Party Of Five: The 1994 TV Guide Fall Preview

I blogged about the two biggest shows of the 1994 TV Guide Fall Preview a couple of weeks ago when I wrote about Friends and ER. 

There are few other shows that came out that season that I thought might be fun to look back at.

Party of Five (FOX)

That Party of Five stayed on the air for six seasons is sort of astonishing. In its rookie season, it was given the Monday night at 9 PM time slot at FOX. The good news is the lead in was Melrose Place, which was coming off its best season in show history. The bad news is in 1994, 8 PM on Monday nights is very different than 9 PM because that’s when Monday Night Football would start.

Sure enough Party of Five lost almost half the Melrose Place audience and seemed doomed to be canceled. By the winter, critics were desperately trying to save it and TV Guide called it “The Best TV Show You’re Not Watching”. FOX kept it around because every other new show they premiered had shit the bed (other than New York Undercover which was never a hit but did last four seasons). 

Party of Five was able to succeed only because FOX primetime had failed so miserably. I have to make sure to specify “primetime” because that was the fall that FOX got NFL football. It didn’t pay dividends to the primetime lineup yet but that investment in football is still paying off for FOX today.

Party Of Five would later win the Golden Globe for Best Drama and would have a cast filled with young stars like Neve Campbell, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Scott Wolf and Matthew Fox. When you take Friends and ER in consideration, it’s amazing how many young stars got their start this Fall TV Season

And even if you don't like Party Of Five, had it never existed, we likely would never have gotten this:

What TV Guide said: Scott Wolf comes across as a young Tom Cruise…We like these kids and like the show…Party of Five will lose viewers to the competition so here’s a VCR alert. If you haven’t learned how to program that thing, now’s the time.

Here’s some other noteworthy or strange shows that also came out of that season:

Something Wilder: NBC show with Gene Wilder as a guy in his late 50’s with twin 4 year old boys. Only lasted 16 episodes. Other then some made for TV movies in 1999 and couple episodes of Will & Grace, Wilder never worked again.

Hardball: Forgettable FOX comedy about minor league baseball that was gone after 9 episodes. But it did star a very young Joe Rogan. This getting cancelled so early allowed him to be on the brilliant NewsRadio which came out in March of 1995 and jump started his career.

Touched By An Angel: This was a pretty lousy show but it did last for 9 seasons and 211 episodes. TV Guide got it totally wrong when they wrote: The iffiest of all new shows…this vulnerable show will have to be touched by an angel indeed

My So-Called Life: Along with Freaks & Geeks, many critics say this is one of the best shows to only last one season. I mentioned the young stars of ER, Friends and Party of Five but this was also the first time people saw Claire Danes and Jared Leto. You’ll never see this many impactful newcomers all debuting around the same time again because tv and entertainment is so segmented now.