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Still Missing You: TV Shows

Presenting the Chick’s favorite TV shows which are no longer on the air but still have a place in our hearts…

Marla Cooper

CotC Marla Cooper

Here’s looking at you, Parks and Recreation! I miss Amy Poehler so much! (Remember when she rapped the entire lyrics to Parents Just Don’t Understand? That was the day she won my heart.) Speaking of SNL alum, I wish 30 Rock was still on the air. I’m down to just one sitcom now — Modern Family — so if anyone has any recommendations, I have a couple of half-hour long holes in my schedule to fill. As for hour-long dramas, I miss Castle — but in a totally different way. By the end, I was actually praying they would put the show out of its misery. Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic had had a falling out, and it was painfully obvious. So I miss the early-days Castle, when we could laugh at his goofy antics and the unrealistically high heels she wore while fighting crime. (I’ve noticed ads for a couple of obvious Castle knockoffs; I guess someone else missed it, too!)

Lisa Q. Mathews

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Recently I was devastated to watch the last episode of Longmire. Even my husband got into that one with me. But most of the shows I miss are oldies-but-goodies. I may never get over the cancellation of The Rockford Files (miss you, Jimbo!) and of course I’ll always have a soft spot for Murder, She Wrote. I’ve been glued to so many cop, detective and PI shows (hello, Moonlighting, Hawaii Five-0, Cagney and Lacey, Hill St. Blues, Broadchurch, 24) in my life that I sometimes wonder whether it wasn’t just all those Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie books that pointed me toward a career in mystery/crimewriting. I also miss emotional shows like Parenthood and Gilmore Girls and funny ones like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show–and I‘m easily suckered into legal dramas (LA Law, RIP–current fave For the People). I know, that’s a lot of shows! But if I could bring back only one, it would be (cue the starry music): BeeeeeeeWITCHED! 

 Ellen Byron

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I’m going to start old school and go with The Odd Couple. That used to rerun in NY all the time. It was so much a part of my life – my roommate and I would watch it at night instead of going clubbing – that when they finally took it off the air completely, I wrote a sketch that took place in a funeral home where people were mourning the loss of the show. The other two shows I wish were still on are Downton Abbey and Mad Men. My dad was a Mad Man and I was Sally Draper growing up, visiting him at offices in the 1960s and 1970s that looked exactly like the Mad Men set. I had such a connection to the show that I wept like a baby at the end of the last episode. I joke-mourned the end of The Odd Couple. I real-mourned the end of Mad Men.

Vickie Fee

vickieI’m a big fan of old movies and vintage TV. If I’m channel surfing it’s hard for me to pass by an episode of Ozzie and Harriet or The Dick Van Dyke Show. But if I had to narrow it down to the two shows (Don’t ask me to pick just one!) I loved most, I’d pick: a) The Carol Burnett Show. I enjoyed a lot of the classic variety shows, but Carol Burnett was the gold standard. I still laugh at her Scarlett O’Hara “curtains” dress, and every skit where Tim Conway cracked up Carol and Harvey Korman. My other favorite is: b) The Man from U.N.C.L.E., featuring secret agents battling international espionage back when spy fiction was big. (Extra credit if you know what the acronym stands for.) I had a huge crush on Illya Kuryakin, played by David McCallum, who is probably best known to you youngsters as Ducky on NCIS. I have the entire series on video. The DVD collection came packaged in a nerdy little cardboard briefcase that is actually kind of awesome.

Cynthia Kuhn

cynthiaThere are soooooo many. I loved the following shows so much that even when they were still on the air, I was always thinking, “There just aren’t enough episodes!”: Sherlock, The Good Wife, Downton Abbey, Mad Men, Sex and the City, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Newsroom, Arrested Development, Episodes, Gilmore Girls, The Office, Cheers, Friends, Wings, Ally McBeal, Boston Legal, and Moonlighting. And last but definitely not least, Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives. Those two shows hit every button for me: they were quirky, hilarious, moving, satirical, timely, over-the-top, AND had mysteries!

Readers, drop us a note in the comments below! What are your favorite shows that are no longer with us?

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52 thoughts on “Still Missing You: TV Shows”

  1. I have to agree with Vicki: Carol Burnett was my happy place! I actually had a doctor that looked like Tim Conway’s character of the old man! I think my first crush was Illya Kuryakin and I was only 4! Did you see the NCIS episode where they say Ducky reminds them of Illya? Also love that program!

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    2. Happy place is a good way to describe the Carol Burnett Show! Ahh, we always have reruns (and DVD collections!)

