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Elaine Stritch, Broadway and Cabaret Diva, was partially responsible for this series - "The Two of Us" was based on a Britcom Ms. Stritch starred in, called "Two's Company" about an American author who moves to London and deals with a butler who has no regard for how people in the United States behave. The personality clashes of that programme helped launch this Americanized version.

We had a bit of a revival of domestic servants on TV in the 1980s. There was "Benson," who originally was a part of the cast of that parody of daytime dramas, "Soap," There was "Mr. Belvedere" and there was Florence, maid to "The Jeffersons," while the staffs at Southfork Ranch on "Dallas" and the Carrington estate on "Dynasty" are too numerous to mention.

The "two" of "The Two of Us" are Nan Gallagher (Mimi Kennedy) a daytime talk show host and her teen daughter Gabby (Dana Hill). Cubby (Oliver Clark) is a friend of Nan's who frequently drops by. Nan and Gabby live in a sprawling Upper East Side town house, so she definitely needs help to keep the place in order, and that's where Peter Cook's character, Brentwood, enters the story.

In "Dudley," Dudley Moore's first US sitcom, which I listed at #377 on this list of the 400 Most Notable TV Shows Set in New York (and Mr. Moore was partnered with Peter Cook as a comedy team for years), I mentioned that the parallels to the character "Arthur," from the movie of that name, was a source of some of the humor, but that "Dudley" didn't have a Hobson, Arthur's manservant, to keep him in line. Here, Peter Cook was essentially playing Hobson in this role, a no-nonsense, stay on top of the job butler who always knew best.

However, where Sir John Gielgud managed to inject some good natured humor to cover Hobson's absolute malice at most everything that Arthur did, Brentwood would just shout or whisper in anger or speak in a staccato like style, attempting to shoot his words of distain like bullets at his boss. Don't get me wrong; this did read as amusing some of the time, but it got rather mean spirited the longer it continued. Another difference was that Hobson absolutely had affection for Arthur, whereas Brentwood seemed to mostly think of Nan as a paycheck and a necessary nuisance.

On the other hand, there's the "When in Rome" philosophy...

It made sense for the butler on "Two's Company" to be derisive over Elaine Stritch's bawdy American ways, because they were in Great Britain. But Brentwood was in the USA, so shouldn't he have been the one to make the adjustment?

New York plays a part because the job Nan does, the neighborhood she lives in and the circumstances they get into really could only happen here.

In the end, Nan's character wasn't comic enough to make Brentwood's hot flashes and slow burns work as well. This show could have used a little Dudley Moore to up the comedy factor!

Television is always affected by whatever other shows have become hits. But not only that, actors who become favorites on a series often land new projects based on their previous popularity. This is kind of a mish-mash of that.

Diane English was the person behind this show, and her most successful series was the original lead in to this one on the CBS Schedule: "Murphy Brown." Jay Thomas, who was a semi-regular player on "Murphy" and on another popular sitcom, "Cheers," got promoted to the lead of this new series, where he plays Jack, a loud-mouthed crank of a columnist for a local paper who hangs out in this bar, just purchased by the Susan Dey character, Wally.

The template here is that aforementioned Boston watering hole, as the personalities of the patrons of The Blue Shamrock (that's the name of the bar) all come out in various episodes, and Jack and Wally start to have a kind of Sam and Diane "will they or won't they" relationship.

The patter, the rhythm of the dialog is what matters, and what gives the story life. This almost could have been set in the 1940s as one of those "screwball comedies" that were so popular at the time. The problem was Ms. Dey who had just wrapped up the series "L. A. Law," hadn't done any comedic acting in decades. Her chemistry with Jay was non-existent. So, she was removed from the show and added in was Annie Potts, of "Designing Women," here playing a chef named Dana who takes an immediate dislike to Jack, on their way to romance.

Essentially, "Love & War" had to become the rom-com it was with the connection of the lead players. Ms. Potts, who had been playing one of those sweet southern belles on "DW," shifted into a tough talking New Yorker for this role (not a problem, if you remembered her from "Ghostbusters"). The change worked and the series finally started to click.

New York played a part because it was still a "newspaper town" in the 90s, there were always characters that hung out and commented on the stuff they saw (the other patrons of the Blue Shamrock) and the possibility of love was out there. And, of course, there's always a need to have a drink for some reason, or no reason at all!

But here's the bottom line. As pleasant and as amusing as "Love & War" was, and it certainly fit those two adjectives most of the time, with a workable ensemble and some cute commentary, this show wasn't about to make anyone forget "Murphy Brown" or certainly not "Cheers" and that was the problem. "Love & War" had very little that distinguished itself as a show that was outstanding, or even that memorable, despite all of the efforts in making it work.

One hundred years ago was the 1920s, and that, in a way, is as odd a time in American history as the one we're living through, in 2024. The United States caved to a special interest group, the religious right, and chose to institute Prohibition. That meant that nobody in the country was drinking alcohol. Noooooo. Never. And that's where we meet the players on this show.

It's clear that ABC, the network that ran this series, was attempting to capitalize on another show it debuted the previous season: "The Untouchables." The stories of Eliot Ness and his "G Men" busting up racketeering and other methods of organized crime was an instant success and so they came back with this entry, a little softer and a little sweeter.

Rather than focusing on the Feds in Chicago, the interest was a handful of journalists for the various NYC newspapers, who were covering the stories of how the law was fighting the mob and trying to snuff out the baddies. Donald May and Rex Reason played a couple of these news hounds on the trail of some headlines.

Dorothy Provine was a flapper and a triple threat, singing, dancing and acting all as part of her duties in the cabaret where she performed. In fact, the show was one of the first to have a companion soundtrack with music featured from the series on an LP.

Speaking of, the musical director for the series was a guy named Alexander Courage, who eventually would go on to help with music cues and the title theme for a very different series, "Star Trek," just a few years later.

New York plays a part because we had to get a look into the speakeasys where people sipped their bathtub gin and the other interesting hobbies people had at the time. It's funny, human nature is so predictable. If you make something illegal, or unavailable, it only seems to make people want to do it more. And the rise of organized crime occurred specifically because of the government's actions. Something to think about for OUR 20s.

I don't mean to say they were humanizing any criminals shown in the process of this series, but the point is that we're looking at the concept of Prohibition from the 1960s, well after it was ended and after it was clear that it was one of the worst ideas that ever was. So, really, nobody was as bad as all that, if the politicians had never chosen to institute it.

Norman Lear was noted for his astounding and tremendous achievements in television. He will be heard from several times on this list of Top 400 Notable Programs Set in New York City. Mr. Lear's genius in creating some of the most memorable characters on some of the most unforgettable programs in history, guarantees he will be remembered as an important name in TV, forever.

However... we must be honest. Mr. Lear had a show or two that wasn't as successful as some of those landmark series that are preserved in places like the Smithsonian, or The Paley Center. This would be one.

Jimmy Coco was Joe, running a luncheonette in a midtown skyscraper with his wife, Angela (Geraldine Brooks), the Dumplings of "The Dumplings."

Two distinctive points about this show that are important: The first is that this was originally a newspaper comic strip, drawn by Fred Lucky, that amused Norman Lear, so he decided to develop it into a TV series.

The other point is that the two leads of the show were both "average" looking, but also very much in love with each other. And to be completely honest, the adjective used at the time of the show's release wasn't "average." It was either "overweight" or "fat." I guess compared to many of the stars of other programs on the Prime Time Network Schedule, they were, but ultimately, that wasn't at all fair.

Here's the problem with this series. The little luncheonette that The Dumplings run was frequented by the businessmen in the offices above it, with the vast majority of them working for an Oil company. How does that fit into their story? And with Joe and Angela being so much in love, where is the conflict that drives the comedy coming from?

New York plays a part because midtown is a hub of business traffic, all of them ready for lunch, and there's plenty to eat for everybody.

I think a show like this could always be useful for people to see because representation is important! You shouldn't have to believe you must look a certain way to find love or that who you are isn't good enough, as is. But it needed a concept that could support the comedy, and if this one found it, "The Dumplings" might have had a run like some of Lear's more successful comedies.

The early 1990s was an unusual time for television. Black Americans started seeing more shows dealing with the Black Experience in the country, the first time this was happening since the mid 1970s into the early 1980s.

The reason this was occurring was as obvious as a Nielsen Ratings chart: the massive success of "The Cosby Show" was creating this effect, as the success of that program went through the roof for most of the 1990s and you should know, if something is working well on TV, every network wants in on that concept. That made room on the ABC schedule for "Where I Live."

The Huxtable family of "The Cosby Show" were decidedly upper-middle class... or maybe just upper class, living in their tony brownstone in a beautiful section of Brooklyn, with a doctor dad and a lawyer mom. Meanwhile, the St. Martin family of "Where I Live" is nowhere near that level: they were strictly working class, living in an apartment in Harlem.

