Trio Trophy - Day 3

We're into the field of 64. Woo!

From the Turn On bracket:

(3) Homefront v. (14) Legend

Homefront mined the aftermath of World War II for drama and sudsiness, depicting the lives of GIs freshly returned to River Run, Ohio from the battlefields of Europe and Asia. Each of the three main veterans faced their own set of challenges, be it a wife who no longer loved her husband to an African-American vet who returned home to face the same discrimination he had before going to war.

The unique post-war setting set Homefront apart, and fans and critics touted its ability to maintain focus over all the characters without getting too confusing. The period detail and ability to create nostalgia in viewers who weren't alive in the 1940s didn't hurt, either. It just didn't do that for enough viewers.

The show ran on ABC from 1991 to 1993, airing 42 episodes.

Here's a clip from the show, featuring Kyle Chandler.

Legend commbined The Wild Wild West with Remington Steele. Ernest Pratt is a dime novelist whose best-known creation is Nicodemus Legend, who uses a variety of ingenious contraptions to foil bad guys. He winds up assuming Legend's identity at the behest of Dr. Janos Bartok, who is able to provide many of the fanciful inventions that Legend uses in the books for actual use in fighting crime.

Of course, you can also say that there's a dash of MacGyver in the show, as Pratt/Legend is played by Richard Dean Anderson, his first starring role after that series. Bartok is played by John De Lancie, best known as Q from the Star Trek universe.

The show had the misfortune of airing during the inaugural season of UPN, and did not survive the change in network suits that saw every show but Star Trek: Voyager get the axe at the end of the season. Apparently, steampunk didn't work for them. 12 episodes aired during the spring and summer of 1995.

Several Legend clips here.

(6) Black Sheep Squadron v. (11) Boomtown

Black Sheep Squadron, also known as Baa Baa Black Sheep during its first season, followed a unit of less than spit-and-polish Marine flyers stationed in the Pacific. They were led by "Pappy" Boyington, played by Robert Conrad. Pappy chose his unit based on ability and results, giving many of them reprieves from prior mishaps. And, like the 4077th on M*A*S*H, the unit often got out of trouble based on its successes (it was also based on a book about a real-life unit).

Along with the expected blend of drama and comedy, producer Stephen J. Cannell used stock footage from other projects and a new technique of filming inside a single-seat aircraft to give the action scenes a quality not usually seen on TV. Even so, NBC cancelled the show after one season, only to bring it back when most of the following year's new programming tanked. With its new name, the show racked up 37 episodes from 1976 to 1978.

Some longish clips from the show can be seen here.

Boomtown applied the Rashamon style of story-telling to crime in present day Los Angeles. Each episode focused on a particular investigation, telling the story from the viewpoint of a variety of characters involved in the proceedings. Story lines about the personal lives of the main cast also cropped up, from the failing marriage of deputy DA David McNorris and the suicide attempt by the wife of detective Joel Stevens.

Critics raved about the show, but the often depressing reality of the plots didn't attract a wide audience. Low rating caused NBC to move the show from Sunday to Friday, and then to end its first season before May sweeps. They renewed the show, but revamped it considerably, making it more of a procedural. That pretty much chased the die-hards off, and the show wrapped after 24 episodes over 2002 and 2003.

This link will not only give you Boomtown clips, it also has the video for "I Don't Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats. A little bonus for you.

From the South of Sunset bracket:

(3) The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles v. (14) Undeclared

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles were just that - stories about the youthful adventures of the big screen's favorite archaeologist, as told by his 93-year-old self. George Lucas maintained his feature film mentality for the series, plotting an extensive timeline that would have accounted for 70 episodes, as well as shooting in roughly a dozen countries.

The stories featured one of two young Indys, one about 10 years old, the other a teenager (played by Sean Patrick Flannery). Several episodes built on the movies, including the relationship between Indy and his dad and the search for the Eye of the Peacock.

The show developed a devoted following and reeled in 10 Emmys, but couldn't quite pull of the transition from the movies. The show lasted for 28 episodes, with some originally airing on USA rather than ABC, which had the show in 1992 and '93.

Plenty of clips here.

Undeclared was Judd Apatow's attempt at a college-based TV show, mindful that it's nearly impossible to show what actually happens at college. He did his best, though, following a group of freshmen at the University of North Eastern California as they made the transition out of high school.

And while the show couldn't quite go into the depths of collegiate excess, it did capture enough of the college experience to get beyond the American Pie expectations you'd have with a show about college students that aired on Fox. The show debuted to strong ratings, but they dropped over the run of the series, unhelped by Fox's handling of the show. Critical acclaim and a strong cult following didn't help it avoid the axe after 17 episodes in the 2001-02 season.

Some clips for the show are available here.

(6) TV Nation v. (11) The Associates

TV Nation brought Michael Moore's particular brand of muckraking to the small screen, as he and his correspondents took stories into their own hands, doing things like invading a private beach in Greenwich, Connecticut by sea and buying - and then emancipating - slaves on the day that Mississippi finally banned slavery.

Many of the stories followed Moore's interest in corporate shenanigans, as seen in the running series where CEOs were challenged to use the products they made and the introduction of Crackers the Corporate Crime Fighting Chicken.'

The show had an admirable set of correspondents, including Janeane Garofalo, Karen Duffy, Rusty Cundieff and Louis Theroux. There were also a number of special guests, both intentional (such as Yaphet Kotto competing against an ex-con to see who could get the most cabs to pick them up) and unintentional (such as the ambassadors from Serbia and Croatia, who Moore visited in an attempt to bring peace to the region).

The show's two seasons were split between NBC and Fox during the summers of 1994 and 1995, and even won an Emmy for Best Informational Programming after the 1995 season. When it came time for a third season, though, Fox blinked and declined to pick it up. A group of international networks put together funding for a third season, but the lack of US distribution put the kibosh on things.

A number of TV Nation segments can be seen here.

The Associates did something unique for a show about lawyers - it portrayed their work in a realistic and somewhat humorous setting, rather than in courtroom set-pieces. The associates of the title were a group of young lawyers at Bass and Marshall who ranged from the self-centered Elliot Streeter (who planned to take the firm over someday) to Tucker Kerwin, a midwesterner who was always a little out of step with his Ivy-educated colleagues.

The show was produced by the same folks who gave us Taxi (James Brooks et. al.), a group with some skill at workplace-based shows. It was also the first starring TV role for Martin Short, who played Kerwin.

ABC only aired 9 episodes of the show in the 1979-08 season, thanks in part to some questionable scheduling decisions (it debuted with a declining Mork and Mindy with its lead-in, for starters), an unfortunate end to one of the year's best-reviewed new shows.

No real video out there, other than the show's inclusion in this ABC preview.