One TV Season Only: the 1990s by GoodmanDL

This coming-of-age show produced by Ed Zwick, and set in Pittsburgh, was subject of the first online fan campaign to save a TV Show. Despite critical praise for tackling serious themes including child abuse, homophobia, and homelessness ABC canceled the show in 1995 citing low ratings and reluctance of star Claire Danes to appear in a second season.

TV legend Steven Bochco created this 1990 police drama for ABC, which featured crossover appearances by characters from LA Law and Hill Street Blues. Despite a theme song by Randy Newman, and a score from Mike Post, the show was deemed a catastrophic failure and canceled after 11 episodes.

This 1998 NBC sitcom featured Mark Feuertein as the titular Ad Exec – a Harried Nice guy looking for love while surrounded by three women – his mother (Linda Lavin) sister (Ever Carradine) and ex-girlfriend. (Pre-Gilmore Girls Lauren Graham).

Produced by Carsey/Werner, and airing on ABC in 1996, this sitcom starred Molly Ringwald, Jenna Elfman, and Lauren Graham as wisecracking waitresses in Gloucester, Mass. Ron Livingston and Bill Burr appeared as additional titular figures...

After airing 5 episodes in 1994, CBS canceled this sitcom created by Norman Lear. Ernie and Rose Cumberbatch (John Amos & Lynne Godfrey) are liberal parents butting heads with their conservative son while residing in the titular Queens residence they purchased from an earlier Norman Lear character.

Hollywood is a magical place… drenched with sex, corruption and despair in this 1999 Fox Sitcom produced by Joel Silver. Buddy Hackett and Illeana Douglas star alongside Jay Mohr as Peter Dragon.

In 1996 ABC aired only 7 episodes of this sketch show. Castmembers and writing staff included future notables: Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Robert Smigel, Bob Odenkirk, Louis C.K, Charlie Kaufman, Jon Glaser, Dino Stamatopoulos, Spike Feresten, and Robert Carlock.

Also in 1996, ABC aired 4 episodes of “Common Law”, a sitcom focusing on the character John Alvarez -- the token Latino at a New York law firm -- who struggles to do his job and keep it real. The show starred what Queens-raised stand-up comedian, himself a graduate of Harvard Law school.

In this 1998 ABC romantic comedy, Showkiller Paula Marshall plays a Chicago psychiatrist assigned to monitor Trevor Hale (Jeremy Piven) who believes himself to be this titular godling on a mission to unite 100 couples.

Showkiller Paula Marshall appears as Iris West in the pilot of this 1990 CBS superhero drama. John Wesley Shipp would play the father of his own character from this show in a CW reboot 24 years later.

Showkiller Paula Marshall played a former Police Detective working at the unconventional Glenn Hall Agency in this 1999 David E. Kelley ABC comedy-drama series starring Gina Gershon.

Set in San Francisco, this 1994 ABC Sitcom focuses on the generational gap and cultural divide between conservative, traditionalist parents and their rebellious daughter. Despite the setting and premise with several Asian castmembers (B.D. Wong, Clyde Kusatsu, Amy Hill, Jodi Long, J.B. Quon) only star Margaret Cho was actually of Korean ethnicity.

Airing for 21 episodes on UPN in 1996-7, this sitcom centers around astronauts Tyberius Walker (Flex Alexander) and Morris Clay (Darryl M. Bell) – who fly across the 23rd century in their “space hoopty” powered by a talking computer named Loquita.

In 1993, this man starred in the ABC sitcom, The Jackie Thomas Show, a show about a slaughterhouse worker-turned nightclub comic-turned sitcom star seemingly based upon his own life. The character’s tyrannical and unprofessional conduct may also have been based on the actor and his wife, who was on a different ABC Show at the time.

For eight episodes on Fox in 1996, C. Thomas Howell plays a San Francisco Detective investigating the titular monsters in which show loosely based upon the roleplaying game “Vampire: the Masquerade”.

Adrian Pasdar stars as the titular character, a sociopathic corporate executive who sleeps in a cardboard box in the corner of his apartment. Featuring hilariously dated graphics, and an ahead-of-its time anti-hero – name this critically praised, satirical Fox show canceled in 1996 after a poisonous public reception.

Bruce Campbell starred as the title character in this 1993 Fox western/sci-fi genre pastiche series as a Harvard Lawyer turned bounty hunter hired to track and capture the Bly Gang.

John Glover played the Devil in this 1998 Fox Series in which Detective Stone (Peter Horton) is released from Hell to capture the escaped souls of the damned for the promise of a new lease on life.

Theoretically a spinoff, or possibly a byproduct - in 1999 Fox aired 10 episodes of this half-hour show consisting of previously aired scenes as well as sequences that had been cut from it's parent show cobbled together to form what shortlived clip show sitcom.

This 1991 Fox sitcom provided early roles for Jason Biggs, A.J. Langer, and Brittany Murphy as well as Matthew Lawrence. Dabney Coleman plays a disgraced Corporate Raider and Tax Cheat who becomes a Fifth Grade school teacher in Iowa in exchange for a suspended sentence.