Thinking about the 1983-84 TV Season, I don't think it was a entertaining season for Sitcoms because

Three's Comany era was ending
Laverne and Shirley already ended
Mork and Mindy already ended
Happy Days era was pretty much over
Barney Miller was already over
Jeffersons was losing it's steam
Cosby Show had not started yet
Flo had already left Alice


So i think the only fresh sitcoms at the time were


Facts of Life
Different Strokes
Family Ties
Cheers
Gimmie a Break-LOL

This season did not looking very interesting. Thoughts?

Sitcoms were a dying breed in the 80's that's for sure.

the worst season i can remember.

The only new sitcom that was a hit that year was Webster. Aftermash don't count.

Originally posted by Brian Damage
Sitcoms were a dying breed in the 80's that's for sure.

I agree. Only about 3-5 good shows came out of the whole decade.

Originally posted by *PinkLady*
I agree. Only about 3-5 good shows came out of the whole decade. The early 80's were bad but the late 80's were pretty good.

There is a point here. The 1983-'84 season was poor. It was Happy Days' final season, but it did have a good farewell where Joanie and Chachi marry. Also, Richie did come back for three eps., including the finale. Since L&S was gone in May 1983, I only have HD and about 6 Facts of Life eps. from that year. I did have the Family Ties series, but I gave it to my brother, because I didn't have room for them. Anyway, it got so bad, the Sunday Night Movie was #1 in 1983-'84. The sitcom era did climb back the following year, but for me, I'm more into the classic sitcoms now.

Also, the entire AITF era had ended with the cancellation of Archie Bunker's Place.

Night time soaps, Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon's Crest etc, were the "in" shows people watched in the early 80's.

Somewhere I had read, and I don't remember where, was that The Cosby Show was credited for reviving interest in sitcoms.

Thinking about this season, with all that's been said about all the shows that had ended, were about to end, or losing steam, it seems like we might repeat 83-84 soon. Last season, the only top ten sitcoms were "Friends" and "Everybody Loves Raymond". Most of the really good sitcoms are getting long in the tooth and there haven't been enough good new shows to fill their void.

I think the 83-84 season wasn't completely bad for sitcoms. "Cheers" and "Family Ties" continued to shine. "Newhart" improved with addition of Julia Duffy and the change from videotape to film. There was also the debut of "Night Court" at midseason.

Originally posted by Sitcom Analyzer
Thinking about the 1983-84 TV Season, I don't think it was a entertaining season for Sitcoms because

Three's Comany era was ending
Laverne and Shirley already ended
Mork and Mindy already ended
Happy Days era was pretty much over
Barney Miller was already over
Jeffersons was losing it's steam
Cosby Show had not started yet
Flo had already left Alice

Don't forget, "Full House" didn't started yet until 1987.

Originally posted by BrooklynGuy78
Don't forget, "Full House" didn't started yet until 1987.

But we're talking about the 1983-1984 season, not the late 80s....

Anyways, I completely disagree that "The Cosby Show" was the show that revived interest in sitcoms. "Kate & Allie" premiered in Spring 1984, and was the #8 rated show for the end of the season. Primetime soaps were really really hot in the early-mid 80s. "Dallas" was #1 for I think three seasons in the early 80s, and I know that "Dynasty" was #1 for 1984-1985. NBC was pretty much full of dramas in the early 80s. It, too, had a primetime soap, "Flamingo Road" that lasted two seasons, along with the action shows like "The A-Team," "Riptide," and "Knight Rider." But 1984, imo, was kinda of a changing year. "Cheers" became more popular and was a much bigger hit than it was during 1982-1983 and "Family Ties" started to shine when it got its lead-in "The Cosby Show." The family shows just snowballed from there, eventually killing the action shows, and unfortunatley, the primetime soaps.

Yes...because CBS ruined Goodnight, Beantown by putting it on Sundays. ohno: Didin't last over 18 eps in 83.

Saying that sitcoms were dying in 83-84 is a false exaggerated claim by NBC to prop themselves and the Cosby Show up as being saviors of the genre. There were 19 sitcoms in that year's Nielsen Top 50 and 4 of them were first season shows: Kate and Allie, Webster, Night Court and AfterMASH.

These were the shows between 32 and 50: Three's Company, Cheers, Family Ties, Benson, Diff'rent Strokes, Silver Spoons, Gimme A Break, Happy Days, Night Court, One Day at a Time and Goodnight Beantown.

Above 30 were kate and Allie, AfterMASH, Love Boat, Jeffersons, Newhart, Facts of Life, Webster and Alice.

Additionally a lot of the hour long shows that were in the top 50 had humourous elements: Scarecrow and Mrs King, A-Team, Simon and Simon.

Aaron Spelling's hits had humor in them or were painted so broadly that they could be watched as satires: TJ Hooker, Dynasty etc. The only real dramas that were big that year were the more serious soaps like Dallas, Knots Landing and Falcon Crest and stuff like Father Murphy and the network movie nights. Hill St Blues and St Elsewhere balanced their heavy drama with a lot of comedy. So the truth is that most of the more popular shows on that season had some element of comedy to them.




