Dismal Demise of Some of TV’s Best and Boldest Shows

And then there were none.

A highlight film--and possible obituary--of the just-ending television season would include three exceptional half-hour series that were among the best and boldest in years. But ratings intervened and, sadly, not one of them is on the coming fall schedule.

ABC has canceled “The ‘Slap’ Maxwell Story.” “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd” is hanging on by its toenails in a last-gasp trial on NBC at 9 p.m. Wednesdays, and is likely dead already. And “Frank’s Place” has been promised a return date on CBS, but none has been set.

So say goodby, at least for now.

How depressingly ironic. In a medium that has expanded human perception in so many ways, intelligent prime-time programs that are different or off-center rarely live beyond infancy, their crib death mandated by a system that rewards ordinariness instead of originality.

“It’s pathetic, isn’t it?” said Jay Tarses, creator of “The ‘Slap’ Maxwell Story” and “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.” “I’m kind of stunned. I don’t think it makes sense for me to do television anymore.” That would be television’s loss.

“This is television,” said “Frank’s Place” creator Hugh Wilson, philosophically. “If I don’t like it, I can always write plays.”

Each of these series has delivered a bracing freshness to prime time, introducing intriguing characters that resist musty TV convention and exquisitely written scripts that inventively capture the texture, ambivalence and nagging uncertainties of life.

“The ‘Slap’ Maxwell Story” gave us Dabney Coleman as a beaten-down, self-centered, cynical sportswriter whose frequent mean-spiritedness was softened by a glimmering goodness.

Played by Blair Brown, the enigmatic, 35ish heroine of “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd” is a divorcee for whom life is a puzzle and fulfillment just out of reach.

Featuring a mostly black cast, “Frank’s Place” is a happy ensemble piece set in a New Orleans restaurant/bar that yields rich, vibrant, sometimes whimsical stories.

Each series is unique , a word rarely applied to any TV series. Hence, each almost defies definition, being a witty half-hour without a laugh track--a wild adventure for TV--in a medium where half-hours are automatically defined as comedies. But these aren’t comedies in a traditional sense any more than the ABC dramatic series “thirtysomething” is a comedy merely because it’s sometimes very funny.

“The ‘Slap’ Maxwell Story” clearly tailed off after a brilliant start last fall, and Tarses pleads guilty to neglecting it in favor of his first love, “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,” which returned to NBC in the spring.

At ABC’s behest, moreover, new characters were introduced to increase the female audience, changing both the Slapper and the series for the worse. “We went off the track,” said Tarses. “ABC thought we needed the women, but I don’t think that helped. And toward the end, we just weren’t concentrating on it enough.”

So be it. But “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd” also vanquished? That would be obscene.

“Frank’s Place” has a better chance of survival if only because it’s a favorite of Kim LeMasters, president of CBS Entertainment, whereas his NBC counterpart, Brandon Tartikoff, is admittedly cool to “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.”

“Viewer rejection” is the definition that Tartikoff applied to the ratings of “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd” in its former time slot behind the hit “Cheers,” where it supplanted “Night Court” and suffered a significant audience decline from “Cheers.”

“ ‘You didn’t get the “Night Court” audience,’ ” Tarses said Tartikoff told him. “And I’d say, I’m pretty proud of that.”

And what is Tartikoff’s idea of “viewer rejection”? Only in this goofy industry could 37 million viewers--that was the size of “Molly Dodd’s” audience in its last Thursday-night appearance behind “Cheers”--earn such a label.

Nor did its opening ratings in its new time slot last Wednesday bode well for its future. Against reruns on ABC and CBS, “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd” placed third with a 16% audience share and 9.6 rating, which equates to 22 million viewers, based on A.C. Nielsen Co. calculations. That’s far less than the minimum level for the show’s survival set by Tartikoff.

“Those numbers were like a dagger in the heart,” Tarses said. “I just think they have got to be wrong.

“Everybody that I talk to loves the show. I just don’t believe that there’s not an audience for Molly Dodd.”

But even if they aren’t wrong, the message is just as sinister. Twenty-two million . And that’s still not enough to save a show?

Tartikoff said recently that he hoped “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd” would attract “any sort of reasonable audience” that could ensure it a place on the NBC schedule at least as a temporary series every spring and summer.

“But at some point the audience has to want it,” he said. “In the end--you know, I cancel shows, but yet the audience also has a major say in what comes back. . . .”

But these 22 million apparently will have no say.

“They’re totally disenfranchised,” Tarses said. “They’re being totally ignored. It’s a hideous trend. I think the ratings are ignoring huge numbers of people who are at least semi-intelligent and are bursting to watch something different on television. And those are probably among the ones leaving television.”

Tarses said that he would explore other production alternatives, such as cable, should “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd” be officially canceled, but he’s doubtful about the show’s off-network prospects.

Just as grim are the prospects of future “Molly Dodds” in a medium where TV that isn’t obvious or derivative is squeezed out by trivia and where reaching a prime-time audience of 22 million means failure.