Gary Unmarried

A typically quirky and eccentric offering from prolific TV producer David E. Kelley, the weekly drama series The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire was set in the titular fictional community, wherein virtually everything of any importance was handled by the three Shaw brothers. Oldest sibling Hank Shaw (Randy Quaid) was the town's police chief and hockey coach; middle brother Garrett (John Carroll Lynch) was the mayor of Poland; and younger brother Waylon (Chris Penn) managed to wield a lot of authority despite the fact that he was an unemployed ex-convict. Also seen were Mare Winningham as Hank's wife Dottie, Elizabeth McGovern as Garrett's wife Helen, Ann Cusack as Waylon's wife Julie, Megan Henning as Garrett's daughter Monica, and Angela Goethals as Waylon's daughter Katie. Best described as Northern Exposure with middle-aged angst and populated with the sort of oddball supporting characters so typical of the Kelley oeuvre, The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire premiered September 24, 2003.

Emmy-winning daytime variety show played for 25 years (on radio and TV) and drew laughs from Linkletter's coaxing of audience members to participate in silly stunts. 'House Party,' which was renamed 'The Linkletter Show' in 1968, also included daily interviews with schoolchildren. Their humorous, off-the-cuff remarks were published by Linkletter in a bestselling book called 'Kids Say the Darndest Things,' which Bill Cosby adapted into a weekly series for CBS in 1998.

A recently married man deals with relationship issues when he takes a dream job 200 miles away from home and only sees his wife on weekends.

Introduced with a five-week trial run beginning on April 2, 1978, and ultimately lasting 14 seasons and 357 hour-long episodes, the CBS series Dallas was not only the most successful prime-time serial of all time, but also one of the few American programs of any kind to achieve "hit" status virtually all over the world. Set (where else?) in Texas -- specifically, Braddock County -- the series' million-and-one intrigues were largely motivated by the feud between two families, the oil-rich Ewings and the cash-poor but ruthlessly ambitious Barnes clan. Living in their luxurious mansion, Southfork, the Ewings included patriarch Jock Ewing (Jim Davis); his wife, Eleanor (aka "Miss Ellie," played by Barbara Bel Geddes for most of the run, and by Donna Reed during the 1984-1985 season); and their adult sons, J.R. (Larry Hagman), Gary (played first by David Ackroyd, then by Ted Shackelford), and Bobby (Patrick Duffy). J.R. was originally married to Sue Ellen (Linda Gray), but toward the end of the series divorced her when he was forced into a shotgun wedding with Arkansas hillbilly Cally Harper (Cathy Podewell). J.R. and Sue Ellen had one son, John Ross Ewing III, played by Tyler Banks until 1983, and thereafter by Omri Katz. Bobby's first wife was Pamela Barnes (Victoria Principal), the daughter of Jock Ewing's former partner and later bitter rival Willard "Digger" Barnes (David Wayne, then Keenan Wynn). Though Pam could not conceive, she and Bobby adopted Christopher (Joshua Harris), the illegitimate son of Sue Ellen Ewing's younger sister Kristin (Mary Crosby). After Pam and Bobby were divorced and Pam was killed in a car accident, Bobby went on to marry April Stevens (Sheree J. Wilson), the ex-wife of his cousin Jack Ewing (Dack Rambo). And after Jock Ewing perished in a plane crash in South America (Jim Davis died in the spring of 1981, but his character wasn't entirely written out of the show until the following year), Miss Ellie became the wife of Texas millionaire Clayton Farlow (Howard Keel). Also living in Southfork was the promiscuous Lucy Ewing (Charlene Tilton), daughter of the seldom-seen Gary Ewing (whose character was elevated to leading-man status on the Dallas spin-off Knots Landing); Lucy would briefly become the wife of Mitch Cooper (Leigh J. McCloskey), a poor-but-proud medical student. The Ewing ranch was managed by Ray Krebbs (Steve Kanaly), who turned out to be Jock Ewing's bastard son. The Barnes household included the aforementioned Digger -- who had carried a grudge against Jock Ewing ever since Jock had cheated him out of his share of a valuable oil strike, and stole his sweetheart to boot -- and Pamela, as well as Pamela's attorney brother, Cliff (Ken Kercheval), who in a variety of political and executive positions waged a never-ending battle against J.R. Ewing, the sneakiest and most unscrupulous member of the Ewing family (and also the most popular with the series' fans). Cliff was determined to destroy J.R.'s oil empire, or throw him in jail, or both; as a result, he found himself the target of many of J.R.'s nastiest and most underhanded schemes. At the same time, J.R. and his comparatively honest brother, Bobby, were entangled in a seemingly endless power play, with control of Ewing Oil as the big prize. Just as ruthless in dealing with family members with business rivals, J.R. stopped at nothing to crush his foes and fatten his bank account -- all the while cheating shamelessly on Sue Ellen, who in turn took to philandering herself, and became an alcoholic in the bargain. Ultimately, J.R. would be hoist on his own petard, largely through the machinations of his illegitimate son, James Beaumont (Sasha Mitchell), who was every bit as reprehensible (though not quite as charismatic) as his dad. Even if it was all but impossible to keep track of the scores of principal characters the myriad of plotlines, and the innumerable sexual and corporate intrigues on Dallas, the series would have carved a comfortable niche in pop-culture history purely on the strength of its third-season finale, in which J.R. was shot down in his office by an unknown assailant. By the time the question of "who shot J.R?" was answered five episodes into season four, speculation over the identity of the would-be killer had captured the collection imagination of millions upon millions of fans throughout the world -- and the episode that finally solved the mystery, originally telecast November 21, 1980, ended up as the second most-watched program in the history of television. Less salutary but no less famous was the series' notorious "lost season" of 1984-1985, in which Pam Ewing mourned the death of her ex-husband Bobby, who had died at the end of the previous season (actually, Patrick Duffy had decided to leave the series). With viewers tuning out in droves, the decision was made to bring Bobby back to life at the beginning of the 1985-1986 season -- and to explain away the entire 1984-1985 season as Pamela's bad dream! This ludicrous turn of events proved to be the beginning of the end for Dallas, which never regained its former level of popularity and viewership. Even so, the series managed to stay on the air for five more years, signing off with its surrealistic final episode -- a bizarro version of It's a Wonderful Life -- on May 3, 1991. During the series' CBS run, the network offered the feature-length prequel Dallas: The Early Years on March 23, 1986. After the series had run its course, a pair of TV-movie "updates" were produced: Dallas: J.R. Returns (telecast November 15, 1996) and Dallas: War of the Ewings (April 24, 1998).

