Magazine Archive

Fade to black: 8 monumental TV series finales revisted

Few TV shows go out on their own terms. Fewer go out well. And even fewer go out and become cultural touchstones. We look in on the legacies of the most watched, the most hyped and the most memorable TV series finales history. Newhart “The Last Newhart,” CBS (May 21, 1990) Viewers: 29.5 million How It Ended: “Honey, wake up. You won’t believe the dream I just had,” Bob Newhart tells Suzanne Pleshette, his TV wife from The Bob Newhart Show, revealing that Larry, Darryl and Darryl were just indigestion. How It Holds Up: Still brilliant, if not the best […]

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Comedy

“M*A*S*H” turns 40: Our memories of “M*A*S*H”

“Korea 1950 — a hundred years ago.” So went the first words to appear onscreen on M*A*S*H. Actually, it was only 40 years ago, but it’s still hard to believe that it’s been four decades since the pilot episode of the much-lauded and excessively watched series hit the airwaves on Sept. 17, 1972. At the time, it was simply a TV series trying to spin off of the success of the popular Robert Altman film that used the insanity of the Korean War to underscore the similar madness taking place in Vietnam. It took a while for M*A*S*H to find […]

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Comedy

MeTV and Antenna TV also honor Ernest Borgnine

Ah, those sentimental folks over at MeTV and Antenna TV. Gotta love ’em. And you’ve gotta love the fact that each network is remembering Ernest Borgnine in its own special way. MeTV goes first, airing the 1964 movie McHale’s Navy this Saturday, July 14 at 5pm ET. (Thank God they’re not airing the 1997 revisit.) The film — spawned by the popular series that still airs in syndication today — finds the crew of PT-73 in a pickle when they back a losing horse in a race, then don’t have the scratch to pay off the winners. Then, Sunday, July 15 starting […]

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Comedy

MeTV celebrating Harry Morgan with “M*A*S*H” marathon

With the passing of Harry Morgan, MeTV is memorializing the Hollywood veteran with 16 of his most notable M*A*S*H, from the Season 3 opener in which he first appeared — as a loony general — to his finest moments as Col. Sherman T. Potter. Starting tonight at 7pm and 7:30pm ET and continuing in that usual timeslot through Friday, Dec. 16 (excepting this Saturday), viewers can look back and remember one of the most beloved career military men in television history: Thursday, Dec. 8 “The General Flipped at Dawn” In this landmark Season 3 opener, Harry Morgan makes his first […]

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Commentary

When does a niche network give up its niche?

It’s hard to overestimate the influence that niche networks have had on us in recent decades. Thinking back to when cable TV was in its infancy and the concept was still pretty new, one might recall thinking, “How could you fill x number of hours of programming a day with _________?” (Remember — not all networks were 24 hours a day back then. That’s right, kids — television used to sign off at night!) But somewhere out there, someone had the idea to take a boatload of existing programming content, run it on the air and see what sort of […]