Facts of Life
Different Strokes
Family Ties
Cheers
Gimmie a Break-LOL

This season did not looking very interesting. Thoughts?[/QUOTE]

Horrible year. NBC had so many bad sitcoms in the fall of 83. Anybody remembered Jennifer Slept Here for example?

None of NBC's fall 1983 premieres made it to a second season. I believe the only new NBC show from that season to be renewed was Night Court, a midseason replacement. NBC had quite a few critically acclaimed shows though: Cheers, Night Court and Buffalo Bill, also canceled in 1984.

I think one problem was that quite a few early-80s sitcoms were so formulaic, and suffered from bland (if not awful) writing and one-dimensional plots. Others were simply stuck in the 60s, in an era where sitcoms were becoming more sophisticated or edgy.

I have Buffalo Bill on DVD...pretty funny show, but I could see how Dabney Coleman's character could turn off viewers. How many shows offer an antagonist as the main character? Archie Bunker at least had some redeeming factors...

I think from the time Hill Street Blues debuted to the time Cheers debuted that Hill Street Blues was probably the funniest show on TV.

The 1980s had two bad sitcom problems. First was a real serious problem at the top. Aside from the Shelley Long years of Cheers, there's really nothing that was interesting and funny then and still stands up as just really funny today. The second is just the saccharine preachiness that came in, mostly in the Cosby clones but seen everywhere: Night Court should have been a very funny, silly show but it was too often stopped dead by Harry ' s being judgmental about not being judgmental. The very special episode just took over, and comedy went out the window.

'80s sitcoms also perhaps, got very formulaic (and dare I say "safe") in that they resembled what could be a three-four act glorified stage play. There was rarely if ever a B-plot and the audience (if there actually was a live studio audience) often sounded stilted (laughing at things that really aren’t that funny). As a result, a whole show couldn't change/tinker things for "the better", because they (w/o a live audience) couldn't know for sure was truly funny and what wasn’t:
Problem comes up
Problem is discussed
Problem is resolved
Resolution is discussed, show ends with a hug or a laugh. And of course, nothing that happens in the episode will in any way affect the next episode.

In general, the characters were pretty bland, the kids are cute and the parents just react to their antics with a smile and a wave of their head. Romances were very clean, major issues were discussed quietly, and all problems were resolved at the end with two (or more) characters talking out the issue and ending with a big hug or a laugh.

1983 was a scarce year for new successful hit sitcoms.

Also NBC lost at least a half-dozen shows (especially dramas) at the end of 1982-83. NBC lost Quincy, M.D., "CHiPs," Little House on the Prairie, Taxi (especially since they unsuccessfully picked it up from ABC and it was the saggy ratings of Taxi that partially almost completely destroyed Cheers in its 1st season), Love, Sidney, and Father Murphy among shows.

ABC lost Laverne and Shirley as well as Too Close for Comfort (which would eventually reemerge in 1st-run syndication the following season) at the end of the 1982-83 season. Happy Days and Three's Company were both about to bow out at the end of the following season.

CBS was about to enter the 1st of their 3 legs of losing their long-running hit sitcoms when M*A*S*H ended earlier in 1983. Archie Bunker's Place also got cancelled after 4 seasons.

NBC had ZERO new hit shows to emerge from the Fall of 1983 (although Night Court started midseason and eventually made a splash). Not even their daytime schedule wasn't spared, either as The Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour ended up being one of Mark Goodson's biggest misfires (especially since he could've hired Peter Marshall just fresh off the show MG/HS Hour replaced in Fantasy and GO! was doomed from the get-go in the Noon timeslot. Jennifer Slept Here and especially Manimal ended up being named as some of TV's all-time worst TV shows in history.

ABC was about to feel the slow, painful pinch of what the post-Fonzie World was about to be after Happy Days (and Three's Company for that matter) ended. Webster ended up being their only new hit sitcom and a bottom Top-25 ratings for the 1st few seasons. While their other earlier 1983 sitcoms in Condo and Amanda's massively flopped. Condo marked another BUST in McLean Stevenson's post-M*A*S*H career and Amanda's almost destroyed the comeback for Bea Arthur after the end of Maude 5 years earlier.

CBS tried to continue the M*A*S*H franchise with AfterM*A*S*H, featruing 3 of the not-so-popular lead characters from M*A*S*H as the leads. It worked for one season but when they tried to make a parody promo of Klinger shaving Mr. T's signature mohawk in an attempt at ratings victory, it backfired BIG TIME!

Despite how bad Hollywood films have been this decade television seems to constantly do well. In fact this decade also saw a lot of new great works in TV. Considering that there's been a plethora of amazing shows throughout the 1990s and the 21st Century I have to ask has television seriously undergone a dark age? Has there been a period of time when TV was filled with mostly mediocre shows? Like how the film industry today churns out a lot of mediocre movies?