THE TELEPHEMERA YEARS: 1996, part 2

Written By:

Alan Boon

Ah, telephemera… those shows whose stay with us was tantalisingly brief, snatched away before their time, and sometimes with good cause. They hit the schedules alongside established shows, hoping for a long run, but it’s not always to be, and for every Street Hawk there’s two Manimals. But here at STARBURST we celebrate their existence and mourn their departure, drilling down into the new season’s entertainment with equal opportunities square eyes… these are The Telephemera Years!

1996-97

It was mostly business as usual at the top of the television ratings in 1996, with NBC continuing their domination, especially on Thursday nights where their Must See TV block accounted for six of the top eight shows, including debuts for the Brooke Shields-starring Suddenly Susan, The Naked Truth, Fired Up, and The Single Guy. Only ABC’s Monday Night Football spoiled a clean sweep, but there was more competition on other days, with Home Improvement and new arrival Spin City on Tuesdays giving ABC some non-sportsball success, and Sundays looking good for CBS with 60 Minutes and Touched by An Angel coming in at number eleven and twelve, respectively.

Other new shows making their bows on the Fall 1996 schedule included Cosby, Everybody Loves Raymond, Touched by An Angel spin-off Promised Land, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Early Edition and Dark Skies, two new genre shows making premiering on CBS and NBC, illustrating the impact The X-Files was having on the US TV market. The year would also see debuts for 7^th Heaven, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, King of the Hill, Lexx, Millennium, and Mystery Science Theater 3000, but also see Family Matters, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Roseanne, Wings, and Renegade begin their final seasons. Those were all shows that left their mark on the wider TV viewing public, but what about those who didn’t stick around? This is the story of four more fly-by-nights…

The Burning Zone (UPN): After spending four seasons as a producer on The Equalizer, for which he also wrote nineteen episodes, Coleman Luck co-created Gabriel’s Fire, detective show starring James Earl Jones that won three Emmy Awards, but he didn’t survive the show’s transformation into the more light-hearted Pros and Cons the following season. Luck next tried his hand with The 50-Minute Man, starring Kevin Pollack as a neurotic private eye who cases are recounted in weekly sessions with his psychiatrist, which both CBS and NBC passed on at the pilot stage, before joining superhero show MANTIS as an executive producer and scripter in 1994. A decorated Vietnam combat veteran, Luck was also a committed Christian, something he fed into The Burning Zone, which did get past the pilot stage to land at UPN for Fall 1996.

The Burning Zone starred smouldering newcomer Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Marcase, a virologist who – as a child – survived an attack of Ebola virus that killed his parents, dedicating his life thereafter to the study and eradication of infectious diseases. Marcase joins a task force funded by the United States Government during a time known as the Plague Wars, when global pandemics are on the rise and science is struggling to cope with them. He is joined by former WHO pathologist Kimberly Shiroma (The Joy Luck Club‘s Tamlyn Tomita), Dr Daniel Cassan (Michael Harris), and security expert Michael Hailey (former NFL star James Black), who uses his CIA training to ensure the team work in safety.

From the off it’s clear that this is no ordinary medical drama. In the first episode, an archaeologist is infected with a 15,000-yer-old virus after opening an ancient tomb in Costa Rica and develops superhuman strength, a fever, and burning red eyes, with subsequent weeks bringing chemically induced mass suicides, an outbreak of violence at an annual religious festival, and the side effects of pharmaceutical testing that results in spontaneous human combustion. As well as using their scientific know-how, the power of prayer and a cleansing of the soul to cure viruses is front and centre, with Marcase attributing his childhood survival to mystical forces.

Ratings were never good and when the show went into an early Christmas break, changes were made to the cast and tone of the show.Morgan and Tomita were dropped, their characters hastily reassigned as of episode twelve, with Cassan promoted to lead protagonist alongside a new arrival, Bradford Tatum’s motorbike-riding maverick Dr Brian Taft. The show’s more spiritual and supernatural elements were phased out in favour of more traditional action-adventure fare – flesh-eating bacteria, military chemical leaks – but audiences were as resistant to the changes as many viruses are becoming to antibiotics and the show was put on hiatus again after episode fifteen, with production stopped on any new episodes. The remaining four episodes were shown in April and May 1997. Coleman Luck left TV after the failure of The Burning Zone and became a writer of religious books, finding that audience much more receptive.

Gun (ABC): Although he’s much better known as a film director, Robert Altman’s early career was spent mostly in television. After finishing 1957’s youth panic movie The Delinquents, Altman directed over one-hundred episodes for shows such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Whirlybirds, and Bonanza before returning to the big screen with astronaut drama Countdown in 1968. He dabbled in TV again in the late 1980s, directing the Garry Trudeau-written political satire mini-series Tanner ’88, but the announcement of Gun in 1997 – with a “Robert Altman presents…” prefix – was a big thing indeed.