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  2. As a kid I loved watching reruns of the Dick Van Dyke show — and I think it would still be fun today (Ellen, could you be Sally?? How true were those scenes with her and Buddy and Dick in the writing room?) And what about the Mary Tyler Moore Show? Loved Mary (poor spinster at 32) blazing a trail for women everywhere. I remember looking everywhere for a wooden J to hang on my wall, like Mary’s M. Never did find one. And just last night a friend and I were talking about (another Dick Van Dyke show) Diagnosis Murder, but only because I own a lamp like the one that was in his office. I seem to remember that show was a bit on the cheesy side but I watched it anyway! Dick and Mystery…you have to love it, right?

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  3. Happy to see one of the shows I wrote for on Cynthia’s list! And I can’t tell you if it was realistic, Judy. I write sitcoms, not sketches. Two different worlds. But I’ll tell you a show that was realistic and that I also miss – Thirty Rock. Thanks for reminding me, Marla. And may I recommend Veep, Silicon Valley, and Schitt’s Creek?

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    2. I have to admit I haven’t gotten past the name of Schitt’s Creek, but if it makes you both laugh, I’ll check it out! (P.S. Love Silicon Valley! So realistic.)

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  4. I am so old school. My TV love is either cooking, home improvement or mysteries.
    But back in the day it was just mysteries.
    My all time fav? Don’t laugh or I may get revenge, but the cheesy Starsky and Hutch is the bomb. I was so in love with David Soul as a teenager. Although there were two episodes that had the exact same scene in it, the locker room argument with them in towels!cat least the dvds do.
    Other favs? Moonlighting (would so dump any man for Bruce), Murder She Wrote, Magnum PI, Perry Mason.
    And yes, I too love Ugly Betty.

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      1. And he was in Magnum Force. And 2 episodes of Murder She Wrote. And played a nut job robber with Michael Gross that was once used as a training video for the FBI because of the massacre that happened. Don’t remember what true story it was based on.
        See? Again showing how old, but not wise I am!

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  5. Vickie: United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. That one’s easy. But does anyone know that THRUSH stands for? (I don’t think they ever said.) I had a HUGE crush on Robert Vaughn. I watched a few of the shows from the first season again recently and he really did have a boatload of charisma.

    I miss Frasier the most. But it’s okay, because I’ve been watching it again on Netflix and there are like twelve seasons or something.

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  6. My favorite TV show is Babylon 5. I really need to rewatch it again. In a world before the strong story arcs we have on TV now, this was a 5 year long story.

    I also miss early Castle (don’t get me started on season 8 or the ending of season 8). I’m already mourning the end of Once Upon a Time even though this season has been a disappointment.

    Going further back, I’d take more I Love Lucy, Newhart (his 80’s show), and Scarecrow and Mrs. King.

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    3. Mark, you know we share a passion for OUAT, bad season or not! Eliza and I binge-watched the first half of the season and will probably do the same with the last half. PLEASE tell me they got rid of that horrible actress playing Cinderella. I want to scream at her, “STOP WHINING!!!!”

      Love early Newhart too.

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  9. Ellen,I forgot to add The Odd Couple! My fave was the episode where Felix says, When you assume, you make an “ass” of “you” and “me.”

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      1. Yes, Felix defines it on a chalkboard. It was a court situation, I think–was he showing the jury in the jury room?

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    2. I love the one where they go to a monastery for quiet time and Oscar’s losing his mind. He resorts to reading the back of a toothpaste tube for entertainment and ends up turning sugar cubes into dice.

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  12. I love love love Carol Burnett! And one of my all time favorite shows was Arrested Development. Now i have two shows that are quirky like AD – Trial and Error that I’m anxiously waiting to come back on the air, and Superstore. I love the subtle irony. If you blink, you’ll miss it. I have also loved The West Wing, Gilmore Girls, and Bunheads. I’m a big fan of Aaron Sorkin and Amy Sheridan Palladino. And for some reason i keep thinking about What’s Happening! It’s been off the air for 40 years so i don’t know where that’s coming from.

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    2. OK, Libby, I had to look up Bunheads! I had missed that one. But it reminded me of a one-season show that I grieved the cancellation of: The Ellen Burstyn Show, which was cancelled mid-season, I think, in the late 80s. Megan Mullally was also in it.

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    3. Libby, I thought I was the only person who watched Bunheads. That was way too short of a run! (Now Sutton is on Younger and sometimes I think, hey, whatever happened to those sassy kids from dance class and then I remember that was a totally different show.)

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  14. I miss a lot of the shows already mentioned. My sister and I never missed The Man From UNCLE and Starsky and Hutch. I also loved Carol Burnet, Wings, Mary Tyler Moore, both Bob Newhart sitcoms, Frazier. One of my favorites that I don’t see mentioned is WKRP.

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