A sensitive evocation of teen newlyweds, who meet stiff opposition from their families. His is a closely knit, blue-collar clan; her relations are blue bloods, troubled by divorce and beset with hostility.

Debuting September 18, 1978 on CBS, WKRP in Cincinnati was a weekly, half-hour "ensemble" sitcom largely set in the offices of a Major-Market radio station. Languishing at the bottom of the ratings chart with its moribund "beautiful music" format, WKRP was given a major shot in the arm with the arrival of ambitious new program director Andy Travis (Gary Sandy), who tossed out all the old Lawrence Welk records and installed an ultrahip Top-40 rock format. As WKRP's ratings rose slowly but steadily, Andy and the other staffers did their best to keep the momentum flowing despite an unprepossessing lineup of sponsors (ranging from nursing homes to funeral parlors) and the formidable opposition of WKRP's wealthy, imperious owner, Mrs. Lillian Carlson (played by Sylvia Sidney in the pilot episode, and thereafter by Carol Bruce). The other regulars included station manager Arthur "The Big Guy" Carlson (Gordon Jump), a well-meaning but ineffectual oaf who kept his job only because he was the owner's son; WKRP's sales manager Herb Tarlek (Frank Bonner), whose boorish behavior was rivaled only by his garish wardrobe; prissy, uptight and incredibly naïve newscaster Les Nessman (Richard Sanders), whose mission in life was to win the coveted Buckeye Newshawk Award; Dr. Johnny Fever, aka Johnny Caravella (Howard Hesseman), the station's mercurial, all-but-burned-out morning DJ; Venus Flytrap, aka Gordon Sims (Tim Reid), the funky, low-key nighttime platter-spinner; and Ms. Bailey Quarters (Jan Smithers, Andy's ebullient young assistant and traffic-and-billing expert, a classic example of "still waters run deep." Ultimately emerging as the true star of the series was Loni Anderson as WKRP's blonde, curvaceous receptionist Jennifer Marlowe, who though she refused to type or take dictation was the station's most efficient and level-headed employee, forever running interference for her bosses and coming up with last-minute solutions to otherwise insoluable problems (appropriately, Jennifer was the station's highest-paid staffer). One of the series' many running gags found Jennifer forever fending off the advances of the libidinous (and very married) Herb Tarlek, while simultaneously dating a never-ending parade of elderly millionaires. Created by Hugh Wilson, who drew extensively from his own professional experiences at various local radio stations (notably in the classic first-season episode "Turkeys Away"), WKRP in Cincinnati almost instantly built up a loyal critical and fan following, though thanks to CBS's haphazard scheduling practices it never truly clicked in the ratings. Nevertheless, the series lasted four seasons, ending its network run on September 20, 1982, and later yielding a moderately successful first-run syndicated spinoff (with a largely different cast), The New WKRP in Cincinnati (1991-1993). The catchy opening-theme music for the original WKRP was written by Tom Wells and Hugh Wilson, and performed by Steve Carlisle, while the closing-credits rock tune was composed and peformed by Jim Ellis.