7. Grace Under Fire (1993-1998)
NBC had Seinfeld and Mad About You, but in the early '90s, nobody could beat ABC at turning stand-up comics into sitcom stars. In the wake of Roseanne and Home Improvement, ABC struck again with Grace Under Fire, another blue-collar, family-oriented sitcom built around a down-to-earth comedian. Except Brett Butler, the sassy, Southern-accented star, wasn't as down-to-earth as she initially appeared. After Grace Under Fire became the highest-rated new comedy of the '93-'94 season—finishing in the Top 10 for the year, and the year after to boot—Butler's behavior became increasingly erratic. An addiction to painkillers and paranoia over who was really in control of her show led to a revolving door of producers, writers, and co-stars, and an eventual pink slip for all at the end of the '97-'98 season.
8. Ally McBeal (1997-2002)
Divisive even when it was a hit, Ally McBeal turned the legal-drama genre on its ear, focusing more on the tumultuous love life and cartoonish fantasies of the young lawyer played by Calista Flockhart than on her frequently outrageous caseload. Shepherded by iconoclastic writer-producer David E. Kelley, Ally McBeal didn't look or feel like anything else on television in 1997, and though some viewers were appalled by the show's goofy interludes and apparent undermining of hard-won feminist ideals, demand for all things Ally was so high that after its second season, Kelley created an edited-down half-hour sitcom version of the show. The spin-off—along with Kelley's focus on the more prestigious The Practice, and his usual loss of interest in any of his shows past their second year on the air—led to a rapid decline in quality. By the end of Ally McBeal's fifth and final season, fans were exhausted by the wheel-spinning romantic subplots and excessive craziness, so Kelley put his notebook of wacky ideas back on the shelf—before dusting it off again a few years later for Boston Legal.
9. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (1999-2002)
Conspiracy-minded game-show buffs still feel raw about the treatment and eventual fate of the ABC primetime version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, which seemed to herald a return to the game-show glory years of the '60s and '70s, but which instead almost killed off the genre for good. Debuting in August of 1999 as an end-of-summer "event," Millionaire became an instant hit, driven by the egalitarian call-in-to-qualify contestant-picking format and by the affable nature of host Regis Philbin. But ABC quickly began tinkering with success, first by expanding the number of nights a week the show aired, then by fiddling with the qualification round to bring in a livelier and more diverse contestant pool. Meanwhile, other networks were flooding the airwaves with knockoffs, with one head of programming privately admitting that he hoped to kill off prime-time game shows with oversaturation. The gambit almost worked. But while Millionaire itself went into steep decline by the end of its second season—eventually losing its prime-time slot and moving into syndication—the slow-drip, flashing-light format that the show popularized lives on in the prime-time games that keep popping up in its wake.
10. The Flip Wilson Show (1970-1974)
In 1970, comedian Flip Wilson reaped the benefits of America's post-Woodstock fascination with anything that only seemed radical, and for its first two years on the air, The Flip Wilson Show finished the season's ratings at number two, just behind Marcus Welby M.D. and All In The Family, respectively. But in its third year, it couldn't even crack the Top 20, and after its fourth year, it was cancelled. Blame the fact that it was up against The Waltons in year three. Or blame the tiredness of Wilson's race-focused shtick, which rarely rose above "black people act like this, but white people act like this." Mostly, blame the existence of shows like All In The Family, which proved that America could take their comedy with a little more punch.
11. Commander In Chief (2005-2006)
In January of 2006, Geena Davis won a Golden Globe for her leading performance as the United States' first female president, in the freshman ABC hit Commander In Chief. By May, the show had been cancelled. The trouble started early for Commander In Chief, when creator/show-runner Rod Lurie fell behind, forcing the show into reruns earlier than planned. ABC replaced him with veteran producer Steven Bochco, who immediately jettisoned some of Lurie's quirkier, "domestic life of a president" elements and tried to make the show more of a political thriller. But the combination of long production delays and the changing focus sapped viewer interest, and ABC failed to find a timeslot for Commander In Chief that could stand up to shows that hadn't taken three months off for retooling. In the end, the show became an object lesson in the new reality of network TV. Fill your allotted hour every week, or die. A lesson soon learned by…
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