Here's where we had an issue with how television functioned at the time and it clearly showed in how this show was set up. The story of "Where I Live" was supposedly based on actual things that happened to Doug E. Doug, a teen stand up comic in the early 90s. In talking about his family, Mr. Doug had a Jamaican father who had differing values and that clashed with the standard "American" ways of doing things Doug expected. On the show, this became Doug's issues with his Trinidadian dad and mom, played by Sullivan Walker and Lorraine Toussaint, respectively. Most of the comedy in the series was based on the parent/child clashes those characters continually had.

Here's the point: most all of the creatives on the program, producers, writers, showrunners, were white. Even the show's theme music was composed by a white musician. Now, I'm not saying that you couldn't do a valuable, meaningful and entertaining series this way, but the problem comes when you compare it to what seems real, or at least plausible, when it came to stories. And even though the setting for the show was Harlem, the tone of the program felt like any of the sitcoms that populated ABC's "TGIF" lineup at the time.

It's never up to the actors to make changes or demand rewrites of the material. The job of the actor is to simply perform the script to the best of their ability. So I can't blame Doug E. Doug for any of this. But this exposes an issue that television has had for decades and still continues to have, when it comes to having the power to create and produce a network program.

When you have a writers' room, the question is, who is in it? Who is there to discuss what works, what seems real, what is offensive, what shouldn't be said? We know this is a problem for Hollywood because it's been a slow go when it comes to getting black writers, black producers and black creators to make these series, and because there have been complaints and even takedowns of elements in series, based on the tone deafness that occurs when people who aren't directly connected to what the storyline of a show is about, are responsible for presenting it to the millions watching, who know better.

And I'm not saying this show was specifically offensive in any way, just that it didn't distinguish itself enough to make a lasting impression for most viewers and I think that was due to the people creating the series.

Part of the reason the show had any success at all was that Bill Cosby stepped in and advocated for it at the time, and that got things moving in a better direction. Cosby became a consultant on the program, which made the show work better in its second season.

Of course, "Where I Live" wasn't intended to be a "teachable moment" for an audience of mostly kids, as ABC's "TGIF" was designed to be "family oriented" material. But in a way, that's exactly what it should have been. Rather than trying to fit this series into the standard one-liner, insult comedy, kids-know-more-than-their-parents style humor that eventually spread throughout the programs of Nickelodeon and Disney Channel a few years later, this could have been both funny and educational and dealt with how parents saw the world and why they made the choices and set the rules the way they did. You could still have had Doug and his pals out carousing around the neighborhood, but when his parents chided him for the actions, they could have explained how and why that mattered, in a way that didn't sound like a lecture, and still kept the lighthearted feeling as a part.

But that's why "The Cosby Show" worked where many others did not - it never dissolved into stereotypes, it continually checked itself for how real the storylines seemed, they actually had Black writers and consultants as a part of the creative team and they refused to talk down to the audience at any time. Treating the viewer as having some intelligence is generally a good idea.

Still, this show did have some worthwhile moments even through all of the rough patches, and it helped align Doug E. Doug with Bill Cosby, a connection that would have an impact on his career, later.

Lorne Michaels is best known for being the creator and, as of 2024, the current producer of NBC's long running sketch comedy series, "Saturday Night Live." This is Mr. Michaels' first appearance on this list of the 400 Most Notable Shows Set in New York City, as he served as executive producer for the series in question... "Mulaney."

The year was 2014. "Seinfeld" had stopped creating new episodes some sixteen years before. That's enough time to recreate that series for a new generation of viewers, right?

Now, I don't mean to say that "Mulaney" was simply plagiarizing "Seinfeld" for their own fun and profit at all, except in one way: In every way possible!

Each episode of the show began with John Mulaney (played by John Mulaney) doing a stand up comedy routine for an audience (John Mulaney is a comic, just like the real John Mulaney), which sets up the plot for that week's episode. Does this sound at all familiar?

Wait till I tell you the rest. Mulaney is surrounded by wacky friends and neighbors that involve themselves in his life, whether he wants them to, or not. His housemates Jane (Nasim Pedrad) who was a college buddy and a perpetually heartbroken fitness trainer, and Motif (Seaton Smith) a fellow stand up, act as sounding boards, comic inspiration, continued support and/or conflict generators.

Additionally, his neighbor Oscar, played by Elliot Gould, offered wizened wisdom or wisecracks, whichever was needed at the moment. Andre, (Zack Pearlman) John's frenemy and frequent visitor, made a living by comically selling drugs, but let's keep that on the D. L.

And last but definitely not least is Martin Short in the role of Lou Cannon, a long time show biz trooper and a current game show host: think Regis Philbin meets Richard Dawson, only much more obnoxious. Cannon hires John to write material for him, so when he shoots off his mouth, something funny will come out.

The differences in the plots of "Mulaney" and "Seinfeld" can be chalked up to the differences in the jobs John and Jerry had before they did their respective sitcoms. Mulaney was a writer on "Saturday Night Live" but rarely appeared on camera during his tenure with the show. That explains the character of Mulaney being a writer of jokes for a different personality.

And there was some element about how Mulaney was trying to be a better person who struggled with that attempt because of the people in his sphere, but that thread often got lost in the attempts to make the show funnier.

The SNL connection was everywhere - Both Martin Short and Nasim Pedrad were regular players on that show before they joined this cast. Elliot Gould was one of the first "5 Time Hosts" of SNL. And of course, Lorne behind the scenes.

New York played a part because of the comedy club scene, the talk shows and game shows that are filmed here and the basic fact that you could run into someone odd or comical or really annoying as soon as you open your front door.

"Mulaney" may not have reached that rarified level of success, because, just like 383's "Platypus Man," they didn't have that extra element... they didn't have a Larry David to turn the Stone Soup of "Seinfeld" into a delicious and hilarious concoction. John Mulaney even described the show's premise as "a show without a premise." Oh, so, a SHOW ABOUT NOTHING, John??

It's also notable that this series was first developed at NBC. But then after tweaking it a couple of times, they passed on it, making The Peacock the ultimate arbiter in what's funny... and what is not.

Fashion is a mainstay in NYC and we have shows related to that topic from every era. This one had potential, with some serious comic star power.

What we have with "Needles and Pins" is a mixed bag of elements from various TV tropes. There's the demanding but kind-hearted boss, Nathan, played by Norman Fell. He runs the Lorelei Fashion House. There's the buttinski family member, Harry, that's Louis Nye in a flamboyant role as Fell's brother. And our fish out of water is Deirdre Lenihan, she's Wendy, a young designer fresh from the Midwest, determined to make it in NYC because she thinks she's that good.

Most of the comedy in this series comes from mistakes, as Wendy is mistaken for a fashion model when she walks in and gets hired because she did such a good job wearing the clothes, nobody bothered to find out she designs them. Or someone ordered the wrong textiles from the factory and then there was a need to figure out what to do with them once they were on hand.

Bernie Kopell is the brand label's main salesman, and his role provided a stabilizing force within the cast, something he would do in nearly all of the roles in his long and illustrious career. Yes, he got some funny lines, but much of the time, he was there to give some credibility to some wild circumstances.

In many episodes, the plots of the series seemed like just an excuse for Mr. Nye to dress up in fancy frocks and emote, which he originally did as part of the cast of "The Steve Allen Show" (where we also first met Bill Dana's character, José Jiménez, from 396's "The Bill Dana Show"). And also it gave Norman Fell an opportunity to either yell about or do a slow burn over the screw ups that befell the company.

And, of course, there had to be an archrival, and that was long-time character actor Milton Seltzer who played Julius, owner of a competitor fashion house who Nathan was sure was stealing his ideas and plans. You might even say that this was a leftover from the Cold War, as the "spy activity" presented here was very similar to the programs of the mid 1960s, less so, the current programs of 1973.

New York plays a part because it's all about fashion, selling garments to the local department stores, the hustle and bustle of the neighborhood and the various characters involved in producing a line, including union workers, pattern cutters, and the label's bookkeeper, Sonia, played by Sandra Deel, who tried her best to keep the company out of the red. Oh, and there was that one episode where a blizzard hits NYC, stranding the Lorelei employees with the despised Julius.

Honestly, nobody learned anything about how a fashion label actually worked from this show, and they didn't even use the hit song of the same name as the theme, or at least call the show "Needles and Pinzah!" Now, THAT would have been funny!

I think the lack of trust coming from the boss man, Nathan, made this somewhat exhausting, if not very predictable. And they didn't make enough use of Wendy's fish out of water tale when it came to plots.

On the other hand, perhaps the show's title was accurate, as all of the needling the castmates did with each other formed the basis for everything, and eventually led to the show's cancellation.

