Once and For All: Are the 1980s “Comfort TV”?

When I started this blog, I defined Comfort TV as the television era that covers the 1950s through the 1980s. I even wrote a piece last year about evaluating 1989 as the final year of the classic TV era.

But lately I’ve been having second thoughts.

It’s true that the communal pop culture experience television once provided was still accessible in the 1980s, and didn’t disappear completely until the following decade.

However, as I review lists of the top shows from that decade I have to admit that, while I watched and enjoyed many of them, I don’t feel the same nostalgic fondness for them that I do for shows from the 1960s and ‘70s. They are also significantly under-represented in my otherwise voluminous TV-on-DVD collection. 

There is also the fact that I hold membership in two Facebook groups devoted to classic TV, that both use 1979 as a cut-off point. One of them is quite militant about it.

So it’s time to take a fresh look at the 1980s, and decide once and for all whether it deserves continued coverage in this blog. I figured the best way to do this is to review the shows that debuted between 1980 and 1989, and determine if they meet the criteria of Comfort TV.

1980

This was a bad year for TV, Comfort or otherwise, with very few debuting series surviving beyond one season. Its biggest trend was repackaging successful concepts through sequels and spinoffs: Sanford, Enos, Flo, Galactica 1980, The Flintstones Comedy Show, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy Doo, and Beyond Westworld. None of them worked, but it’s interesting how television was already feeling nostalgic. 

The year’s three most successful sitcom debuts didn’t last much longer: Bosom Buddies, It’s a Living, and Too Close for Comfort. I like Bosom Buddies and own the DVDs, and would buy It’s a Living if music rights were not keeping it out of the home video market. Still, not a great opening argument for keeping the ‘80s in this blog. The only new show from this year that meets all of the Comfort TV criteria is Magnum, P.I., a worthy entry in the private eye genre. 

1981

The repackaging craze continued this year with The Brady Brides, Bret Maverick, Checking In (a Jeffersons spinoff), a cartoon version of Laverne & Shirley, and sitcom adaptations of the films Foul Play, Harper Valley PTA, Private Benjamin and Walking Tall.  

Thankfully Steven Bochco proved the medium hadn’t completely run out of original ideas with Hill Street Blues. Its abrasive language, frank portrayals of sex and violence, and handheld camerawork that put viewers inside an inner city police station, sometimes uncomfortably so, all represented a sea change in dramatic television. It’s also the first sign that we’ve entered a post-Comfort TV era.

However, there were also more traditional shows that debuted that year with varying degrees of success – Code Red, The Fall Guy, Father Murphy, The Greatest American Hero, Nero Wolfe, Nurse, and The Two of Us. And the prime time soaps Dynasty and Falcon Crest have retained their ostentatious, over-the-top appeal. 

So that’s one year for, one year against.

1982

The pro-Comfort TV ‘80s lobby gets a big boost from 1982 with the debuts of Cheers, Cagney and Lacey, Fame, Family Ties, Knight Rider, Newhart, Remington Steele, Silver Spoons and Tucker’s Witch (which I liked even if nobody else did). Only St. Elsewhere and Square Pegs anticipate the edgier fare of the 1990s and beyond. 

1983

It’s not Comfort TV…it’s HBO. This was the year that the pay-cable network introduced America Undercover, the documentary series that spawned Autopsy, Real Sex and Taxicab Confessions, all of which are galaxies away from Father Knows Best. Back on the broadcast networks, shows like Bay City Blues and Buffalo Bill stretched the boundaries of their respective genres. And the shows that followed more traditional formats – Cutter to Houston, Emerald Point N.A.S., Hardcastle and McCormick, Scarecrow and Mrs. King – just weren’t very good. Only Hotel, Goodnight, Beantown and the miniseries V bring back any fond memories for me.  

1984

The Cosby Show, Highway to Heaven, Kate & Allie and Murder She Wrote were the year’s best Comfort TV debuts, and some would put Who’s the Boss and Night Court in that category as well. Miami Vice was cool back then but hasn’t aged well.  Still, the first half of the decade continued to introduce shows that fit well with the archetypes of decades past. 

1985

Joining the ranks of shows befitting the Comfort TV standard were The Golden Girls, Growing Pains and McGyver. But the best new show that year was Moonlighting, a series that didn’t fit into any previous mold ­­- even the Emmys had trouble deciding whether it belonged in the comedy or drama category. During that same season, Comfort TV stars Lucie Arnaz, Mary Tyler Moore and Patty Duke all starred in new shows that flopped. That’s not a good sign. 

