3 Forgotten ‘90s TV Shows That Actually Changed Their Genre Forever (And 1 Influenced The Office)

The 1990s were a great decade for television, with countless excellent shows airing across the last ten years of the 20th century. For every beloved show from the ’90s that secured a lasting legacy and is fondly remembered today, there are at least a few more that have faded into obscurity. Some of these shows probably deserve to be forgotten, but among them, there are some undeniable hidden gems. Many of the most influential TV shows of the ’90s are widely credited for the way they have shaped modern television, with certain innovations of the era since becoming standard practice for television stories. However, this isn’t always the case for groundbreaking shows.

In fact, several forgotten 1990s shows actually had a much greater impact on their respective genres than fans remember. Some of the decade’s most important television series have since become criminally overlooked, not necessarily for their quality, but for the lasting effect they have had on small-screen stories. Each of the following shows helped their genre to evolve heading into the new millennium, but has since been unfairly forgotten, and their influence sadly overlooked.

3) Homicide: Life on the Street

The 1990s boasted many great TV shows, but few can boast the level of impact of Homicide: Life on the Street. While the show’s title is admittedly pretty clunky, its format helped TV crime dramas evolve into a whole new style of storytelling that remains an integral part of the genre today. Homicide is widely credited as the first major police show to move away from a more traditional procedural format and instead convey some of the frustrating and complex realities of police work. The show’s characters weren’t just out to solve crimes: they were each human beings who struggled through professional and personal conflict in the face of one of the hardest jobs in the world. While these sorts of stories have since become a staple of crime drama shows, Homicide was one of the first to treat its characters as individual human beings with lives outside of police work, and its focus on less tidy but more realistic crime stories has since become standard, despite the show itself being widely forgotten.

2) The Larry Sanders Show

Many 1990s sitcoms are fondly remembered by their audiences, but there are a handful that have slipped through the cracks of our collective consciousness, and The Larry Sanders Show is very much one of the latter. It starred Garry Shandling as the titular talk show host and served as a workplace satire about the television industry itself. The show’s use of cringe humor and second-hand embarrassment, as well as its mockumentary format, actually had a far greater impact on modern comedy shows than many fans realize. Its offbeat comedic influence can most clearly be seen in the massively successful sitcom The Office, as well as acclaimed comedy shows such as 30 Rock and Curb Your Enthusiasm. In many ways, The Larry Sanders Show was truly ahead of its time, and while its brilliance is rarely celebrated as much as it deserves, it actually helped pave the way for one of the most beloved and successful sitcoms in television history.

1) My So-Called Life

Even though My So-Called Life might not be among the best-remembered series of its era, it was, in fact, one of the most important TV shows of the ’90s. As well as introducing two future Hollywood stars, My So-Called Life completely revolutionized teen dramas, entirely shifting the perspective from which their stories were told. It was the first show to explore adolescence as the main source of drama, and instead of making its characters comedic or overly dramatic, it simply presented real-life issues and situations in an ongoing drama story. Rather than having their problems reset at the end of each episode, My So-Called Life offered a more believable glimpse into teenage life, completely redefining how the genre would be approached in the years that followed. Its influence can be noted in shows such as Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill, The O.C., and even Buffy the Vampire Slayer, proving that even though it has been mostly forgotten, its wider impact lives on.

7 Underrated 1990s TV Shows That Deserve A Reboot