Who remembers "Can't Hurry Love"??

[peter may]

Anyone?

[Ant-Lox]

was that the one with holly robinson peete?

[peter may]

no your thinking of "For Your Love"

[PanamaMike]

I remember it.
Nancy McKeon and Mariska Hargitay (before she became all tough as nails Law & Order woman)
I have the first episode in my collection

[TripperFan]

There was a show? I just know of the Supremes hit!

[TJL]

I remenber that show.
One of the many attempts the other networks made to capitalize on the breakout success fo "Friends" the season before.

[Dean Winchester]

why did CBS axe the show after one season, considering it was a top 30 show?

[Gemini_89]

I like Nancy and Mariska but i tried watching it on youtube and the show sucked.

[factsoflife]

Originally Posted by Dean Winchester

why did CBS axe the show after one season, considering it was a top 30 show?

I think it was mostly a creative decision. I think this was around the time that Leslie Moonves took over as President of CBS Entertainment and my gut reaction is that he wanted to develop his own programming, instead of using programs developed by his predecessor.

I'm honestly just guessing, but that would seem likely.

[factsoflife]

Originally Posted by TJL

I remenber that show.
One of the many attempts the other networks made to capitalize on the breakout success fo "Friends" the season before.

Nancy has even said that during the development process there was pressure by CBS to change it into more of a "Friends-like" show. She has described not enjoying the process of developing that show.

[TMC]

ONE SEASON WONDERS: Can't Hurry Love

Brief Pilot Review:

There was one bright spot in this otherwise banal sitcom pilot and that was Mariska Hargitay. A few years before starting her iconic role on Law & Order: SVU, Hargitay was easily the standout in a role that was completely different for her. She had a natural charm and energy and delivered lines with such gusto even when they weren't all that good. The rest of the show did not live up to Hargitay's charms though. Nancy McKeon was pretty boring in the lead role. I don't think she was really intended to be a straight woman character, she seemed in some ways to be modeled after the early years of Monica on Friends (McKeon was actually in the running for Monica by the way). But she played it like a straight woman and a boring one at that.

The pilot dealt mainly with a date for Annie with a man she meets on the subway and a whole lot more time was given to guest star Peter Dobson's boring, bird-shooting character than the two men in the cast though one of the them was re-cast after the pilot. I'm surprised it was David Pressman who got re-cast and not Louis Mandylor, who was pretty irritating in the little time he was given. The pilot was poorly structured because we got no sense of what the ensemble would be like as a group. Comedies don't need to be premise-heavy but we do need a sense of how their characters relate to each other and this pilot didn't give any time for that. Marika Hargitay could only do so much.

What Went Wrong:

Although the only thing anyone really remembers about Can't Hurry Love, if they remember it at all, is Mariska Hargitay, the show's biggest name before at the time was Nancy McKeon. McKeon was a popular actress from her long run on The Facts of Life and this was her first return to TV since that show ended (she was also a top contender for Monica on Friends in the interlude). After the success of Friends in the 1994-95 season, every network wanted to have a show about young and hip singles living in New York City so the 1995-96 schedule was chock full of Friends clones. This was probably one of the most obvious knock-offs even though the characters were a little bit older than the Friends.

Can't Hurry Love was given a strong timeslot - CBS Mondays was still a destination with The Nanny a strong lead-in and Murphy Brown still a staple at 9pm. Previous 8:30pm occupant Dave's World had just had a successful two year run in the slot and was heading to Wednesdays. Reviews were not kind to Can't Hurry Love though. Variety called it "too comfortable" while Entertainment Weekly said it was "trite" and "stereotypical." Can't Hurry Love actually didn't do badly in the ratings. It ranked #24 for the year, not incredibly far behind its lead-in and lead-out. But CBS still pulled it in February and never came back to it. As the 1995-96 season dragged on, they retreated from their attempt to be another NBC with young and hip shows so Love didn't really fit into their "back to basics" strategy for the following season which included comedy vehicles for mainstays like Bill Cosby and Ted Danson.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by factsoflife

I think it was mostly a creative decision. I think this was around the time that Leslie Moonves took over as President of CBS Entertainment and my gut reaction is that he wanted to develop his own programming, instead of using programs developed by his predecessor.

I'm honestly just guessing, but that would seem likely.

Les Moonves joined CBS as its new President of Entertainment in July 1995. Knowing what we know about Les Moonves now, I wonder if there was more to do with why Can't Hurry Love was canceled after only one season despite not doing too badly in the ratings.

Can't Hurry Love was a female led show, and I would immediately suspect that a likely chauvinist like Moonves wasn't entirely down or comfortable with that. I mean, Linda Bloodworth Thomason, who created Designing Women for CBS before Moonves got there, talked about how he attempted to sabotage her career.

Plus, Moonves greenlit Friends back when he was the president/CEO of Warner Bros. Television. So why would he want a similar show like Can't Hurry Love on CBS when Friends was still up and running?