The whole premise of Star Trek was that there is intelligent life among the television audience. So far, there has been little to prove that there is intelligent life among network executives. As it happens, I don't think my dad saw this one the first time. And it was just as entertaining the second (or was it the third or fourth for me) time anyway. And as to the rather meek woman with an unusual condition, you still don't see a lot of lycanthropy these days.
Christopher explained, that even when they did 24-26 episodes of shows, there were more skip weeks than I had remembered. Now with maybe 20 (I hope) episodes, I reckon they try to spread them out to keep eyes on their channel.
Over in the 'Classic/Retro Pop Culture' thread, I did a list of seventh season 'Mission: Impossible' episodes production vs. airdate to highlight the absence of Casey due to Lynda Day George's pregnancy. Anyway, there were 21 episodes that season running from September 16, 1972 to March 30, 1973. There are only four occasions where the break between episodes was two weeks or longer, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, and between the penultimate and final episode. Otherwise, the episodes aired straight through.
How long were May sweeps a thing once premiere dates started creeping earlier in an effort to one-up the other guys?
Which always struck me as a bad idea. I mean, you can't gather meaningful statistical data about typical TV viewing habits if the networks know in advance when you're gathering the data, because then the networks go out of their way to broadcast atypical programming during the sweeps in hopes of maximizing ratings numbers and ad dollars. It seems to me it would make more sense to conduct the ratings sweeps in secret, or at least on an unannounced, unpredictable schedule, so that the data they gather would be more representative.
One, the audience really has to care to some degree, and I doubt they really do. Two, if it does skew the numbers, I'm sure networks and advertisers would take that into account.
Yeah, it worked pretty well. I thought Gurgs's overprotectiveness was too silly, but I like the character dynamic underlying it. And it moved Neil in a direction that will hopefully make him a bit less of a one-note character.
Looking at Star Trek and Mission: Impossible's schedule back in the 60-70s, the shows started in September and would air their final episode of the season in late-March, early-April. They would air almost straight through with breaks for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year, about an average of 24 episodes a season. Compare that with the first Night Court which ran from 84 to 92, with the first season starting in January and consisting of 13 episodes. Their first episode would air in September with the last not airing until late-May with the same number of episodes (24). This means the breaks between episodes was getting longer by the 80s.
Yep, because episode counts were decreasing, but the starts and ends of seasons still tended to be around the same times.
The late 70s and early 80s were also the era of specials (especially at holiday times) and mini-series filling in gaps in the schedule.
Thank you for not LMGTFYing me on that. The only rock band I pay much attention to is HSQ. (Anybody else here have their Beatles-cover, "The Off-White Album"? Didn't see this one the night it was broadcast, because my dad was watching an Angels game, and it came on in the middle of dinner. So I saw it on DVR yesterday evening, just before Jeopardy! Maybe my dad will see it the next evening that there isn't an Angels game. Certainly better than most of the monuments to Kitman's Law that pass for sitcoms these days. (And as for dramatic series, have I mentioned that every time Station 19 comes on, I get nostalgic for Emergency!?)
As far as other sitcoms, I'm finding Ghosts to be extremely good, and Animal Control to be surprisingly good (I'd thought Fox may have forgotten how to do anything but reality garbage). Both have excellent casts.
I had forgotten a new episode was even on this week. I caught it on Wednesday on the NBC website. Not one of my favorite episodes of the season so far but Gurgs and Dan helped elevate it quite a bit and the bodyguard plot did remind me of the old series.