1986

Can the failure of Life With Lucy be interpreted as the door closing on the classic TV era? Or was it just not a very good show? Either way, it seems like a pivotal moment when audiences are no longer interested in watching Lucille Ball in prime time. 

I enjoyed Head of the Class and Perfect Strangers but not much else from 1986, though clearly Matlock belongs in the Comfort TV category given how often it has been rerun since.

1987

The shows that generated the most headlines in 1987 were those well outside Comfort TV Land – Married With Children, The Morton Downey Jr. Show, Max Headroom, Thirtysomething and Wiseguy. However, Full House and My Two Dads proved there were still sitcoms suitable for a family audience, and Star Trek: The Next Generation proved it was possible to revive a classic property with a quality that rivaled (surpassed?) its predecessor. 

1988

And as we near the end of the decade, Comfort TV contenders continue to dwindle. The Wonder Years qualifies, and I guess Empty Nest does as well, but that’s about it. Roseanne was the year’s most successful and buzzworthy series, but like Married With Children it featured a family unit that no one would ever confuse with the Bradys or the Nelsons or even the Huxtables. As for Murphy Brown, it was obviously a huge hit, but no Comfort TV series would purposely alienate half its audience by taking sides in the nation’s political divide. 

1989

As I covered in my aforementioned piece on 1989, this was the year when reality shows like COPS, Rescue 911 and America’s Funniest Home Videos began stealing prime time slots from scripted shows. It was the year that long running game shows like Card Sharks, Sale of the Century and Super Password all left the air. It was the year that introduced Seinfeld and The Simpsons, two cynical and subversive sitcoms that audiences loved – it’s hard to imagine that same audience also enjoying the few, more traditional shows that also debuted that year, like Coach and Major Dad. The viewers have spoken.

So what’s the verdict?

I’d say it’s clear that the 1980s were indeed the transitional decade between the more traditional, uplifting, family-friendly shows of TV’s first age, and the current anything-goes, time-shifting, niche-viewing broadcast climate we’re in today. I understand why some classic TV groups and sites prefer to draw the line at 1979, but for me there were still - barely - enough shows introduced in the 1980s that belonged to the same universe as the Comfort TV shows of the past.

And so, while it’s a close call, we’re going to keep the 1980s under the Comfort TV era banner. 

Top TV Moments: Season Hubley

Not long ago I read Paul Mavis’s review of the 1985 TV movie The Key To Rebecca at the Drunk TV website. As always Mavis was insightful, acerbic, and unapologetically lascivious in his assessment, but my biggest takeaway from the piece was a reminder of how I’ve always been drawn to one of Rebecca’s costars, Season Hubley. 

With her pixie haircut and soulful eyes, Hubley seemed the personification of flower child innocence – even her name fit that hippie-dippie persona. But she was also often cast as a streetwise go-getter with a hard edge beneath that soft smile.

Unfortunately, she spent most of her career being better than her material, and only occasionally finding a part worthy of her talent and unique personality. About 20 years ago she finally gave up, at least according to IMDB; but she does have a Facebook page that she uses to support animal causes and bash Donald Trump. And so it goes.

Now let’s cast our memories back to the magical 1970s, when we had joy, we had fun, and we had Season in the sun.

Bobby Jo and the Good Time Band (1972)

The Partridge Family (1972)

What a singular way to start an acting career: Hubley’s first credit was a pilot for a TV series inspired by the success of The Partridge Family. It was written by Bernard Slade, who also created…you guessed it, The Partridge Family. Hubley was top-billed as Bobby Jo, lead singer of a struggling band searching for their big break.

After it went nowhere, one assumes Slade tried to get his star better work, leading to her second professional credit, in an episode of…The Partridge Family. In “The Princess and the Partridge” she plays Princess Jennie, from some unnamed foreign land, visiting the U.S. and eager to meet the famous Keith Partridge. 

Hubley is utterly adorable as the down-to-earth princess, who sneaks away to a drive-in movie with Keith and causes an international incident. 