In 1988, Hollywood gave us a terrific version of the most frequently told tale of any: Cinderella. That film starred Melanie Griffith as the lead character, trying to catch the attention of the prince, Harrison Ford, and draw him away from the wicked stepsister, Sigourney Weaver, with the help of her best friend and fairy godmother, Joan Cusack while she hoped to help prevent her corporation from a hostile takeover.

And a couple of years later we got this TV adaptation. Where the film version of this story follows the Cinderella legend (and really improves upon it, from my perspective), this TV adaptation really couldn't. How could you drag that story out week after week of a regular series?

But some things did remain the same. The lead character was Tess McGill, and that's Sandra Bullock. She's still from Staten Island, taking the ferry right past the Statue of Liberty, to the subway, to her office. The program's theme song was, just like the movie, the Oscar winning "Let the River Run" (sung by someone who sounded as much like Carly Simon as the budget could afford), and Tess had a pal, Lana (Judy Prescott) also from the neighborhood who works with and hangs with her both at the office, on coffee breaks and at lunch, and occasionally around the homestead.

Tess got a promotion from the company owner, Mr. Trask (Tom O'Rourke) which tossed her from the secretary pool into the shark tank. The vast majority of the antagonism comes from a woman boss lady named Bryn Newhouse that seemed to be standing in the way of Tess and her attempts to rise up the ranks. That's Nana Visitor, in what clearly is based on the oppressive Sigourney Weaver role.

New elements that got added in this version of the story are Bryn's executive secretary played by Eyde Byrde, who sympathetically helped Tess out wherever she could, Everett (George Newbern) who also attempted to climb that corporate ladder, step for step with Tess, a local guy named Sal (Anthony Tyler Quinn) who romantically pursued Tess back in Staten Island, and Tess' parents (David Schramm and B. J. Ward), who provided a little homelife angst away from the office issues.

To the credit of the series, there wasn't any one single love interest that the female lead characters were vying for as in the movie; most of the competition is directly related to the elements of business and how Ms. Newhouse lorded her power over Tess and attempted to slap her down at every opportunity. But the irrepressible Tess thrived, handling unexpected assignments, dealing with problems and setbacks and keeping her positive energy afloat.

New York played a part because of the split between Ms. McGill's home and work space, a gap that seems much wider than New York Harbor, that interesting time when women would commute to their jobs in running shoes and then change into their high heels at the office, and the need to stay focused and ready for work because anything can either make you a fortune or create the need to file for Chapter 11, based on a single action.

What I feel was unfair about the show's construction is based on that last point - Ms. Newhouse was leading an office and attempting to make sure everything was up to her extremely high standards, but the point should have been that women were not commonly in charge of businesses, even in 1990. So, there would have been legitimate reasons for Newhouse to make demands, as she positioned her division and herself to have success.

For the most part, her criticisms were played for comedic effect, and displayed, more or less, as capricious attacks on a slightly younger employee, who at times was even seen as a threat instead of help.

Even though Tess might have viewed Newhouse that way, I think if they had balanced those requisite complaints with the facts, this might have made more sense within the plots, justified the reactions in a way that viewers could relate with and helped make Newhouse seem less like a shrewish banshee, without losing any of the comic effect.

And then, there's Sandy's hair, which was its own sitcom! The production stills included tell the story and while some of them look okay, no. Just, no. And Tess' Staten Island accent was also a crucial part of the laughs, though the audience was told Tess was attending "speech class" at night school to improve on that. I guess the intention would have been that Tess slowly starts to lose that accent as she would have improved her business sense while the series continued.

In the end, this televised "Working Girl" wasn't nearly as focused or fun as the film version, which put this incarnation of Tess back on the subway to South Ferry a lot faster than she wanted to be.

In 1944, a film about a St. Louis Priest who got relocated to an impoverished neighborhood in New York City to help a group of wayward boys, became a smash hit. Bing Crosby played the priest and it went on to win a slew of Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actor for Mr. Crosby and Best Song for the hit "Swingin' on a Star"

Then, in 1962, a very different time and place, though the very same location, we got this television adaptation.

In this small screen adaptation of "Going My Way," Gene Kelly essentially plays the Crosby role of Father Chuck O'Malley who is less focused on the youth of the parish than the character was in the movie. That's because Tom, Fr. O'Malley's friend, played by Dick York, also helped out around the Cathedral, and ran a program for kids and teens. Also, crucial was Leo G. Carroll as Father Fitzgibbon, in charge and who had the final say on all the decisions to be made.

The interest in the Catholic Church was reaching a peak at this moment in history. After all, America had its first Catholic President in the White House as this show was first broadcast. Really, the plots of the series could reasonably be seen as a kind of PR statement for the Kennedy Administration. And the interests of the church were on display in how they helped their parishioners.

New York played a part in a lot of ways here, as the city was still evolving into what it would become. For example, construction of The Pan Am Building was still ongoing and could be seen in the opening credits of this series. And the run down neighborhood depicted here was yet another of the places that became gentrified and turned into some of the most valuable property on the planet. It's something else to attach to the name, Robert Moses.

But also the Church had a hold on The City (and to some degree, still does). And it's within that control that the archdiocese has that gave it an immediate sense of importance - through the stories that allowed the characters to display their goodwill and caring. Everyone needs a little help through a world where not everything is nice. And it's just a great comfort to have someone to whom you can share your troubles, deal with your problems and will listen and support what you're attempting to do. That's where this show shines brightly.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the series was a lack of conflict. Both Fr. O'Malley and Tom were hard-working, dutiful, caring, helpful and kind guys. They were basically the same character, only Tom was not married to the cloth. And even when they pitched their concepts to Fr. Fitzgibbon, there wasn't a lot of friction involved. Every show needs a little bit of a battle to push the concepts being offered and to challenge the audience to take a side. If there's only a little discord, then that opportunity is lost.

The other, more practical, problem was that the second half of "Going My Way" ran opposite the Number One show on all of television: "The Beverly Hillbillies" on CBS, so it's likely that the bulk of America never got to see Kelly in his collar.

It's not often that a television series attempts to push the envelope on a social issue, but this program was one that tried to do it, even as it presented itself as a standard cop show.

Lieutenant John Hawk, as played by Burt Reynolds, was an NYPD detective working with the DA's office on various cases. But Hawk wasn't just a detective, he was a full blooded Iroquois tribesman. Elements of the show had Hawk battling not just the "bad guys," but also fellow officers whose racism and prejudice had them challenging and attempting to diminish his accomplishments.

Notably Mr. Reynolds did have some Native American blood on his father's side of the family. He was part Cherokee and was playing an Indian on the CBS western, "Gunsmoke" before he got this role, his first lead in any TV or film production.

Hawk had a partner, Detective Dan Carter, played by Wayne Grice. Just in case the issues of racism weren't obvious enough for you, Hawk's partner was a Black American, which may have been an attempt to capitalize on another popular series of the day, "I Spy." Carter was what we would call today, a nerd: a by the book, stay out of trouble, high intelligence level cop just out to do the job. He was the opposite of Hawk, low-key, avoid the confrontation and keep the peace kind of fellow.

The way they handled the story of Hawk's history was an interesting choice. There were some episodes of the series where it didn't come into play at all, while others where it was a major part of the storyline. It's clear that they were really trying to have the issue of Hawk's heritage be a part of the plot in organic ways, rather than it being a requisite element of every week's episode.

Also important was that Burt Reynolds did just about all of his own stunts in the show. If a fight scene needed to be a part of that week's episode, it was Burt throwing the punches, which added a level of gritty realism to the process. And, of course, there were a lot of fight scenes to be done.

New York played a part in that Hawk was typically a "Second Shifter," so he was working nights and overnights. The bright lights of the Big City came into play, as Hawk drove around town in his blue 1966 Pontiac Bonneville with the siren light on the dashboard. So stylish!

Burt even got to direct an episode or two of the series as it ran, which gave him more opportunities to slug the bad guys and show off the sights and sounds of New York, as the series was filmed on location.

Thanks to Reynolds' eventual success in acting, this show has has managed to remain on the pop culture scene, though the elements of his ancestry might bring the question of cultural appropriation, nowadays. After all, his Native roots were barely acknowledged in any of his roles that followed.

The fatal problem for the program was the schedule. "Hawk" ran opposite the hugely popular "The Dean Martin Show" on NBC, and even a straight-shooting cop like Hawk couldn't outrun a Rat Packer.

By the mid 2000s, MTV had fully embraced the whole concept of Reality television, as the bulk of their programming at the time were shows of that genre. Yes, they did still have blocks of music just to keep the "M" in their name relevant, but it was clear they were moving away from the videos that gave life to the network, as much as they could. This is a classic example of what they were attempting to do at the time.