The genesis of the series, though, lay with James Sadwith, a jack of all trades who broke into television in 1982 when the very first script he wrote was made into a TV movie called Two of a Kind. Starring George Burns and Robbie Benson, the movie told the story of a young man with developmental difficulties and earned Benson a Golden Globes nomination for his performance. Tales of the Darkside gave Sadwith the chance to move behind the camera, directing two episodes he wrote for the horror anthology series, and he clocked up half a dozen more credits before cooking up the concept for Gun.

Gun was a show where the titular firearm – a pearl-handled 45 semi-automatic pistol – was the star, the six-episode series following the gun’s progress as it passed from owner to owner. This wasn’t a new idea; 1950’s Winchester ’73 featured the titular rifle moving through a succession of hands as James Stewart seeks retribution for the killing of his father, and The Gun – a TV movie from 1974, written by Columbo creators Richard Levinson and William Link – followed a similar premise and even inspired a hit single by country artists George Jones and Tammy Wynette two years later.

Although the gun was very much the central character of the series, the attraction came from the parade of star directors and big-name actors that lined up to take part, all brought together under Altman’s executive producer credit. Altman himself directed one episode, along with Sadwith, Glengarry Glen Ross’s James Foley, former thirtysomething star-turned-director Peter Horton, Yo! MTV Raps veteran Ted Demme, and Jeremiah Chechik, a former music video director who helmed Benny and Joon and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Among those turning out to appear in the series were Rosanna Arquette, Ed Begley Jr, Bud Cort, Kirsten Dunst, Carrie Fisher, James Gandolfini, Darryl Hannah, Randy Quaid, Martin Sheen, and Daniel Stern, as the gun caused mayhem and misery.

Gun debuted on April 12^th 1997, but despite its pedigree, it rated poorly, ABC’s second lowest of the year with only Nancy Miller’s new coroner drama Leaving LA – with which it was paired on Saturday nights – faring worse. Sadwith did have plans for a continuation of the show, with the pistol’s history explored, hinting that it could have been present at some notable points in history. However, ABC – who had hopes that Gun might finally be the show to combat Walker, Texas Ranger on CBS – declined to go further.

Roar (Fox): Debuting in syndication in January 1995, the success of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys opened up a brand-new market for TV networks to exploit. Outside of the realm of the Saturday morning cartoon, fantasy had always been an ill-fit for television, the occasional short-lived show with hokey effects and make-up never able to match the magic of the movies or the genre’s preferred home, a doorstop-thick novel. Hercules (and Xena: Warrior Princess, which followed eight months later) showed it could be done, though, and there were a slew of shows looking to cash in, all looking to emulate Kevin Sorbo’s hunky shoulders and thankfully unknown political opinions.

First to the gate was Roar, a fantasy adventure set in 400AD Ireland, where a young man must unite the Celtic tribes to rid the country of its Roman invaders. The show was created by American Gothic‘s Shaun Cassidy, son of Shirley Jones and half-brother of David, who was inspired by Thomas Cahill’s 1996 bestseller How the Irish Saved Civilisation. Cahill’s book was based around the arrival in Ireland of St Patrick, but Cassidy’s concept – developed with Beauty and the Beast creator Ron Koslow – focussed on Conor, a young, orphaned prince shown how to read the “roar” – the spirit of the animals, creatures, and very land of Ireland – by his mentor, the wizard Galen.

Conor (Heath Ledger, fresh off Home & Away) brings together a band of outcasts including Alonzo Greer’s teenage magician, Vera Farmiga’s former slave girl, and John Saint Ryan’s expert fighter, and together they fight the forces of Longinus (Sebastian Roché), a 400-year-old Roman Centurion cursed with immortality for using his spear to finish off Jesus on the cross, and the evil Queen Diana, the Romans’ proxy in the area. Filmed on location in Queensland, Australia, Roar may have based itself on historical record, but it didn’t take long for it to veer into sheer fantasy, with a liberal sprinkling of magic joined by a banshee, the Spear of Destiny, and possession by evil spirits, alongside a heap of Christian theology, Celtic mythology, and Druidism.

Roar debuted on July 14^th 1997, in a Monday night slot that put it up against Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Unlike that show, and like both Hercules and Xena, Roar took itself very seriously indeed, with little of the playful humour that made its rivals so watchable. Still, the first episode drew a decent rating, with week two rising still more, thereafter settling into a respectable groove for its timeslot of around eight million viewers. Unfortunately, the show’s higher than usual costs, despite some economies being found by filming on location in Queensland, Australia, left Fox feeling they were not getting enough bang for their buck, and they pulled the show after eight episodes, airing the debuting Ally McBeal in its place (although it’s likely Roar would have been moved to accommodate that show, regardless). The remaining five episodes were eventually aired on Fox in 2000, but the full run did air in overseas markets.

