Gold Digger

Viewers flipped for the megasmart dolphin that routinely helped his two young owners, Sandy and Bud, the sons of a widower living on the Florida shore (episodes were filmed in the Florida Keys and the Bahamas). Producer Ivan Tors, whose earlier credits included 'Sea Hunt,' adapted the series from a 1963 film he worked on that made a splash, and later produced 'Gentle Ben.' Flipper, by the way, was a male role filled by a female dolphin.

This second 'Law & Order' spin-off focuses on New York detectives known as the Major Case Squad, which handles high-profile and unusually difficult investigations. Its storytelling differs from the original series in that it presents the criminal's perspective as well as the deductive methods used by the cops.

In the heyday of TV Westerns, the hero here was an unusually fashionable man who wore a derby hat and carried a gold-tipped cane, but if necessary (and it often was) could use his fists and a gun.

The longest (26-1/2 hours), most expensive ($25 million) and most complicated (four directors, five producers, five cinematographers, almost 100 speaking parts, several hundred extras) project made for television up to that time, Centennial was shown in two- and three-hour installments over a period of four months. An adaptation of James Michener's best-selling novel, it told the story of the settling of the American West by looking at the founding of the fictional town of Centennial, Colorado, from the settling of the area in the late 18th century to the present. Emmy-nominated for film editing and art direction, it boasts of sterling performances from Richard Chamberlain as frontiersman Alexander McKeag, Robert Conrad as the French-Canadian trapper Pasquinel, and a surprisingly powerful performance from former football star Alex Karras as compassionate but iron-willed immigrant farmer Hans Brumbaugh.

Bouncy babes and sculpted hunks posed as L.A.'s finest lifeguards in this wildly popular series that was eye candy for both men and women. Although it lasted for only one season on NBC, it became an international hit when it switched over to first-run syndication. In 1999, the action moved from California to Hawaii ('Baywatch Hawaii'). It also produced a spin-off ('Baywatch Nights').

A former police officer gets a new identity and teams with a talking supercar to fight crime.