"The City" isn't even a spinoff. It's a spinoff OF a spinoff. The original show, titled "Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County" was a series that wanted to depict the lives and surroundings that was being dramatized on the Fox scripted series, "The O. C." at the time. It was about High Schoolers in their last couple of years before deciding what was coming next.

That show lead to "The Hills," which focused on a small group of graduates starting their careers in fashion related jobs in Los Angeles. One of the main people in that cast was Whitney Port, who became a popular favorite. So, when she got offered a chance to come to New York and work for designer Diane Von Furstenberg, we got this series.

That whole "Fish Out of Water" thing works, even if you're not doing comedy. Here, Whitney and her co-workers, roomies, pals and love interests are learning about just how to deal with NYC and have to make those adjustments on the fly because this is the big time, and time is money, and money is needed.

The construction of the show was similar to that of "The Hills," where the narrator of the program was the show's main focus. Here, Whitney sets up each episode (as Lauren Conrad was doing for the bulk of "The Hills") and leads us through the events depicted.

It wouldn't be a show of this genre without some serious drama, and the clash of personality, the manipulations of opportunity, the love interests gone wrong and the co-worker clashes gone worse all figured into the plots.

And it wouldn't be an MTV series without some product placement, and there were plenty of opportunities, as the women had to have their Starbuck's to get their day started, the restaurants they attended to go on dates, and of course the designer labels they wore as their costumes, all part of the featured items during the run.

The problem seemed to be that a lot of the "reality" on this reality series wasn't even mildly real. There were questions about the relationships shown, the people who became part of the series, even Olivia Palermo's position with Elle Magazine and Whitney's alleged job with the DVF label was unclear. Was it all just some excuse to create this series, even though it wasn't really happening?

Still, New York plays a part because "7th on Sixth" is Fashion Week, which is where the designers present their latest fall or spring lines, depending on what season is coming, and that is crucial for success. You can't fake that. And learning the ins and outs of the fashion world is needed if you wanted to be in production or in Public Relations, and all of that was standard fact.

In the end, "The City" didn't quite distinguish itself, even from its direct parent series, "The Hills." That blame has to be placed on the producers, who had to have found some elements that were different enough and New York enough to make that the focus, even with those two programs sharing a common theme and even a couple of personalities. And with the alleged "doctored" storylines and employment opportunities, why would this show even mildly resemble the other?

If you start examining the History of Television, like you might do if you wanted to take a look at all of the shows set in a particular place, certain patterns become easily seen.

The year we're talking about for this series is 1985. The "Nighttime Soap Opera" is in full swing, with the highly rated "Dallas" on CBS and "Dynasty" on ABC. Then, this came along.

Lorimar was the production company responsible for "Berrenger's." They already were taking up three hours on the CBS weekly schedule with their shows, "Knots Landing," "Falcon Crest" and "Dallas," so when this show got pitched, it seems like the Peacock just jumped in immediately, looking to get in on the trend.

Of course, every Soap needed a some big industry attached as a backdrop for the action. Both "Dallas" and "Dynasty" had Oil, "Falcon Crest" had Wine, and you might say "Knots Landing" had Sex... what with all of the bed hopping going on in that cul-de-sac!

"Berrenger's" was about the dynamic and high-powered world of Retail Sales. It was set in a Department Store. The central location for filming "Berrenger's" was in fact the Main Floor of Barney's New York at 7th Avenue and 17th Street.

Of course, the story centered on the family running this business, the Berrenger patriarch, Simon, being Sam Wanamaker and his eldest son Paul played by Ben Murphy was the store president, and Paul was having an extra-marital fling with the VP played by French actress, Yvette Mimieux.

You needed a collection of people to tell the tale, so, there's the rest of the family, their concubines, the store employees, designers and the press covering the events surrounding the retailer, all filling out the roster.

Oh, and let's not miss the antagonist to the family, the head of a business conglomerate that seems to have a personal vendetta against Simon Berrenger, portrayed by Cesar Romero.

New York played a part because of all the department stores that were still in business at the time, and the elements of high level shopping experiences was absolutely an experience when you came to NYC. In fact the higher level stores are the ones that have survived, like Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdoff Goodman.

But, let's be frank. Speaking as a former sales manager for a well-known, real life department store, It's a bit difficult to turn the doings that happen in a location like that into some sort of earth-shattering drama. But, I suppose if you have a corrupt and horny family running the show, you might get some action.

What this could have been, and maybe what this should have been, was a parody, done in a camp style, of all of those other shows as the setting was ideal to skewer the self-importance of these Soap Operas, but played straight. And actually, certain scenes unintentionally did this if you get to see any clips of the program. The following year, the TV miniseries, "Fresno" came close to doing precisely that, depicting the battles between two feuding Raisin producing families.

If you tried to do a show like this now, all of the drama would come from the store fighting to survive in a world where everybody buys their items online. And that probably would be more sad than dramatic. Or I guess you could have it set at an online retailer, where A. I. robots are starting to replace the humans running things. But maybe Artificial Intelligence would make this too real? And with the price of real estate, it wouldn't and couldn't be set in NYC.

The trends and the tropes of Television are usually pretty obvious. If a show has some success, networks want to duplicate that while the trend is happening, even using the actors involved in that previous hit show, if possible. This is an example of that TV trope.

The Television program "Lost" was unique for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was it set up a core question: Science vs. Faith. Maybe it was a core struggle, because the debate was played out by two leaders who survived the crash of Oceanic Flight 815 - a surgeon who wanted the proof of everything, and a paraplegic who was suddenly ambulatory on this island and never questioned it.

Of course, it took awhile for viewers to get to that point, but the fact is, all of the intrigue of the location, all of the backstories of the characters, all of the connections and Easter Eggs and mysteries that were dropped into that series had fans obsessed. They even created an "unofficial" official website for the show: "Lostpedia," which covered everything surrounding the series, including the online promos and extras that weren't even a part of the events on the program!

There were a bunch of shows in the wake of "Lost" that featured supernatural elements and/or mysteries as a motif, and several of them included actors from that series.

Here, Terry O'Quinn, the "Man of Faith" from "Lost,"' is on a different magical island: Manhattan. He plays a Billionaire named Gavin Doran, who, along with his wife Olivia, played by Vanessa Williams, own a strange building, located at 999 Park Avenue. It's a luxury residence hotel called "The Drake," but it seems... that it seems like... it's more than it seems.

As the series begins, the Dorans had just hired another couple, Jane (Rachael Taylor) and Henry (Dave Annable), to be the new co-managers of the hotel. The previous managers, we were told, moved "someplace warmer."

Jane and Henry are pinching themselves that they are assigned to run one of the prime properties in one of the most affluent parts of town, with a spectacular apartment of their own to live in. Olivia takes Jane shopping for a new wardrobe, and then Jane finds some unique items, several with a figure of a dragon, in the storage space below, that she starts to research.

People's wishes appear to be coming true, but it also seems like people are disappearing and are never heard from, again. The clear implication from both the events of the program and its title is that the Dorans are a couple of demons and the whole thing is a front to capture the weak.

The saving grace seems to be a teen resident, Nona, played by Samantha Logan. She tries to keep a low profile, but apparently Nona is both aware of the elements going on around The Drake and has some supernatural abilities of her own that may help track and rescue some of these poor devils. But what is she all about?

New York plays a part in that there's always mysterious things going on, and many people believe you must have sold your soul to live on the Upper East Side.

Most importantly, the edifice at the center of the show is crucial. The Ansonia is a well-known landmark, famous for having been the home of Babe Ruth when he was playing for the New York Yankees. The ornate, intricate and unmistakable architecture of the building lends itself to being ominous and odd, as it also played a similar part in the movie thriller, "SWF." However, it's nowhere near Park Avenue; it's at Broadway and 73rd. Still the look and the cinematography of the setting is sufficiently creepy to get you in a properly disturbed frame of mind.

The question is why would the Dorans hire a couple that wasn't in on the plot from the start, and who might be finding out a lot more of the things the Dorans may not want them to know? Were they attempting to "ease" them into the idea, grooming them to eventually take over for themselves? Were they hoping they would happily follow their rules and do whatever is asked of them? Or might they simply be the next pair sent "someplace warmer?"

That always seems to be the problem when it comes to these shows with unexplained phenomena; maybe the writers didn't actually come up with the answers that would have made sense of the story, and then poof! The program, and all its unsolved mysteries, suddenly disappears.

First, a bit of background. "Feud" is an anthology series based on factual information. In 2017, it examined the real life rift between actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.

For the 2024 season (which is why this qualifies as one of the 400 Most Notable TV Shows set in New York), Ryan Murphy and his team looked at the incredulous account woven by one of the most notable social climbers in NYC History: Truman Capote. The majority of the episodes were directed by Gus Van Zant, the show's theme was composed by Thomas Newman, while the show's score was crafted by Mr. Newman's daughter, Julia Newman.