Todd McFarlane’s Spawn (HBO): Spawn was launched in May 1992 as part of the first wave of Image Comics, an artist-led, creator-owned breakaway from the big two of Marvel and DC. Created by million-selling Spider-Man artist Todd McFarlane, Al Simmons was a mercenary who died and went to Hell for his sins, only to be offered a deal by the demon Malebolgia. In exchange for agreeing to become a Hellspawn – Hell’s elite fighting troops – he would be resurrected and given the chance to see his wife, Wanda, again. Malebolgia’s deal was a tainted one and Simmons was returned to Earth five years after his death, with a severely scarred face, and only scattered memories of his previous life. Discovering that the more he uses his abilities in service of Hell, the sooner he will be returned to the Abyss, Spawn vows to use as little power as possible in a new crusade against evil.

Spawn was a sensation, with the first issue selling over 1.7 million copies, and it quickly became one of Image’s top titles. The dark undertones were part of its appeal but also worked against it when the animation studios came calling for fresh Saturday morning fodder, eager to cash in on the runaway success of the Image bandwagon. Jim Lee’s WildCATS was the first of the Image titles to make the transfer to animated adventures, debuting on CBS in October 1994, followed a year later by Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon, which became part of the USA Network’s Cartoon Express block. In between, The Maxx had shown that it was possible to do a more adult-oriented comic book on TV when it became part of MTV’s Oddities strand in April 1995, with much of the animation based directly on Sam Kieth’s artwork.

In November 1996, HBO announced the formation of HBO Animation, headed up by Catherine Winder, who had produced the animated series Aeon Flux for MTV. The studio announced two projects for 1997: Ralph Bakshi’s Spicy City (pitched as a contemporary reading of 1930s pulp stories) and Todd McFarlane’s Spawn. Winder explained that they were drawn to Spawn by its visuals and its sophisticated and dramatic storyline, and McFarlane was assuaged at the pitch pitching when he asked if they would let him say “fuck” on the show, confident that if that was okay then “there’s one-hundred other things I could get away with, too.” Budgeting the show at a million dollars an episode, HBO contracted Japanese studio Madhouse – then probably best known for Wicked City and Ninja Scroll, but about to release Perfect Blue – to handle animation, with McFarlane himself working closely with scripter Alan B McElroy (who was also working on the Spawn live-action movie, in production at New Line) and directors Erik Radomski and John Hays to adapt the comic’s storylines for TV.

Todd McFarlane’s Spawn debuted on May 16^th 1997, beating Spicy City to air by two months and thus becoming the first adult-oriented original animation on the cable network. Each episode was introduced by McFarlane, asking rhetorical questions of the viewer from a sinister-looking location in segments directed by Swingers director Doug Liman, who was a roommate of an HBO executive. The first season roughly adapted the first seven issues of the comic book and ended in July 1997, and the response to the show was generally favourable, although there were some for whom it was too dark and grim. A month later, the live-action movie was released and although it doubled it’s $40 million budget at the box office, critics were less kind, with even star Michael Jai White later claiming, “I have never said that I thought it was a good movie.”

The negative reaction to the movie overshadowed the HBO show somewhat but a second season arrived in May 1998, despite HBO and McFarlane having been served with a lawsuit by professional ice hockey player Tony Twist. McFarlane, a big sports fan, had named a character in the comic (later included in the animated series, but not the movie) after Twist, but that character was a gangster who ordered the kidnapping of children. Needless to say, Twist was less than happy about the association and later settled out of court for $5 million.

The second season picked up where the first left off, with Spawn deep into his battle with The Violator and corrupt agency boss Jason Wynn, again loosely following the plot of the comic books, with some narrative tweaks to fit the new format. The series continued to garner positive reviews and won an Emmy Award in 1999 for Outstanding Animation Program (Long Than One Hour), based on the first two seasons. There was little surprise, then, when a third season was announced, arriving in May 1999, but HBO Animation was running into interference from other areas of the network who came from a live-action background and both prioritised and tried to bring that mindset to Spawn.

The final episode of Spawn aired on May 28^th 1999, the third season having been programmed over successive nights, and although there were plans for a fourth series, which would have seen avenging angel Angela play a bigger role, it did not materialise. Plans for a movie sequel were also quietly cancelled. The three seasons were each edited into a two-hour movie and released on VHS and DVD, later re-released as a full collection of all eighteen single episodes in 2007. In 2004, a sequel series was announced, with Keith David reprising his lead role, but ended up in production limbo, although David did get to voice Spawn again for the Mortal Kombat 11 videogame.

The comic book continues to be published monthly and although McFarlane stopped drawing it after the first three years, he continues to script the adventures of Al Simmons over thirty years after his first appearance. In 2021, he announced the creation of a TV production arm of his McFarlane Films company, with Sam and Twitch, focussing the detective pair from the pages of Spawn, on the slate.

Next time on The Telephemera Years: mutants and mayhem with 1996’s unsold pilots!

Check out our other Telephemera articles:

The Telephemera Years: pre-1965 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1965 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1966 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1967 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1968 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1969 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1970 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1971 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1973 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1974 (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)