A spinoff of Growing Pains that, after watching every episode, surpassed it's parent show in almost every way and seemed to be well on it's way to greatness.
But after two full seasons, and it's initial four-episode trial run, it was cancelled in what was, in my opinion, one of the most bewildering decisions I've ever seen a network make. 99% of cancelled shows, even the ones considered to be cancelled unfairly, have viewership numbers too low to considered viable. Such was not the case here; they got good ratings. ABC stated reason was they wanted to make TGIF an all-Miller/Boyett affair; partly for fears that if they didn't, M/B would take shows like Full House and Perfect Strangers and shop them elsewhere. That's what they did with The Hogan Family when NBC didn't renew it fast enough for their liking, they moved it to CBS. So they gave the 9:30 Friday slot to a new M/B show called Going Places. It went nowhere, nor did any other show they put there . Unfortunately, neither did Just The Ten Of Us. ABC claimed at the time that there was no other place on the schedule for it; but that was a cop-out because they also couldn't fill 9:30 Wednesday to save their lives. I think either Bob Iger or ABC president Tom Murphy just didn't like the show, and were looking for an excuse to cancel it. Iger would later admit, in a stunning mea culpa, that cancelling 'Ten' had been a mistake; which leads me to believe it was Tom Murphy, specifically, who ordered the hit on the hit show, but that's just conjecture. And I guess Brandon Tartikoff and Howard Stringer and Barry Diller didn't like it either, as no other network rescued it in spite of it's growing fan base and it's marketability.
Marketability? Well, if I explained that part, I'd be spoiling the show for you. Let's just say it deceives you into thinking it's a generic 80s family sitcom, but then it hits you in the face with some of the sharpest, most clever writing of the era. Imagine "The Golden Girls if they were teenagers". Plus, each character is as important as the last, nobody feels like a waste of space; remarkable for a show with eight main characters. Definitely worth checking out; just remember, like most shows, it takes a few episodes to "grow the beard".
But after two full seasons, and it's initial four-episode trial run, it was cancelled in what was, in my opinion, one of the most bewildering decisions I've ever seen a network make. 99% of cancelled shows, even the ones considered to be cancelled unfairly, have viewership numbers too low to considered viable. Such was not the case here; they got good ratings. ABC stated reason was they wanted to make TGIF an all-Miller/Boyett affair; partly for fears that if they didn't, M/B would take shows like Full House and Perfect Strangers and shop them elsewhere. That's what they did with The Hogan Family when NBC didn't renew it fast enough for their liking, they moved it to CBS. So they gave the 9:30 Friday slot to a new M/B show called Going Places. It went nowhere, nor did any other show they put there . Unfortunately, neither did Just The Ten Of Us. ABC claimed at the time that there was no other place on the schedule for it; but that was a cop-out because they also couldn't fill 9:30 Wednesday to save their lives. I think either Bob Iger or ABC president Tom Murphy just didn't like the show, and were looking for an excuse to cancel it. Iger would later admit, in a stunning mea culpa, that cancelling 'Ten' had been a mistake; which leads me to believe it was Tom Murphy, specifically, who ordered the hit on the hit show, but that's just conjecture. And I guess Brandon Tartikoff and Howard Stringer and Barry Diller didn't like it either, as no other network rescued it in spite of it's growing fan base and it's marketability.
Marketability? Well, if I explained that part, I'd be spoiling the show for you. Let's just say it deceives you into thinking it's a generic 80s family sitcom, but then it hits you in the face with some of the sharpest, most clever writing of the era. Imagine "The Golden Girls if they were teenagers". Plus, each character is as important as the last, nobody feels like a waste of space; remarkable for a show with eight main characters. Definitely worth checking out; just remember, like most shows, it takes a few episodes to "grow the beard".