Capote's greatest written story wasn't even his own. It was the tale of four members of a Kansas family who were murdered. In Cold Blood became a massive hit in the mid 1960s and Capote's construction of the facts explained it all in a way unlike any "true crime" book before it. That narrative was responsible for reinventing the crime story and for that, Capote should always be considered a great author.

Of course, his novella from 1951, Breakfast at Tiffany's had a well-received screen adaptation some ten years later, starring Audrey Hepburn, music by Henry Mancini.

As Capote became the toast of the literary world throughout the 1960s, he began to enter circles that only the rarified few could negotiate. In addition to appearing on talk shows, where he could prattle on about life as he saw it, Truman began to meet and make friends with businessmen, brokers of industry, well-known performers, and the idle rich. The women of this group all had their own stories, their own quirks and their own demons. Quite often, they had no one they could share their problems with, as their husbands were off doing something (or someone) else, much of the time.

Capote would throw parties at the downtown clubs, have coffee klatches in the high-rises along Central Park, dine out at the finest Manhattan eateries and be a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, a comfort for these ladies, which he dubbed his "Swans."

The fun carried on through the turn of the decade, but in November of 1975, perhaps because he was getting bored, possibly because he had the story and knew it would be a good one to tell, maybe he wanted to expose the hypocrisy of the lifestyles of these rich and famous ladies, or was it that he was neck deep in substance abuse and just needed some ready cash, Capote wrote a piece for Esquire Magazine. In fact, this was to be a passage from his forthcoming novel, titled "Answered Prayers" which just happened to be about the world he occupied and all of the people in it.

That original article - "La Côte Basque, 1965" is where the "vs." in the show's title becomes important. The article is available to read online, and I'd suggest you do, as it sets up the entirety of this series perfectly. Salacious and outrageous are two appropriate adjectives!

If you chose not to read the text, not to worry. The gist is that "Jonesy" (Capote) goes to lunch with "Lady Ina Coolbirth" (Capote's friend, Nancy "Slim" Keith) and they have a chat over a couple of bottles of Cristal and overhear others having their conversations at the surrounding booths.

Capote spilled the tea on all of his friends, with barely "blind item" status. The veil was so thin on their identities, The Emperor's New Clothes provided more concealment. He used actual names in some cases. And for those who still couldn't figure out the unidentified people in his piece, gossip columnist Liz Smith filled in the blanks once that issue of the magazine hit the newsstands!

The cast of characters is an all-star lineup, with the following actresses playing The Swans of Import:

Calista Flockhart played Lee Radziwill, younger sister to former First Lady Jackie Kennedy. Chloë Sevigny was the sports and gardening obsessed C. Z. Guest. Diane Lane was Nancy "Slim" Keith. Molly Ringwald portrayed the ex to a very popular television host of the day, Joanne Carson. Demi Moore is the woman many people in America believed got away with murdering her husband, Ann "Bang Bang" Woodward. And finally, Naomi Watts was Capote's most adored Swan, Babe Paley, wife of longtime CBS Chairman William S. Paley (with Paley himself played by the late Treat Williams).

Then, there is the man himself. Tom Hollander played Truman Capote, and he managed to channel the author without dissolving into an over-the-top impersonation, something that impressionist comics like Rich Little were doing regularly on every variety series at the height of Truman's fame.

New York played a part because the it's the seat of the Social Register, The workspace and the playground of the wealthiest, and the crossroads of all of these divergent arenas of success. Yes, the geography of this series covered coast to coast and points South, but NYC was included in every episode.

This is a decidedly rosier and somewhat romanticized version of the story, both from the POV of The Swans, who mostly were completely offended by Capote's insouciance at airing all their dirty laundry in front of the world, and who were, by all accounts, NOT forgiving, and to Truman's love relationships, with the men he chose to love and then dump when they became bothersome, or when he chose booze and pills over them.

Still, it is a fascinating portrait of a relationship dynamic that could have only occurred when it did, and could have only happened with the people who were involved, in the only location where it could have taken place: New York.

New York is noted for a number of things. There are programs related to fashion. We have a whole lot of shows where dating and looking for love is part of the story. And then there are the shows dealing with law enforcement. In a way, this show touches on all three.

"Eye Candy" is (very loosely) based on the novel of the same name by R. L. Stine.

Lindy (Justice) sees her kid sis acting out and hooking up with a guy in the wake of the death of their mother. When they stop for a burger at a drive thru, where Lindy hopes to have a heart-to-heart talk about it, Lindy helplessly watched the sis get tossed into a van and was driven away before she could stop it.

Years later, Lindy, who since dropped out of MIT, worked for a computer firm in New York, and started her own cybersearch cottage industry by helping others find their loved ones, using the tech at her job to aid the search.

Meanwhile her roommate encouraged her to start dating through a popular app. The name of the series is the handle Lindy used on the dating site. But when a serial killer appears to be targeting women through that app. Lindy seeks the stalker while she was still looking for clues about her missing sister.

Helping Lindy are Tommy (Casey Deidrick) an NYPD detective, George (Harvey Guillén), Lindy's coworker at her computer job, her roommate and best friend Sophia (Kiersey Clemons) and Sophia's friend Connor (John Garet Stoker).

The hook to this series is the style, as it was on MTV, so the look of the series does reflect a music video sensibility, the focus on computers, women, the tech and the elements of danger posed in the cyber world pushed this forward. Let's also note this show was made in 2015, so maybe it was slightly ahead of its time... or maybe it was right on time?

The weaving of the stories, from the search for the missing girl, to the examination of the dating app killer, to the help Lindy provides to those that come to her for aid in finding their missing is combined with video style cinematography, effects and quick cuts, fast and slow motion, designed to give viewers that feel of intensity.

New York plays a part because the city is both a hiding place and a meeting place for people and with the geography and the sheer numbers, there's a lot of ground for Lindy to cover, with many people also looking for those they have lost.

The problem, according to some critics at the time, suggested the program placed style over substance when it came to the story. The visual impact of the series was seen as far more important than the plot making sense. Still others say this show took the original Stine novel and expanded it in a much more successful way.

No matter what, having a woman computer expert at the center of a crime drama was a big step in representation and may have helped inspire more women to at least consider a career in programming and/or investigation. For that, "Eye Candy" has earned its place on the list.

There are some performers that are just so packed with talent, they could either potentially do anything or are so difficult to categorize they are challenging to find the proper role for. And there are others who have such a unique life story, producers want to tap into that element and maybe use some of those facts to help create stories. That gets us right to "Kristin."

Kristin Chenoweth is the person I'm talking about when it came to those elements of both incredible talent and interesting life story. And this show was intended to be tailor made for her.

Here, a secretary named Kristin leaves her native Oklahoma to come to New York to pursue her dream of acting. What she doesn't know is that Tommy (Jon Tenney), the guy who hired her from a local NYC Baptist Church congregation, needed to use her good graces; he planned to use Kristin to help repair his image after a sexual scandal threatened his career (we're talking the summer of 2001 here). Tommy was apparently a sex addict, as there were a number of scandals to mop up, and it seems he was somewhat attracted to Kristin, as well.

Plots of the show involved the homespun wisdom of the titiular secretary who displayed more religious virtuosity at times than you might get on an episode of "The 700 Club" and Tommy's constant need to use her to clean up some other issue that the press was having a field day with, regarding his personal life.

Kristin was aided in her personal odyssey by her best friend Santa (Ana Ortiz) and by her Reverend from the church (Christopher Durang). While Tommy had his assistant Aldo (Larry Romano) and employee Tyrique (Dale Godboldo) to lean on.

What's most puzzling is how they had all of the puzzle pieces to make a really inciteful, interesting and genuinely funny series and it just didn't fit. And there were so many ways they could have gone with it!

They could have focused on Kristin's personal story, being from Oklahoma and her attempts to audition for roles and the elements involved with that. They could have more closely examined the religious side of things, with the relationships within the church, and placed that in context with New York, generally, and made commentary about how organized religion had been declining for many reasons for many years. They could have had Tommy and Kristin hashing out more about their differences and their similarities, with maybe each of them on the opposite side of an issue, and by the end of an episode, wound up agreeing about it. There was a subtle Devil vs. Angel undercurrent going on in the narrative. They might as well have gone to the max with that concept.

Heck, they could have even done the standard "Fish Out of Water" thing and had Kristin dealing with the culture shock of leaving the tiny town she was from into the biggest city on the continent. PLENTY of material to draw on there, as so many other shows have done!

And there was the most glaring issue: all but ignoring Cheno's amazing singing voice. If her character wasn't a member of a choir or if she wasn't striving to succeed in show biz, I could see leaving that element out. But the thing was, it would have been perfectly fine to have Kristin sing regularly, since she could have performed Operatic passages or Hymns without there being a problem with current or future royalties.

