Shark Bytes

This show was okay, but it's clearly the product of absolutely no research. Nobody in Boston calls it "Beantown"! "Beantown" is to Boston what "Frisco" is to San Francisco. The only people who use it are tourists. Any news anchor who signed off a newscast in Boston by saying "Goodnight, Beantown" would last about a week. *Sigh*

GOODNIGHT, BEANTOWN was one of the most underrated and unappreciated sitcoms to come down the pike in quite a while. This offbeat but highly intelligent sitcom starred the late Bill Bixby and the always watchable Mariette Hartley as co-anchors on a Boston news program. This show was blessed with smart writing and the chemistry between Bixby and Hartley was undeniable. This was a wonderful show that never jumped the shark and never found an audience either.

This was a good show that as I recall ran on CBS's Sunday night lineup with "One Day At A Time", "Archie Bunker's Place" etc. It was a lighthearted romantic comedy, maybe CBS didn't think it fit the dark/social comedy Sunday night lineup, but they could have moved it to another slot. Probably got canned to make way for "Murder She Wrote"

The above ‘ poster’ is obviously uniformed regarding Bill Bixby’s television resume. Of Bixby’s four series prior to “Goodnight, Beantown,” only one, “The Magician”, lasted a mere one season. The other three, “My Favorite Martian,” “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” and “The Incredible Hulk,” all lasted anywhere between three and five full seasons. “The Incredible Hulk,” was an enormous success and spawned countless TVM’s even after it originally left the air. Those three shows were also, and continue to be, huge in the worldwide syndication market. Bill Bixby is not an actor to be put into a McLean Stevenson/Tim Conway category.

This was supposed to be a sitcom about smoldering chemistry between two rival newscasters. So if you want hot stuff, why hire Mariette Hartley, who was previously known for her cutesy Polaroid commercials, and Bill Bixby, who had seemingly appeared on every show that ever got cancelled? A few years later, "Moonlighting" finally got the idea right!

I agree with the original poster. This was a great show which slipped through the cracks of CBS's schedule. The woman was Mariette Hartley from the Polaroid commercials with James Garner. The show appeared briefly on "Lifetime around 1991, and I think has appeared on TVLand as a special from time to time.