Mr. Rhodes, Pearl, and Ink

[icecream]

Tonight on Friends I saw a two episode arc with Ross's younger girlfriend Elizabeth, played by beautiful Alexandra Holden with Bruce Willis as her mean father. I looked up what else she had done, it included one season sitcom Mr. Rhodes from the 1996-1997 season on NBC. Ron Glass was a regular in a role that sounds like it was tailor made for him, and Lindsay Sloane was one of the featured students right before she became Sabrina Spellman's best friend. Title character was played by Tim Rhodes who I am not familiar with, his boss was played by veteran actor Stephen Tobolowsky. Leading woman was Farrah Forke who left Wings for this. I am very familiar with Farrah, she was by far the worst actor/actress who made it to the opening credits as a regular on Wings. Would Mr. Rhodes have done better if it had a decent lead actress? The Jeff Foxworthy Show on its new network did not provide it with much of a lead-in, Jeff Foxworthy was hampered competing against Bill Cosby's strong freshman sitcom Cosby going after the same family audience (plus freshman drama 7th Heaven which was putting the WB on the map).

Leading out of Cosby there was a battle of Cheers stars. Real life married couple Ted Danson and Steenburgen were the stars of Ink, his much hyped first TV role since Cheers ended. A month before its original premiere date, Ink had to get a new showrunner and fire some cast members as there were a lot of production problems. Therefore, Pearl starring Rhea Perlman replaced it in premiere week between Cosby and Murphy Brown on Monday. Pearl had decent retention from Cosby but only got to air two episodes on CBS's main comedy night before being sent to Wednesdays to make room for Ink. There were a few Monday shakeups with future ace Everybody Loves Raymond moving to the night at 8:30, both in repeats and first-run episodes. Then when ELR's season was done Murphy Brown, losing audience from Lily Tomlin replacing Grant Shaud, was demoted from its long term 9PM anchor slot to 8:30 with Cybill moving to 9:00 and Ink moving an hour later to 9:30. All three freshmen sitcoms I have mentioned would not be invited back for new seasons.