Homicide: Life on the Street is now streaming on Peacock, delighting fans of the original ’90s series, fans of Andre Brauger, and those who became fans after their first viewing.
The popular and critically acclaimed show has been available on DVD for years, but has only now disappeared from any streaming services.
“Homicide: Life on the Street” joins two other classic series, “Moonlight” and “Northern Exposure,” that until recently disappeared from streaming media.
Like Homicide: Life on the Street, both shows are at least available on DVD, while many other shows from the era weren’t so lucky.
Since streaming is how most people access visual media today, how many forgotten gems in television history are we missing out on?
Shift in priorities
Streaming services initially established themselves by offering as many popular TV shows as possible, much like Netflix streams every season of Friends and The Office — ad-free!
Viewers at the time assumed that all of these familiar shows would always be available on new streaming platforms, but most were only available under limited licensing agreements.
Then streaming services started producing their own content, so they obviously needed to make room for it on their digital warehouse shelves.
Subscriptions are a measure of streaming services, like the “advertising eyeballs” of online TV. These services center around original products to attract subscribers rather than maintaining or expanding their classic TV libraries.
At the time, most TV viewers had cable packages rather than just streaming channels, so they could theoretically satisfy their classic TV needs with programming on basic cable’s Nick at Nite or TBS.
Also, aren’t most old shows available on DVD?
forgotten format
If you look carefully enough, you’ll find that quite a few 20th-century TV series are available on DVD, but usually not in their entirety.
Like the 1989 Jamie Lee Curtis and Richard Lewis sitcom “Anything But Love,” only the first two of its four seasons featured Released on DVD and sold together as a “Volume One” set, sadly a “Volume Two” was never released.
There’s also The Drew Carey Show , a hugely popular ’90s series that ran for nine seasons, but only the first is available on DVD (though the entire series is now available on Pluto and Apple TV+ play).
While DVD players haven’t quite gone the way of VHS tapes, they’re an extra hurdle and expense in a world where the cost of streaming channels is prohibitive.
This makes it crucial for classic shows in streaming formats to find contemporary audiences.
How many shows are we talking about here?
The amount of TV shows from the 20th and early 21st centuries that are currently unavailable to watch (or buy on DVD) is staggering and random.
You may have watched these shows when they first aired, in syndicated reruns, or have clicked through on cable TV over the years and Channel Surfing has surprisingly not appeared in any presumed permanent archive.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, ABC’s Saturday night “must-see TV” lineup was The Love Boat, followed by Fantasy Island.
You can still ride the original Pacific Princess via Paramount+, but forget about flying to Ricardo Montalban’s Magic Island. While the series existed on Tubi for a while, it can no longer be found.
So if you’re watching it and it’s unceremoniously pulled away, you won’t be able to find it anywhere else.
(However, you able Check out Malcolm McDowell’s beautifully dark 1998 version and Roselyn Sanchez’s wildly entertaining Fantasy Island in 2021 on Tubi.
The groundbreaking ’80s crime drama “Vega$” has the same vibe, popularity, and even star Robert Urich as “Spenser for Hire,” but Vega$ has been lost in the neon light of time. In the Mist, and Spenser for Hire is currently available for hire on Apple TV+ and Tubi.
Landmark medical dramas from the 1970s and 1980s have also been missing.
M*A*S*H is available to watch or purchase on multiple subscription platforms, but Quincy, ME (Jack Klugman as an idealistic coroner) and Trapper John, MD (Gregory Harrison in his prime) can’t.
Why can’t these shows be streamed online?
Music rights, studio ownership disputes and contract issues are among the main reasons the show has struggled. Money and lack of interest are others.
Decades ago, songs were licensed for the show’s original live webcasts and syndication.
Physical formats such as DVDs are not included because they don’t exist yet, and there is no full media rights clause in the contract covering any formats invented in the future (such as streaming).
The more songs there are in a series, the harder and more expensive it is to compete for streaming song rights. The question then becomes whether potential viewers’ interest in the show is high enough to justify the cost of protecting those rights.
Another problem is that studios, networks and production companies have been bought, sold or commingled so frequently in recent years that it’s difficult to determine who currently owns the rights to various shows.
The emergence of “Homicide: Life on the Streets,” “Moonlighting” and “Northern Exposure” might be seen as signs that these legal hurdles are not impossible to overcome.
But it still leaves one question: why more of these classic shows aren’t being rescued and streaming.
disappear and be hard to find
Some classic shows are more “lost” than others. Worse than when only one season was released decades ago, they didn’t make it to DVD at all.
It’s a mysterious case with two oddball, single-centric, millennial shows: “Ed” (2000) and “Cupid” (1998).
Ed took Northern Exposure’s script of city professionals and nutty locals to the candy-colored suburbs, a combination that earned the NBC show huge ratings and four seasons.
The show starred Tom Cavanagh and also featured future celebrities Julie Bowen, Justin Long and John Slattery, among others . But despite having a huge following then and now, Ed remains unavailable on DVD and streaming.
“Cupid” bounced back and forth between different time slots in its only season, which didn’t help secure an audience for the admittedly esoteric drama about a man who was either a cupid who came to Earth or a A mortal deeply mired in delusion.
This early series from Rob Thomas showcases the innovative storytelling and witty dialogue that would appear in his later projects, such as The Fool and The Party.
Cupid stars Jeremy Piven and Paula Marshall and boasts an impressive list of guest stars, including Sherilyn Fenn, Connie Britton and Laura Leighton. It also features a great theme song (“Humanity”) by the Pretenders.
Sadly, none of this earned Cupid a second season or DVD release, just ABC’s odd 2009 single-season remake starring Bobby Cannavale.
These shows’ strong creative pedigrees, combined with die-hard original fan interest, make them look like great choices for streaming services.
But for whatever reason, they remain forgotten.
What’s the obstacle here?
Thirtysomething (1987) is a landmark TV series that remains streaming despite loud lobbying from fans.
The show follows a group of yuppie friends in suburban Philadelphia as they deal with having kids, mortgages, and sacrificing college aspirations for money.
The show was ridiculed at the time for its empty monologues and mundane, champagne-issue plot, but it struck a chord with people whose struggles and emotions had never been depicted on television before.
The show is known for its innovative series structure and has won thirteen Emmy Awards.
It also contained an episode (“Strangers”) that marked the first time two gay characters were shown in bed together on American network television.
According to a tweet from Mel Harris, who plays Hope Steadman, there are no ownership issues holding the show back; just a lack of interest from Amazon Studios.
why this is important
The list of missing shows could go on for days: starting with Judging Amy, China Beach (not being able to watch both shows is a complete sin), Chicago Hope, Murphy Brown, Relativity, and “Time and Time Again”.
In addition to preserving our television history, we’re missing out on decades of entertainment simply by not making more of these shows available for streaming.
Our IP-centric cultural moment seems ideally suited to tapping into this potential treasure trove of classic shows to bolster the streaming platform’s library and potentially give Suits another surprise, as Suits did to Netflix as done.
It would be nice to have access to a more complete body of work from our favorite performers and show creators.
What lost classics would you like to watch? Let us know in the comments!
