any other program - more than All In The Family, from which it was spun off, and Mary Tyler Moore. The show famously tackled abortion just two months after its debut.
During the social upheaval of the 1970s - Vietnam, Watergate, oil crises, recession, white flight from cities, blackouts and political violence - CBS’s The Waltons reminded viewers of a simpler time even though it was set in the Depression. As recently as 2021/2022 the CW aired two new Waltons TV-movies, proving its durability.
Two notable crime/action series that began in 1972 are The Streets Of San Francisco and Kung Fu. ABC’s Streets, which lasted five seasons on ABC, introduced Michael Douglas to the world, brought Karl Malden to TV and later his ubiquitous American Express commercials, and extended producer Quinn Martin’s empire in the 1970s. ABC’s Kung Fu ran for only three seasons but David Carradine’s portrayal of Kwai Chang Caine and the term “grasshopper” to represent a young student are indelible.
The ad below is promoting syndication runs of Star Trek just three years after its cancellation which was the key to its popularity surge, led to the first movie in 1979, and turned it into one of the most lucrative, durable and prolific franchises of all time.
Liza With A Z is considered of the most important TV specials of all time for how it showcased her talents (when she was 26) and for its’s production values.
