Evening Shade

Summary

A former pro football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers who quit due to injury, Wood Newton has settled down to a quiet life as the coach of the Evening Shade high school football team - a position that is slightly controversial as the team is notorious for losing every game. He and his wife, Ava, whom he married when she was only 18 (a frequently voiced grievance by her father, Evan Evans, the owner of the local newspaper), are devoted to one another despite the age difference. Ava is an ambitious and successful practicing lawyer who in the first season is elected District Attorney while pregnant with their fourth (unintended) child, Emily. Among Wood's and Ava's closest friends are the somewhat older Harlan Eldridge, the town doctor, and his trusting wife, Merleen, who is always eager to believe the best of people.

The show's plots focus on the various difficulties that Wood faces in living a much different life than he'd ever expected, as well as the obvious family pressures of two jobs and four children. Additional tensions come from Ava's Aunt Frieda, Evan's perennially discontented sister, who especially disapproves when Evan begins dating Fontana Beausoleil, who works as a stripper and who discovers in season two that she is the long-lost daughter Merleen gave up for adoption when she was 15. Evan and Fontana get married in a three-part episode in season two, and have a child in season three. The show also gets mileage out of the incongruity of the decidedly unathletic assistant coach Herman Stiles, the most the school can afford due to budgetary pressures. Herman is well-meaning and intensely eager to learn the job. In the course of the first season he catches the eye of the somewhat prim and proper high school principal, Margaret, and they begin dating.

On July 13 and 20, 1993, CBS aired two parts of an hour-long pilot, Harlan & Merleen, as a proposed spin-off from the series. The pilot saw the Eldridges open their home to young pregnant women who needed help (one of whom was also played by Leah Remini). The pilot did not make it to series status.

Main

Recurring

Nielsen ratings/Broadcast history

The series enjoyed strong ratings during its entire run, hitting its peak in season two with a #15 Nielsen ranking. At the time, this was a notably higher position than The Cosby Show, which had recently fallen from a five-year streak as TV's number one program. Evening Shade was still a Top 30 performer when CBS cancelled the show in the spring of 1994. Skyrocketing production costs, mainly attributed to the large salaries of the show's top-caliber, all-star cast, were the primary reason given for the cancellation (which was confirmed by Marilu Henner in her September 1994 appearance on Charlie Rose). However, some have speculated that the show's ending was a decision made by producer/star Reynolds, rather than CBS, as his recent marriage troubles with ex-wife Loni Anderson (from whom he was divorced in 1993) were thought to have impacted his work. Yet, Reynolds was blindsided by the cancellation and said he would then focus on his feature career.

Production

The show's production company, Mozark Productions, was a joint venture by creator Linda Bloodworth-Thomason of Missouri and her husband, Arkansas native, Harry Thomason, which concurrently produced another successful show set in the South, Designing Women. Hal Holbrook's Designing Women character was killed off to free the actor to star in the newer program. The series was produced in association with CBS Productions (now CBS Television Studios), Burt Reynolds Productions, and MTM Enterprises (now 20th Century Fox Television). CBS retained full ownership of the series while MTM syndicated the series in the United States.

DVD releases

On July 15, 2008 CBS DVD/Paramount Home Entertainment released the entire first season on DVD, albeit with music changes and rescoring

Visual Entertainment plans to release the complete series on DVD in Region 1 at an unspecified future date.