She Lives! (1973)

The exclamation point makes it sound like horror, but She Lives! belongs to a different genre – the “disease of the week” film, so named because of the prominence of that trope in made-for-TV movies. Desi Arnaz, Jr. and Season Hubley play two intense, misfit college students who find each other, drop out and try to make a go of it in a hostile world. All’s well until Pam (Hubley) finds a “funny lump” that leads to a grim prognosis. Does the title foreshadow a happy ending? You’ll have to watch to find out (the entire move is on YouTube). In addition to the work of Arnaz and Hubley, what makes the movie special is its recurrent use of Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle.” The movie aired just eight days before Croce’s death in a plane crash, and may have influenced the posthumous release of the song as a single – it became his second and final #1 hit. 

Kung Fu (1974)

In the two-part episode “Blood of the Dragon,” Hubley plays Margit Kingsley McLean, granddaughter of a man who knew Caine’s grandfather before he was murdered by the Order of the Avenging Dragon. It’s not a very big part – the dramatic heavy lifting in the guest cast goes to Patricia Neal and Eddie Albert. But Hubley is one of those actresses who suffers especially well – and she gets to do a lot of that here. 

Family (1976)

This is my favorite Season Hubley performance. Which is not surprising as I associate everything about Family with superlative achievement. She appears in four episodes, over two seasons, as Salina Magee, the troubled girlfriend of Willie Lawrence (Gary Frank). From the couple’s first meeting at a health food restaurant to their final parting, it’s one of the most effective story arcs in a series laden with memorable moments. 

Starsky and Hutch (1977)

Someday I’ll write a blog about one-episode love interests on classic TV shows. They meet one of the main characters, fall in love, plan their lives together, and then something happens to take them off the show – usually something fatal. Half that blog will be about Bonanza episodes. But here, in the episode “Starsky’s Lady,” it’s Season Hubley as doomed teacher Terry Roberts. It’s still an affecting episode even if you can guess where it’s headed in the first five minutes.  

SST: Death Flight (1977)

It’s the maiden flight of a supersonic transport plane flying from New York to Paris in two hours. And along for the ride are enough 1970s stars to fill a whole season of Love Boat episodes.

There’s Barbara Anderson and Regis Philbin as reporters covering the event. In the cockpit it’s Robert Reed and Doug McClure and aircraft designer Burgess Meredith, while Lorne Greene monitors conditions from the airport. Serving coffee, tea or milk as flight attendants – Billy Crystal and Tina Louise. Among the passengers – Martin Milner, Susan Strasberg, Bert Convy, Misty Rowe, and a young couple played by John de Lancie and Season Hubley. The man who would be Q plays that guy in every disaster movie who is first to panic and revert to Lord of the Flies mode, which drives Hubley back to her former love, who also happens to be on the plane – played by Peter Graves. 

Oh, this movie. It’s both terrible and wonderful at the same time. I love every second of it, with or without the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment it received in 1989.

Elvis (1979)

Hubley played Priscilla opposite her then real-life husband, Kurt Russell, as Elvis. I remember this TV movie got raves when it first aired but I don’t think it’s aged well, outside of the incredible covers of Elvis Presley’s songs by Ronnie McDowell. By now we’ve seen Kurt Russell in too many other things to suspend that knowledge and pretend he’s Elvis. Season Hubley, however, is nearly unrecognizable under a huge mop of “Ode to Billy Joe”-era Bobbie Gentry hair. Her subdued, sympathetic take on Priscilla suggests someone who spent an entire courtship and marriage struggling against a world she couldn’t understand. 

The Key to Rebecca (1985)

I’ll let Paul Mavis’s review cover this one: “What I always find interesting with Season Hubley is her tangible vulnerability. Whether its personal or professional, it unmistakably comes through the camera lens, lending her scenes a weight that isn’t warranted, frankly, in the script or direction.” Couldn’t agree more. You can read his full review here.

Christmas Eve (1986)

I know the Hallmark Channel puts out about 300 new Christmas movies every year, but this season skip one of the five or six with Lacey Chabert and instead go back to this touching holiday classic, which earned leading lady Loretta Young a Golden Globe. She plays a loving, generous and very wealthy woman who, learning her time left on earth may be short, decides to reunite her estranged family for Christmas. It’s not as depressing as it sounds – in fact it’s downright joyful. Season Hubley plays her granddaughter Melissa in two brief but memorable scenes. If you’re not sniffling at the movie’s emotional final moments, you have no Christmas spirit.