A group of friends living in an apartment. A stressful hospital environment. Two different families brought together by marriage. These situations are all too familiar to prime-time television buffs who are once again swamped with the same old stories and famous faces this fall on the boob tube.
Last season, all the networks tried to be NBC by airing their own versions of the highly-successful “Friends.” The six broadcast networks went to the plate with 42 new shows, many of them comedies about young urban singles.
The theme has not changed this year, with 39 new shows taking prime time slots. ABC debuts “Townies,” a show about three single women who work in the same restaurant and hang out together on the weekends dreaming about guys.
The restaurant setting adds a slightly different twist, but the concept of single women drawling on about their men-less lives is nothing new. Take “Grace Under Fire,” “Living Single,” “Cybil,” “Hope and Gloria” and the list goes on and on.
“Suddenly Susan,” starring Brooke Shields as a sheltered young woman who sets out to experience life as a San Francisco journalist, premiered last night. Hmm, “Murphy Brown”…now that’s original.
“Lush Life” – two Madonna wannabes dress up real fancy and parade the town together. Can you say, “female version of ‘Perfect Strangers?'” Also, here is another program that falls under the single women category.
“Life’s Work,” on ABC, is “Grace Under Fire” with a husband. The main character is a Baltimore woman who tries to juggle two young children, a husband and her demanding new job as an assistant state’s attorney.
Now, on to the single guy shows, including “Mr. Rhodes” on NBC, a show about a radically cool, long-haired writer who takes a job teaching English at a conservative prep school. Not just a single guy show, this one sounds suspiciously like “Head of the Class.”
Also on the single guys lineup is “Men Behaving Badly,” a show about two roomies who wallow on the couch drinking beer and eating junk food. How clever. Especially considering that it is based on a successful British sitcom of the same name.
Now for the tired theme of the dysfunctional family. Fox brings “Love and Marriage” to Saturday night. Sounding all too much like “Married with Children,” the show deals with two working parents who have troubled children. We can already see where this show is going. Even worse, it follows “Married With Children.”
Seeing the success of “Step by Step,” NBC created “Something So Right.” This time it is two blended rich families. It will, of course, still deal with the same old blended-family issues that have been rehashed since “The Brady Bunch.”
And what about “Cosby” on CBS? Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad star as husband and wife. Sound familiar? It should, since the duo made “The Cosby Show” famous a decade ago.
“Ink” is about a divorced couple who flip-flop in and out of love because they work at the same New York City newspaper. This series even stars Ted Danson, who should be familiar with the on-again, off-again love affair theme, especially after starring on “Cheers.”
With the success of “The X-Files,” the supernatural has become a popular theme, whether it is witches in “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” or aliens in “Dark Skies.” Also on the supernatural highway is “Profiler,” about a cop who can recreate murders in her mind, and “The Pretender,” the newest “MacGuyver.”
The WB and UPN networks will once again debut a full array of African-American comedies, including “Homeboys in Outer Space.” Enough said.
Also big this season are movie spinoffs, including “Clueless,” “Dangerous Minds” and “Party Girl,” which promise to be nothing more than the movies broken down into half hour episodes.
Whether it is the fear of trying something new or a lack of originality, the networks have borrowed and traded used ideas, leaving television buffs with a new mix of the same old shows.
Christie Reed, a junior journalism major, is editor in chief of the Campus Times. She can be reached by e-mail at reedc@ulvacs.ulaverne.edu.
