It's Garry's Show, Not Dexter

I'm writing about a sitcom that hasn't seen the light of day in almost two decades in the US for my first real post in 2008?

Yup.

I noticed that everybody is reporting that Showtime's popular crime drama Dexter is coming to CBS's strike-ridden lineup (go Writers!) in February. Everybody that reported that are saying that Dexter will be the first premimum cable series to air on broadcast television.

And those people are wrong.

Although Dexter will be the first premium DRAMA series to air a complete season, the very first premimum cable series to air a complete season on broadcast television was It's Garry Shandling's Show. Like Dexter, the popular sitcom was an original production of Showtime. It premiered in 1986 on the cable network and made its broadcast debut on the young Fox network two years later, where the channel ran four of the five seasons of the series. It left the Sunday night lineup in 1990, just catching up to the Showtime run and right around the time The Simpsons became a stand-alone series.

Another thing that's wrong . . . people say that HBO couldn't bring any of their shows to broadcast television because Time Warner doesn't have a broadcast network. They actually have a half-interest in The CW along with CBS, who also owns Showtime. And all the major HBO shows are seen elsewhere (The Sopranos are on A&E, Sex and The City is on TBS, Six Feet Under is [was? I don't have cable anymore, so I can't tell] on Bravo, and The Wire is also on BET [the final season is currently on HBO even as we speak]; OZ is nowhere to be found).

Comments

Emperor Fred said…
I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, but even I can see what's wrong with a statement like "Dexter is the first premium cable series to air on broadcast television."

Unless that statement is omitting the word "uncensored", that's just grossly inaccurate.

Aside from the shows you mentioned, I seem to recall Dream On and Tales From the Crypt having decently lengthy runs on Fox. Heck, I think even Fraggle Rock counts in that category.
1/20/2008 04:00:00 AM
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