In the end, it was probably best that this show didn't become successful. If it did, Cheno likely would have stayed with it for a few years and wouldn't have had the chance to audition for an alternate take on the story of "The Wizard of Oz" on Broadway. That would have been a Wicked shame.

Much like 380's "For The People" (1965), it kind of makes this show more notable for its cancelation than its existence!

The one, most important, basic rule about any game show is this: it should have very basic rules. There shouldn't be any questions about the questions; there should be no confusion for the audience regarding how the game is played.

Secondly, game shows should have good pacing. That means the show shouldn't lag or move too quickly for a viewer to follow.

Last, a good game show engages the viewer best if they can play along with the contestant. That could be anything from choosing the strategy to succeed, to giving correct responses for the win.

The most successful, enduring and popular games have all three of these things: Simple Rules, Good Pacing and Ability For a Viewer to Play Along. Stick a pin in that.

Television and Game Shows have had a love affair throughout their mutual existence (with the exception of the infamous "Quiz Show Scandals" of 1957 and 58, which brought about major changes and reform in how producers and TV networks handled their games).

This particular wave of the game show craze began in earnest in 1999 with "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" That show became a phenomenon and launched a bunch of other "big money" games by nearly every network, with none of them as successful as "Millionaire."

Then there were the "torture" games - where a contestant had to endure physical issues to win cash. The reality game, "Survivor" was the first high profile version of this type of game.

At some point, someone thought of combining those two types of games and making it into a kind of hybrid, so, as an example, you had a show called "The Chamber," where a contestant was required to answer trivia questions in either a super heated or below freezing room.

That's where this program comes in.

In 2013, "The Million Second Quiz" was advertised as one of the biggest money giveaways in television history. There was a suggestion that someone could win twelve million dollars, or possibly more! And, the whole thing was going to be live on camera, something no game show had done in decades.

A call was put out for trivia experts and I was one of the people recruited to be a potential contestant.

To be sure, they needed a lot of players; the quiz, as the show's name implies, was to last a Million Seconds, or roughly 11 days. It was a game show that once it began, continued until the time was up, 24/7. Sleep depravation was an actual factor in this game, which was the "torture" element of the game.

The player in control of the game was seated in what was called "The Money Chair." When you were in The Money Chair, your butt was earning ten dollars a second, every second. However you had a line of challengers to face you in what they called "bouts." Bouts were timed, one-on-one matches of trivia questions, loser goes back to the contestant pool, winner gets to sit in The Money Chair.

For the record, there were short breaks between each bout, so contestants weren't continually answering questions, and could take time for a bathroom break or to grab a snack.

Got it so far?

The rules of the game changed during the prime time show. That's when Ryan Seacrest stepped in and hosted the program. During the NBC telecast portion of the show, additional rules happened, including the ability to pass a question to your opponent and making them answer it for double the value of the question, or having that contestant pass the question back to the original contestant for four times the value.

Still with me?

If you were one of the top four earners on the show, you got to move into what they called "Winner's Row," an actual residence with a kitchen and bedroom that the top Money Chair players were living in during the game, as they awaited to see if anyone could challenge or catch them. The top four contestants were supposed to have kept the cash they earned at the end of the Million Seconds.

And you could watch a lot of what was happening when the show wasn't being broadcast on the show's website, which had cameras located in the contestant pool, on the set, and in other places.

That's the abbreviated version of how the game is played! Next, let's move on to the show's Emcee.

It's no Seacrest... er secret that Ryan wanted to pattern his life after one of his heroes: Dick Clark. He hosted radio shows, singing competitions, he even got to insert himself into the annual "New Year's Rockin' Eve" program after awhile. But being a game show host was part of that package too, as Mr. Clark hosted "Pyramid" for years.

During the show's "off-hours," an announcer would read the questions and the players would give their responses. Like I said, this game never stopped.

And New York played a part because some contestants in searches across the country got flown here to play the game. An enormous, open-air rooftop set called "The Hourglass" was the location (it was right near the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, so you got some midtown skyline views). In fact, New York weather also played a part as a major set of thunderstorms passed through during one of the prime time shows, forcing the producers to use their emergency indoor studio.

Remember those three rules of a good game show? "The Million Second Quiz" barely had one of them: ability for a viewer to play along. And, in fact, that's how they were getting more contestants. The show's website would record the answers you gave, if you registered your name and email. The problem was the site crashed, leaving a lot of angry trivia players wondering if they would even get a chance.

I hope I'm allowed to share my story with this program... I got to sit in The Money Chair. I had been waiting around for almost 24 hours before I got called to play a bout. It must have been about 8am, the next day. I didn't get to be on the glittering Hourglass set or even their shiny indoor set. I was in a little room with a canvas director's chair as The Money Chair, and with Playstation 3 controllers to buzz in with the correct answers! This, a supposed big money NBC game!

I knocked off one of the "Top 4" players and won the Chair, then started earning my own money from zero dollars.

I got close to making it to Winner's row and at least having a reprieve, but I only earned about $92,000 before losing in a tiebreak to another challenger, who likely wasn't awake for as long as I was. If you didn't earn as much as the lowest of the 4 "Winner's Row" contestants, you went back to zero and had the opportunity to go back into the contestant pool.

So, I was on the show without actually being "on" the telecast. I never even got to meet Ryan Seacrest. An announcer read my stack of questions, though he congratulated me on how well I did, based on how little sleep I had.

In the end, the ratings for "MSQ" were terrible, and it was a rare game where fewer people watched the final episode than the premiere. Of all of the prime time multimillion dollar game shows in TV history, second by second, this might have been the biggest flop of them all.

Seacrest, out!

I think many people were admirers or even fans of the work of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. That's probably because many of the programs they produced were continually being shown on various networks and local stations throughout the 1960s and 70s.

For the kids viewing these animated series during that era, the revelation came when they grew up, as they realized that just about everything Hanna-Barbera were responsible for was just a parody of somebody else's stuff. Case in point, :"Top Cat."

I'm not kidding when I say the biggest early television successes of Hanna-Barbera were ideas they swiped. Yogi Bear was taken from the name of Hall of Fame Yankees Catcher Yogi Berra. Huckleberry Hound was taken from Hall of Fame Yankees Shortstop, Phil Rizzuto's habit of calling people "huckleberry." And their most enduring series, "The Flintstones," was just "The Honeymooners" set during the Stone Age.

"Top Cat" was the story of a gang of alley cats (back when New York had alleys) and was loosely based on both "The Bowery Boys," a series of short comedy films (that ran very much like "The Three Stooges" shorts) about teenage street toughs who were out for themselves, and "The Phil Silvers Show," aka "Sergeant Bilko." On "Bilko," Silvers played the ringleader of his privates who were always doing something ridiculous on the sly, poker games, parties, having some kind of contraband (like booze, ladies or both) in the barracks, and always got away with everything because the superior officers never managed to catch them.

That's essentially the plot of "Top Cat," with T. C. in the Bilko role and the rest of his cat gang, his subordinates. Arnold Stang, who voiced the lead character, even did a Phil Silvers style vocal characterization, just in case somebody missed the connection!

Officer Dibble was constantly hounding the cats for whatever fun and games they were planning. And of course Top Cat had culture, class and extremely expensive taste, but never the money to afford it, so he was continually plotting ways for the gang to make it out of the alley and to some penthouse apartment building with a get rich quick scheme that always failed. The positive thing was, they never let it get them down. They just tried again, the next time!

New York played a part because the city has those dividing lines between the haves and the have nots, and it was never made more clear when these poor cats were just trying to eke out their survival and were harassed by The Man every step of the way.

Top Cat and his pals were never "bad," but they always managed to bend the rules a little just to get a meal, to have some relaxation from the rat race of the city or just keep their hopes and dreams alive. Dibble was occasionally sympathetic to the gang, but usually would just threaten them or chase them out of the alley when he saw them congregating and plotting their latest ploy.

Of all the shows on my list of 400 shows set in New York City, so far, this is the first one I could fully envision having a reboot, what with the authoritarian style policing and the poor, but intelligent and friendly collection of protagonists looking to have some success. We'd need to add some women cats to the gang, deal with the various elements like governmental interference in the lives of citizens, the patriarchy, the upper and lower class, even the immigration crisis would be topics worthy of exploring. Top Cat vs. The Fat Cats. Maybe current NYC Mayor "Cat-ams" would be more sympathetic to the group than the flatfoot on patrol?

It would be a really neat metaphor, and would have a lot more meaning for an audience than the shlocky plots lifted from a 1950s military sitcom. Imagine "Top Cat," becoming a vessel for sociological change and the discussion of societal problems? That would land the series a lot higher on this list!

