My Top-Ten One-Season Wonders (part 4)

The final installment of a four-part series, this latest set constitutes #15-20 of my “top-10” one-season wonders: a numerical oxymoron that only makes sense if you’re counting in the vigesimal numeric system — or if you know my aversion to rules and common sense. As I noted in Part 3, I published my top 10 back in 2016, but so many late, lamented series have since reemerged on YouTube, Daily Motion, DVD and streaming channels that I decided the initial list was worth expanding. So here are my final five series — spanning more than 50 years — that vanished much too quickly.

Love on a Rooftop (1966-67): After he finished story editing the second season of Bewitched, writer Bernard Slade signed a deal with Screen Gems to churn out three pilots every year. A half-dozen went to series — the longest-running was The Partridge Family; the most controversial, Bridget Loves Bernie; the most preposterous, the Sally Field starrer The Girl With Something Extra (the "something extra" was E.S.P.) — but nothing as charming as his very first effort, Love on a Rooftop, with Judy Carne and Peter Duel (then Deuel) as a pair of opposites who fall in love and marry.

Bewitched season 2

For many of us who grew up in the '60s, Bewitched was a fascination bordering on an obsession. For years after it went off the air, if I was sick with a cold or flu and getting out of bed was a struggle, I would wave my arm to see if I could get the book across the room to fly over to me. I believe that's Einstein's definition of insanity.

The effect of Bewitched on pop-culture sensibilities can't be overstated; when it premiered in September, 1964, it quickly became ABC's biggest hit series to date. I'd be remiss, in discussing the series, if I didn't start by singling out writer-producer Danny Arnold, who (Sol Saks' onscreen credit to the contrary) pretty much created Bewitched and masterminded its first season. Arnold viewed Bewitched as a romantic comedy (its antecedents were clearly the screwballs of the '30s) about a man and a woman from different backgrounds: a "mixed marriage," as it were. He was Darrin Stephens, an up-and-coming advertising executive; she was Samantha -- and she was a witch. Fantasy sitcoms ruled the airwaves in the '60s, but Bewitched, as originally conceived, was no Mister Ed or The Flying Nun-type kiddie show. The witchcraft was used sparingly; mostly it allowed Arnold to imbue a familiar premise (the trials of a young married couple) with fresh details.