With Father’s Day fast approaching, it’s perhaps fitting that Barry Watson believes his new series, “Date My Dad,” can unite families in unique ways.
The Up dramedy stars Watson (“Samantha Who?”) as Ricky Cooper, a former baseball star tasked with raising three daughters on his own after his wife’s death. Things get complicated when Ricky’s mother-in-law, Rosa (Raquel Welch), moves out of the family’s home, not to mention that the girls are eager to set their dad up with a special someone.
“There’s the stuff that [young viewers] are going to enjoy, following the storylines of the girls, but there’s very much a grown-up element to it,” Watson told TheWrap. “There’s not much on TV like that right now — this show is going to bring everybody together in one room.”
Watson said he had been looking for a single-father project for the past four or five years, but hadn’t previously found the right fit.
“All the ones I was reading were bumbling-idiot fathers, or fathers who were too perfect,” the actor said. “[Before ‘Date My Dad,’] I hadn’t read anything that made me laugh and cry all within the same scene. There were such funny moments in the script, but some touching moments as well. I think we got lucky with casting, and I think it’s all come together.”
This is just one of many memorable roles over the years for Watson, who made an early-career turn on a 1996 episode of “Baywatch.”
“I was the first character to ever actually drown,” he said proudly of the campy David Hasselhoff-led series. “That was the first [episode] that the Coast Guard wouldn’t sign off on on being a part of, because they like to think that they always save lives.”
He is also known for playing Matt Camden on “7th Heaven,” the family drama that ran for 11 seasons before signing off in May 2007.
When asked whether he wants to see the show rebooted, Watson said, “I know there were talks a few years ago about that — with ‘Gilmore Girls’ and all these other shows that are doing these reboots, I think that’s always going to be something that’s discussed. Maybe [creator] Brenda Hampton is doing something right now as we speak — I’m not aware of it.”
He added, “But I’d be open to doing something. I love all those folks.”
“Date My Dad” airs on Fridays at 9 p.m. ET on Up.
14 Shows That Were Canceled on Awful Cliffhangers (Photos)
We know sometimes it's impossible to know when a TV show is going to end, but that makes these series finales all the more difficult to accept. These were the shows that were canceled with unanswered questions or loose plot threads and were never picked up again -- meaning we never got resolution to lingering questions.
"Gilligan's Island" It wasn't an outright cliffhanger, but when the show wrapped up its third season not knowing if it would be renewed, it left the crew on the island. And that's where they'll stay. Forever.
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"Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" The DC Comics show ran for four seasons, ending on an open-ended future for the titular couple. Everybody knows that Clark Kent was found in a bassinet after his planet exploded, but in the Season 4 finale, he and his wife Lois find a baby in a similar predicament, with a note saying that it belonged to them.
"Mork & Mindy" By Season 4, "Mork & Mindy" had run its course. However, creators were planning on a fifth season, hence the cliffhanger ending. In the series finale, Mork and Mindy fall backwards in time trying to escape evil alien Kalik. The final shot is a cave painting depicting the couple, but we never find out if they made it back to the present or not.
Paramount
"My So-Called Life" The love triangle between Jordan, Brad and Angela drove audiences crazy during this cult teen drama. It was never picked up past one season, so we never found out who Angela would've gone with. A love letter she received in the finale -- which she found out was written by Brad, not Jordan as it was signed -- didn't seem to have the intended effect.
ABC
"Pushing Daisies" Bryan Fuller and Michael Green might pop up a bit on this list, as a lot of their shows have been canceled before their time. Case in point is "Pushing Daisies," which due to the 2007 writer's strike, featured a shortened first season. The second season was canceled abruptly and audiences never found out what happened to Ned and Chuck, along with what could've happened with Chuck's zombie father.
ABC
"Finding Carter" The MTV show about a girl who finds out her mother is her kidnapper took a different turn in Season 2 and focused more on her relationships between her friends. In the season finale, Carter's friend Max comes clean to the police about killing Carter's boyfriend. While Max is taken into custody, we never find out his fate.
MTV
"Southland" It was unclear whether the crime drama would get picked up for a sixth season, which is why the show literally went out with a bang. Fan-favorite John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) has a breakdown and ultimately gets shot multiple times by police officers, who don't realize he's one of them.
TNT
"My Name is Earl" The comedy about a man seeking to use karma to improve his life was canceled after four seasons. So while the last episode featured a "To Be Continued" card, we never found out the true identity of Earl Jr.'s father.
NBC
"Hannibal" The Fuller and Green team is back, this time with a three-season adaptation of Thomas Harris' "Hannibal" books. The series built up this brutal but beautiful relationship between the titular serial killer and Will Graham and in the series finale, they fall off a cliff together. The audience is left to wonder if anything comes next.
NBC
"Carnivale" The HBO show about the parallel lives of a traveling carnival and a traveling preacher was canceled after two seasons due to its large budget, and that left a lot of unfinished storylines. In the finale, we ended with fortune teller Sophie finding out that she is the biological daughter of Brother Justin, who represents darkness, and killing a field of corn.
HBO
"The Dead Zone" Based on Stephen King's book, this show told the story of a man named Johnny with precognition. However, the sixth season ends with a vision of nuclear annihilation and we never see how Johnny seeks to resolve it.
USA
"Joan of Arcadia" Throughout the two-season show, Joan Girardi performs sometimes menial tasks for God. In the finale, however, she's told that a much greater threat and evil is coming over the horizon. However, the show was canceled by CBS so we'll never know what that fight would look like.
Sony Pictures
"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" This series followed the lives of Sarah and John Connor in between the second and third "Terminator" movies. It wasn't picked up for a third season, which left its audience wondering what would become of the bleak future set up in the final moments, where nobody had even heard of John Connor. For those who understand the general conceit of the "Terminator" franchise, you can see how this would be a problem.
FOX
"V" Both versions of the show -- the 1983 miniseries and the 2009 one -- ended on cliffhangers, although it's the latter's Season 2 cancellation that'll be remembered. After Anna releases the Bliss on the Earth's human population, people emerge from a bunker to find that motherships are appearing around the globe, ready to enslave everybody.
ABC
Honorable Mentions Luckily for some shows, there were other mediums to continue their stories. So despite the emptiness left over when shows like "Angel," "Firefly," "ALF," "Dark Angel," "Jericho," "Farscape," and more, we still have an idea about how the stories will end.
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Some shows later live on in comic or movie form, but these were the stories that never got resolved
We know sometimes it's impossible to know when a TV show is going to end, but that makes these series finales all the more difficult to accept. These were the shows that were canceled with unanswered questions or loose plot threads and were never picked up again -- meaning we never got resolution to lingering questions.
Wikimedia Commons
