Built To Last Did Not Live Up to Its Title

[icecream]

Fall 1997 was when NBC premiered three new sitcoms on Wednesday nights with 3rd Rock from the Sun the only veteran sitcom anchoring at 9:00. The new sitcom airing at 8:30 called Built to Last was cancelled the soonest, it had a bunch of names I did not recognize in the cast. Only three episodes aired out of eight produced. Built to Last's higher profile lead-in The Tony Danza Show was Tony's failed attempt to have a trio of successful sitcoms after Taxi and Who's the Boss? Also starring Dean Stockwell from Quantum Leap, it didn't do much better. After its first three episodes aired was pulled for November sweeps, then two more episodes at a lesser time of 8:30 were burned off in December. Only 5 episodes out of 14 produced aired for The Tony Danza Show. Working starring Fred Savage was the only new show not to be an outright flop on the night. But after a strong household rating of 10 for the premiere episode, it dropped steeply to 6.6 for episode two. Working would get a 2nd season but with a much lesser episode total and would not make it to season three. I vaguely remember a promo saying NBC Wednesdays were built to last that year. Besides a burn-off episode of Men Behaving Badly, NBC went with mainly specials and repeats in the 8PM hour until moving NewsRadio over from Tuesdays to launch For Your Love between Mad About You and Frasier. 8:30 slot remained repeats (last season NBC was able to repeat Seinfeld), it was not helped going against Dharma and Greg's strong freshman season.

[icecream]

On the opposite irony of Built to Last is Nobody Wants This. It was wanted with renewal and several award nominations.