The name Wilhelmina is one of the tops in the field of modeling. Named for Model Wilhelmina Cooper, a very prevalent cover girl in her time, who wasn't satisfied with her representation and broke away to form her own agency, they provide talent for runway shows, fashion shoots, commercials, music videos... and their models are constantly in demand.

Let's put this in context. The year was 2006. Film and television actresses were starting to get more magazine covers than their supermodel counterparts (back when magazine covers still mattered). I don't think anyone in the Industry was panicking yet, but it appeared that a shift was occurring in the fashion world, and designers suddenly wanted mannequins that had a different kind of recognition. That's a bit of the backdrop for the world of this reality series.

I think most casual observers of anything related to fashion might view it as a world of self-importance where things that "normal" people would never notice are glaring issues, here.

Enter the team of "The Agency." These intrepid bookers are tasked with finding new talent, getting current models hired, and making sure their agency remains THE Agency. And that's the point of this series. It isn't about the models, it's about the company they work for.

Model Agents are more than just the people who take their 20 and 20 (20 percent fee from the client and 20 percent commission on the model's pay). They are like parental figures, strict taskmasters, educators, and, of course, they have their own problems, which they might just take out on whomever is there at the moment. Freud could have had a field day with this group!

This show pulled no punches and showed some serious spats between Agents, between Models and Agents, even some ugly exchanges with the Agents and prospective models, all in the name of supposedly "getting it right." But a lot of the time, this came off like tantrum throwing, nit-picking, passive-aggressive comments, or just plain aggressive comments. Not everyone expects or would tolerate this kind of treatment from the people who are supposed to be finding them work, which is why there was an episode where a model quit!

That, to me, is why "The Agency" is unavailable to view anywhere in the US and why even the names of the agents at the time (the group's president, Sean Patterson, Pink Francis, Carlos Paz, Lorri Shackelford, Greg Chan, Lola Milligan, Anita Norris and most especially Becky Southwick) seem to have been obscured, too.

The style of how agents work has changed drastically in the past fifteen or so years (I don't believe any booker is telling a model to "lose weight" these days), and that kind of treatment by an agent isn't seen as okay. But it did provide a lot of drama for audiences in the Aughts, and was, generally, true to what was going on at the time, not just at Wilhelmina, but at most, if not all, of the major modeling houses.

New York is absolutely a part because this is the fashion capital of the nation and one of the three most important locations for clothing design in the world, the others being Paris and Milan. There is always big money on the table, with designers able to book a model for an ad campaign, or even making them the face of a clothing line, with paydays running in the four to five figures per job, per day. The glamor, the style, the anger, the fear... it all comes in when the competition is tough, when you're trying to reinvent your brand while still keeping it successful and when anything can set someone off to a tirade of misplaced rage.

Of course, today, Wilhelmina has their own Instagram account which you can peruse, and their minimalist and lovely website with the names and photos of their roster of models to view. The drama that this series blatantly laid bare, is gone now (or at least isn't visible to the outside world), and it seems like that's how they want it, moving forward.

Depending upon when you encountered her, Diana Rigg may have left a vivid impression on you. First she was the stylish, cat suit wearing super spy working with Patrick McNee on the British Import series, "The Avengers." Mrs. Peel was a revelation for the 1960s.

Much later, Rigg returned as The Queen of Thorns, Olenna Tyrell on "Game of Thrones" and was as convincing and incredible in that role as she was in her "Avengers" character.

But in-between those two iconic performances, we had this.

I guess you could say Ms. Rigg was ready to attempt a sitcom, as there were some humour included in "The Avengers" amidst the action and adventure. And certainly the fashion sense she showed would make her a natural to be involved in design.

"Diana" was the story of a London designer named Diana Smythe, who came to work in New York and her issues with what that all was about. Dealing with her new job, her low-key divorce, her new living space at home and the characters that populated each was a lot of what the stories focused on, throughout the run.

It's somewhat obvious that NBC was packaging Ms. Rigg to be a new Mary Tyler Moore, only at an NYC locale instead of a Minneapolis TV station. Barbara Barrie, who appeared at 382 on this list as the aunt of the twins on "Double Trouble" season two, was here as Norma, Diana's buyer and was the absolute comedy star of the show.

Norma's husband, Norman (yeah, I don't get that either), played by David Sheiner, was the department store owner that Diana worked for, and oversaw Diana's work and scrutinized Diana as much as he could. Chauvinism and harassment was still a source of comedy in the 1970s. It goes to show that "Mary Tyler Moore" never went that route with its comedy, which is why that series is still a timeless classic.

New York plays a part because working late for a woman meant potential danger, the typical "men being men" of that era and the elements of creative flow and odd behavior from everyone was just part of the scene. The quirkier you were, the better for the comedy. And everyone knows that New York creative types are nothing but quirky people! It didn't matter, as long as you got the work done, right?

Ms. Rigg wasn't there to deliver the jokes; she was there to react to them. And while Mary Richards was also frequently required to respond to something weird happening around her, she was a brilliant comedienne, capable of landing a joke with anyone in that series. That may have been a drawback for "Diana" as Diana Smythe rarely got the funny lines to deliver.

Also, where Mary Richards had a whole host of brilliant characters surrounding her, so many, in fact, that she spun some off to their own series and didn't miss a beat, Diana struggled with some stock roles that weren't very inspiring. If "Diana" had a better ensemble, it likely would have worked.

Let me take you back to 1993. Here's a roster of people involved with this series:

Joe Morton

Philip Bosco

Eli Wallach

Melanie Mayron

Carl Lumbly

Carol Kane

Richard Lewis

Kevin Spacey (before the Oscars and the ugliness)

and executive produced by Robert de Niro.

You should realize that this show was not like anything on the air at the time; this was unique, even for basic or pay cable channels and definitely not like anything on the other broadcast networks.

Mr. De Niro's Tribeca Film Center had been up and running for a couple of years at this point, and that neighborhood is one of the oldest and most interesting in Manhattan. It was a no-brainer to make a show tailored to the area.

The concept of the program was different, too. This was an anthology series, meaning that the focus for the program changed to different characters and different stories. The two characters that held it all together were Philip Bosco, who owned a central coffee shop/diner called Zadie's, where everybody would eventually come for food and beverage, and a Mounted NYPD officer played by Joe Morton who responded to problems that arose. And I guess you can consider the neighborhood itself as another character that retained that continuity.

Another interesting element was how characters would just turn up - in one episode, they might have been buying a coffee and a sandwich at Zadie's like any rando, just as a matter of course, while another episode, the story was about them! It really attempted to give the feel of the people living in and around the neighborhood, and how a complete stranger one day can suddenly become the main focus on another.

I did leave one name off my roster of people above. Larry Fishburne (as he was still being credited, at this time), actually took home an Emmy Award for his appearance in the series pilot, titled "The Box." This was notable in that the show had been canceled several months before the Emmy Awards ceremony that year, yet Fishburne's performance was still the one the voters selected, a true tribute to both the performance and the writing of that brilliant episode.

New York was in every second of this series, as it was shot on location in the Triangle Below Canal Street. The geography was just as much a part of everything this series offered as those landmarks provided an authentic background for these genuine tales.

The trouble with an anthology series is that you never know what you're going to get. Besides that heavy drama with Mr. Fishburne, there was, for example, a comedy episode with Richard Lewis. And though our lives are mixed with ups and downs, we tend to like our television to be one or the other. It's sad that we couldn't adjust to a program that willingly showed the full palette of emotions, which I think was a major contributor to its early end.

Garry Marshall is a big, BIG name in comedy. He was responsible for a lot of shows that people found very funny throughout their runs. Notably, "Happy Days" and "Laverne & Shirley," were both number one rated shows in the 1970s and his fingerprints were all over those. But everybody has to start somewhere, and this program was Garry's very first TV sitcom.

Fish Out of Water. It's such an obvious place to begin if you want to do comedy. And there's nothing like New York City for a fish to be flopping around in, for some easy laughs.

In this case, Will Hutchins is the fish, a guy named Woody from a dot on the map in Ohio, who finds out his Uncle bequeathed him a Brownstone in Lower Manhattan. So, he pulls up stakes and comes to town to check out his new property.

Of course the building is populated with the quirkiest characters on the block, all of whom have issues with stuff breaking in their apartments. Woody has some fix-it skills, so this first time landlord becomes the live-in superintendent for the building.

Sandy Baron plays Chuck, a stand-up comic who shared his apartment with Woody, which is why he was around during the day, available to help Woody out with some of the patchwork. Michael Constantine played a fastidious and temperamental photographer who both lived and worked at home and served as a kind of mentor for Woody... a precursor for his role as Principal in "Room 222."

And there are a couple of love interests for Woody and Chuck living under that roof, with Pamela Rodgers, who eventually served as a body paint bikini dancer on "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" and her roommate played by Miko Mayama, who shouted the program's title at Woody whenever she needed help.

