MovieChat Forums > American Gothic (1995) Discussion > The network's plan for the show?

The network's plan for the show?

posted 15 years ago by cg11144
7 replies | jump to latest

In one of the commentaries, I thought Shaun Cassidy and David Eike mentioned they knew early on the show would never get a second season. What exactly was the plan for this series by CBS? I mean they didn't air these in the correct order, skipped 4 episodes but still went ahead and had a full season produced of over 20 episodes. It's like they had no faith in the show but still wanted to finance episodes. Was the plan to go for syndication or hope an audience would find it sooner or later on CBS?

[–] nathan_the_clipper_webb 15 years ago

I read somewhere that the higher ups at CBS who were responsible for American Gothic being picked up were replaced not long after American Gothic debuted. I remember that season CBS tried to be hip and edgier, and tried to attract the younger demographics. As the fall got underway and their newer shows didnt get the ratings they desired, they replaced some of the executives and went back to programming to the older audiences once again.

[–] cg11144 15 years ago

Thanks Nathan. That might explain a lot with the change of hands. I'm just watching the DVDs now in the production order. More mystery there. Episodes 5, 12, 18 and 19 were never aired.

[–] pabald9480 13 years ago

What I'd like to know is how anyone knew the proper order in which to watch the show without it ever being explained on the DVD set case. Did everyone do some research on the show's production to determine the order? I'm now trying to watch the series in the proper order, but I'm still not sure how anyone knows the intended order, between here and Amazon, people have complained how the set messed up the intended order when Universal brought it to DVD, plus the double sided disc format shouldn't be used for tv shows imo, anyway, in this case it only adds to the confusion. Please shed some light on my questions, thank you.

[–] Journeyman1 13 years ago

You can find the correct order on many websites. Plus, if you watch the episodes, you can tell what episode follows which just by looking at the events that occur in the episode.

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[–] stone_free 12 years ago

I don't know how they knew. But in the UK Channel 4 showed it all in the correct order. Thank goodness for that, the one show I would trade more episodes of other favourite shows I would like back like Angel and Carnivale

[–] j_jablonski 12 years ago

I never watched the original airing on channel 4 in the UK but i'm glad it was in the right order. I bought the DVD unaware of this wrong order thing going on. I though it was a great series. However, what I soon realised was that even the DVD of it is in the WRONG ORDER!!! Can't believe they not only made the mistake on the original airing but they didn't even learn from the mistake and KEPT IT HOW IT WAS ORIGINALLY AIRED! WTF!?!? With the way it was organised, no wonder it was doomed to fail. I can't believe they happily signed their own death warrant. Such a shame!

[–] bollmr 12 years ago

At the time the show aired, there were very active AG message boards. That's how I found out about missing episodes and shows done out of order. Though not widely advertised, there were even VHS tapes numbered in the correct order for desperate fans when the show ended, which somehow included the missing episodes like Potato Boy. Not sure where people found out the correct information, but it was certainly on the boards at the time the show was aired.