What Might've Been: TLC (1984)

 Sitcoms about niche schools have not fared too well.

For example, ABC was fortunate to get two seasons out of Detective School (One Flight Up) with Randolph Mantooth & James Gregory.

In 1984, NBC had an unsold pilot from One Day at a Time producers Dick Bensfield & Perry Grant, set at a nursing school in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, TLC was burned off in the summer of '84, as network executives held to the belief that no one wanted a sitcom at a nursing school, especially when it's populated by a cast of mostly unknowns. The only familiar names in the cast were Jessica Walter, Jere Fields (ex-Curiosity Shop), and Cathy Silvers (Phil's daughter), fresh from Happy Days. TLC came from Embassy, the same studio that had a monster hit for the network with The Facts of Life, and if they were trying to duplicate the success of Facts, it went nowhere, fast.

Philadelphia, as a setting for sitcoms, completed the then-network trifecta, after two seasons each of The Tony Randall Show (ABC/CBS) and Angie (ABC). The current FX series, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, with Danny DeVito, may be the most successful series set in the City of Brotherly Love.

Here's TLC:

No rating. Didn't even know this existed until today.