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The golden age of first-run syndicated TV shows

Aragorn

Aragorn

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There were the hits like Babylon 5, Highlander, Xena, Hercules, Baywatch, Renegade, TNG and DS9, but then there were the other ones. And most of them fell into the "other ones" category. What did you watch? What did you want to watch but you couldn't find it because either you didn't know when/where it aired or it didn't air at all where you lived?

As a kid I loved season one of War of the Worlds, but season two was picked up by the Fox affiliate, we didn't have cable and watching Fox back then meant doing a headstand on your roof with tin foil wrapped around your legs and holding a metal rod in one hand.

The Cape
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Night Man
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Pensacola: Wings of Gold
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Soldier of Fortune, Inc.
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The Untouchables
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I enjoyed The Cape back in the day, though in a couple of episodes it seemed to really overestimate the celebrity of astronauts among the non-space-enthusiast public. I’m pleased to see I still remembered the theme music correctly after all these years.

Would Forever Knight count in this category? I seem to remember that it started on a major network but didn’t stay there.
 
I'm sure most of those made their way to Seattle at one point, but being syndicated, they were usually dumped off to the late night/early morning hours of television.

The only shows that aired with any consistency/regularity were TOS, TNG, DS9 and Stargate.
 
Besides all the SciFi of the 80s to 00s(B5, DS9, TNG, Voyager, Enterprise) shows, two of the first non-network syndicated shows I watched in the late 50s and early 60s was Highway Patrol, and Sea Hunt by Ziv Productions, then the live action Gerry and Sylvia Anderson non-puppet acted shows of the 70s, UFO and Space 1999.

DarrenTR1970 said:
I'm sure most of those made their way to Seattle at one point, but being syndicated, they were usually dumped off to the late night/early morning hours of television.

The only shows that aired with any consistency/regularity were TOS, TNG, DS9 and Stargate.
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I didn't include Stargate, I watched it, but I saw it when it first aired on Showtime HD channel on my satellite provider, the same night as Jeremiah and I believe also Lexx. So I didn't include them in shows that aired as syndicated TV initially, but consider them first run syndication after airing on a premium cable TV network first.
 
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Some shows I remember back in the 90s and earlier 2000s (Though I didn't watch all of these) were Time Trax, Thunder in Paradise (Speaking about the death of Hulk Hogan), The Sentinal, 7 Days, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, and Space Above and Beyond. There are a lot of shows that won't ever see the light of day, which is a shame because some shows (Like SA&B and even Thunder in Paradise) are shows I wouldn't mind revisiting.

I am glad Renegade got a mention. One of the first shows (Along with TNG) I remember watching, on USA if I recall.
 
tomalak301 said:
Some shows I remember back in the 90s and earlier 2000s (Though I didn't watch all of these) were Time Trax, Thunder in Paradise (Speaking about the death of Hulk Hogan), The Sentinal, 7 Days, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, and Space Above and Beyond. There are a lot of shows that won't ever see the light of day, which is a shame because some shows (Like SA&B and even Thunder in Paradise) are shows I wouldn't mind revisiting.

I am glad Renegade got a mention. One of the first shows (Along with TNG) I remember watching, on USA if I recall.
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Wiki says Renegade was syndicated season 1-4, then on USA for season 5.

The Sentinel was a UPN show, although if you didn't have a UPN or WB in your market their shows could be syndicated.
 
Aragorn said:
The Sentinel was a UPN show, although if you didn't have a UPN or WB in your market their shows could be syndicated.
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You're just looking for the actual syndicated shows? Ok, than you can take off Sentinal and 7 Days as both were on UPN. I included them because it was close to that transition period of syndication to network. I know for me TNG and DS9 aired on what would become UPN. That network was on a lot in my household back in the day.
 
Aragorn said:
Wiki says Renegade was syndicated season 1-4, then on USA for season 5.

The Sentinel was a UPN show, although if you didn't have a UPN or WB in your market their shows could be syndicated.
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I got DS9, Voyager and Babylon 5 direct feeds off a C-Band satellite dish when the affiliates recorded them, a few days before they aired in their scheduled time slots. At the start of DS9 they did a surround check using the voice of Michael Dorn or Rene Auberjonois saying "this is the left channel, this is the right channel, center and surround" in each of the corresponding speakers. They had nationwide commercials, then 30 second blank spaces for local commercials during the broadcast.
 
FredH said:
Would Forever Knight count in this category? I seem to remember that it started on a major network but didn’t stay there.
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That's right. It jumped around. From what I read, it transitioned to first run syndication in its second season before winding up on USA for its last season.

I watched the first season when it originally aired. I thought the show had been cancelled after that season.

Not many tv shows that I watched had an opening narration. Forever Knight had a really cool opening narration. It has stuck in my head even after all these years, "He was brought across in 1228. Preyed on humans for their blood. Now he wants to be mortal again. To repay society for his sins. To emerge from his world of darkness. From his endless Forever Knight". I loved the growl at the end of the credits. My second favorite opening narration, second only to Star Trek's.

I remember watching two other horror themed shows Friday the 13th: The Series and Monsters.

Two syndicated sitcoms that I enjoyed, come to mind, Small Wonder and Mama's Family.

I recall that all these shows aired on one or another of the local independent TV stations.
 
There was a last-ditch attempt to succeed with first run syndication in 2013 with SAF3, about a Malibu rescue unit (but filmed in South Africa) starring Dolph Lundgren. However, the people in charge didn't know how to make a TV show or tell a story, and what happens when you give bad scripts to bad actors? So if you ever come across this, it just might be the worst TV show ever made.

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XCV330 said:
There was Earth: Final Conflict but I never watched it consistently to really get a feel for what was going on.
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Much changed every season because of cast and production-team changes. But somehow, there was always a vaguely… purple-ish color palette, or at least that’s how it felt.
 
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