Evening Shade is an Americansitcom television series that aired on CBS from September 21, 1990, to May 23, 1994. The series stars Burt Reynolds as Wood Newton, an ex-professional football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers, who returns to rural Evening Shade, Arkansas, to coach a high-school football team with a long losing streak. Reynolds personally requested to use the Steelers as his character's former team, because he was a fan. The general theme of the show is the appeal of small-town life. Episodes often ended with a closing narration by Ossie Davis, as his character Ponder Blue, summing up the events of the episode, always closing with "... in a place called Evening Shade." The opening segment included clips from around Arkansas, including the famous McClard's Bar-B-Q, which is situated on Albert Pike Blvd. and South Patterson St. in Hot Springs National Park.
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—which is notorious for losing every game. He and his wife Ava, whom he married when she was only 18 are devoted to each other despite their age difference. Ava is an ambitious, successful practicing lawyer who in the first season is elected District Attorney while pregnant with their fourth child, Emily. Among Wood and Ava's closest friends are the somewhat-older town doctor Harlan Eldridge and his trusting wife Merleen, who always believes the best of people. The show's plots focus on the various difficulties that Wood faces in living a very different life than he 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 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, but well-meaning and eager to learn, assistant-coach Herman Stiles, the best the school's budget can afford. During the first season he catches the eye of the prim-and-proper high-school principal Margaret and they start dating. On July 13 and 20, 1993, CBS aired two parts of an hour-long pilot, Harlan & Merleen, as a proposed spin-off of the series. The pilot had the Eldridges open their home to young pregnant women who needed help. The pilot did not achieve series status.
Daisy , Taylor's girlfriend after his break-up with Aimee, a New York transplant
Wanda , waitress at Blue's Barbeque Villa
Emily Newton , Ava and Wood's youngest, who appears as a 5-year-old in the final season
Nielsen ratings/broadcast history
The series enjoyed strong ratings during its entire run, hitting its peak in season two with a number 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, after CBS cancelled the series in May 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. However, some have speculated that the show's ending was a decision made by Reynolds, rather than CBS, as his recent marriage troubles with Loni Anderson were thought to have affected his work.
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, Burt Reynolds Productions, and MTM Enterprises. CBS retained full ownership of the series while MTM syndicated the series in the United States.