Also notable was that Woody had a kid sister back in the hometown, who came to visit for several episodes, a role taken by a young, unknown actress named Sally Field.

New York played a part because Garry Marshall was a quintessential city resident, who grew up here and knew the ins and outs and observed the humorous elements of life as presented by his friends, neighbors, parents and just random strangers all around.

The style, the humor, the elements that Marshall eventually would include in all his work, was already in place here. The jokes, when they landed, were legitimately funny, the comedy actually came from the situation and it doesn't seem nearly as contrived as a lot of other shows of the day. Plus the theme song may have been too cool for the show, written and performed by Quincy Jones.

On the down side, there were some stereotypical cheap bits as a part of some episodes, which is why this series isn't seen much (Marshall didn't write everything here). And there was a question of just how much control Marshall had, this being his first series. Still, when it came to character driven comedy, without any special effects or gimmicks, this was a definitely wasn't the worst.

Dudley Moore was a comedy superstar. He had been entertaining audiences across the pond with his partner, Peter Cook for years. Then he made his first big splash in the States with the Blake Edwards comedy, "10," which turned Bo Derek into a household name and made Ravel's "Bolero" appropriate foreplay music for the 1980s. That got immediately followed by the smash, "Arthur," which revived the career of Nepo Baby, Liza Minnelli.

By the early nineties, it seemed natural for television to want to tap that comic potential, which led to this, Mr. Moore's first American sitcom.

"Dudley" was the story of a very successful New York Cabaret performer and playboy (the titular star, playing Dudley Bristol), who was amicably divorced from his ex, Laraine (Joanna Cassidy). Their teenage son, Fred (Harley Cross), verging on the edge of delinquency, had to start living with his nightclub dad and Dudley's housekeeper Marta (Lupe Ontiveros) who only spoke Español (with subtitles so viewers could follow along). Let the NYC misadventures, begin!

Dudley had an issue with saying what he thought and letting the chips fall where they may. That always got him into trouble. For work, his candid comments forced his friend and lawyer Paul (Max Wright) to mop up the Public Relations mess, somehow. At home, his remarks forced Fred to have to deal with some ridiculous thing Dad said about him... either in the press, which became fodder for jokes by his classmates at school, or just around the house which created even more conflict with their already strained father/son relationship.

Dudley didn't know anything about being a parent! He was just a guy doing his job and having fun. Suddenly, responsibility reared its ugly head. What's an entertaining entertainer to do?

The elements of understanding boundaries, revenge against those that wronged you and the music, which allowed Mr. Moore the chance to tickle the ivories, ever so briefly, were all included in the storylines. Bitter was absolutely a flavor used for this comedy.

What would have been great is having Moore always getting in a song, either as part of a performance or rehearsal, or related to the storyline somehow. That might have made for a friendlier reception to his patriarchal antics. But, then again, music would have required royalty payments; that would have been an additional cost for the show's budget. Still they could have picked tunes that were in the Public Domain, just to give a little more of the nightclub feel.

New York played a part because where else is a cabaret performer going to be? The press was constantly around, the late night lifestyle of boozing and playing that Dudley lived, the action and adventure of the city and Fred's prep school attendance provided the setting that the stories were set against. There definitely were a few moments that recalled "Arthur" in this program.

Unfortunately, Dudley Bristol wasn't quite as welcome or charming as Arthur, and though Laraine and Paul tried to wrangle him, neither one was Hobson, the absolutely brilliant Sir John Gielgud from that film. And without that ideal foil for Moore to play his comedy off of, that essential guardrail that restrained and focused the humor, this show sort of went off track.

It's helpful to know a little bit of backstory before we get into the facts about this show, because it directly relates.

Eric Schaeffer was an NYC cab driver who had show business ambition and was a talker. He would use his job of shuttling people around town to hone his craft: entertaining his rides with witty banter, which he then parlayed into a pitch to any producers, directors or stars who happened to land in the back seat of his taxi.

This somehow actually worked, as he and his friend, Donal Lardner Ward, were able to scrape up enough money and get enough help through Schaeffer's constant chatting and persistence to create an indie film called "My Life's In Turnaround," essentially their life story of wanting to turn their life story into an indie movie.

That film got some attention at a couple of festivals and did good enough B. O. to set up Schaeffer and Ward for a deal at Fox to do a sitcom... their life story, now as a TV series.

"Too Something" (as the program was originally titled) was about a writer named Eric (Schaeffer) who was too worried about negative criticism to do any writing. He lived with his friend Donny (Ward) in Donny's parents' vacated sprawling apartment (the only way these two could live in a place like that). Donny's ambition was to be a photographer, but, similarly, he didn't want anyone to see the shots he took.

Obviously, you can't make money from material that never gets created or seen, so these two slackers wound up working in the mail room of a Corporate Law firm, and have what would be a wacky neighbor (Mindy Seeger as the funniest, most bizarre and most New York character in the show) who is a professional dog walker, as a roommate to cover their expenses. Her uproariously caustic comments were always tempered with the cutest pooches around.

A new lawyer at the firm is Maria (Portia de Rossi in her first television role) who Eric is instantly smitten with... and it didn't hurt that they lived in the same building, too. Suddenly, this loser had a reason to try and become a success!

This program's main contribution to society was arguably "The Self High Five," which was extending your arms, bringing them up and hitting your hands together over your head, in celebration of something great you did, when nobody else is around.

Meanwhile, the show had the slot on the schedule right after Fox's Crown Jewel, "The Simpsons" (back when "The Simpsons" was still "Appointment Television") but people didn't understand the title. The producers decided to have a contest to let a viewer change the name of the show. That's how it became "New York Daze."

For the record, MY suggested new title for the series was "The Portia de Rossi Show." Technically, I was right, as she was the only one who extended and improved her career after this sitcom, with whichever title you like, got canceled.

"Did you know the human head weighs eight pounds?"

You might, if you saw the film "Jerry Maguire," where precocious Jonathan Lipnicki says that line; one of many quotable quotes from that movie.

But you may not have realized that three of those eight pounds is the human brain. That's where the title for this program originates.

Let's be clear. Television has trends and when a show becomes a hit series, every network wants a piece of that action. In this case, the show that this program was aspiring to be was Fox's "House, MD," which was the current hit medical drama of the day, about a team of doctors researching mysterious diseases, week to week.

It goes without saying that many people think that those who live in and around New York City have to be losing their grey matter. That's where this team of surgeons and physicians comes in!

Here, Stanley Tucci, as Dr. Douglas Hanson, the impatient, know-it-all, head of the the Neuro wing named for himself, and his team, including Hanson's newcomer assistant Dr. Jonathan Seger, played by Mark Feuerstein, were there to mind their patients as they dealt with their tumors, aneurysms and strokes.

Much like Dr. Gregory House on that other series I mentioned, Dr. Hanson here has a bothersome little problem with his own condition, which, of course, he keeps quiet, but the viewers can see the elements in his mind as he deals with his visions and demons when he's not mouthing off to his second, or flirting with his female coworkers, or the single moms of his daughter's (Addison Timlin) classmates.

The most interesting quality about this series is they were trying to expose what we know about how the brain works, what elements are connected and perhaps more importantly, what we still DON'T know about this organ of ours that controls most everything we think, write, say and do, and acts as a recorder and storage space for everything we encounter. That's a worthwhile effort, even if they had to simplify things so the jargon didn't get too technical for the non-medical student viewers.

Indira Varma provides a welcome relief from the not always friendly banter between Doctors Hanson and Seger as Dr. Adrienne Holland, the neurologist intent on solving problems and prepping those she encounters for what comes next. But even she rubbed Dr. Seger the wrong way.

New York plays a part, in that the name "Bellevue" has come to be associated with both mental disorders and The City, and though this hospital is clearly not THAT one, it shares the real life reputation of that other institution for being run-down and on the mend, with issues that create problems occasionally, like power outages at just the wrong moment.

As a bit of an aside, from a strictly behind-the-scenes perspective, Mr. Tucci didn't want to have to fly to Los Angeles to make this series, so the production accommodated him by shooting in NYC.

The special effects used were fascinating: when a patient has an episode, we see into their body, the brain stem, the spinal cord, the sinew and muscle that moves and get a glimpse as to what is happening, in real time. This was cutting edge stuff for 2006 and, in most cases, was cooler than the scripts for the stories being told.

But the problem was that those stories told were relentless, with some visual metaphors to help the audience understand what was happening to the patients, at least, and the embattled staff dealing with their temperamental and possibly cranially challenged leader. There wasn't much of a break between the patients' issues and Dr. Hanson's attitude and circumstances.

In the end, it seemed like the "3 lbs" was made up of two pounds, fifteen ounces of vinegar and only one ounce of honey, and that just seemed to give its viewers a headache.