Television Program Cancellations

"Knots Landing," the longest-running prime-time entertainment series currently on the air, will end its 14-year run on CBS this May, the network announced Friday. David Jacobs, the creator and executive producer of the show, said that economics killed the series. But its ratings also have been falling. This season, CBS reduced the fee it pays per episode to Lorimar, the studio that produces the show, and Jacobs was forced to cut his costs.

WHEN Aaron Sorkin was a young nobody in New York in the 1980s, working as a bartender while writing his Broadway hit, "A Few Good Men," on cocktail napkins, he found himself observing the media darlings of the moment. The threesome, Jay McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis and Tama Janowitz, were all as well known for their off-stage antics as they were for their literary work.

CBS canceled the crime drama "EZ Streets" after last week's telecast, the program's lowest-rated yet. The network will replace the first-year show, which starred Ken Olin and Jason Gedrick, with an episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger" this Wednesday. That would have been "EZ Streets' " last remaining hour. Future scheduling has yet to be set. CBS had pulled the series after two airings in October, then relaunched it in early March.

When Arsenio Hall takes his final bow Friday night, record company executives fear that the curtain may also drop on urban-oriented music on the late-night talk-show circuit. Officials at MCA, Epic and other labels said that for the past 5 1/2 years, the syndicated "Arsenio Hall Show" provided a valuable national outlet for urban music while other late-night hosts such as Johnny Carson, Jay Leno and David Letterman focused on more traditional, mainstream musical tastes.

In perhaps the most memorable moment in "L.A. Law's" eight-year run, Rosalind Shays, the uncongenial but shrewd litigator brought in to boost the firm's droopy revenues, mistakenly stepped into an empty elevator shaft and plummeted to her death. But as fitting as it might be to conclude the storied series with a group plunge down an elevator shaft--after all, the stars of the show all play lawyers--the final episode of "L.A. Law" isn't so final. The firm won't go up in flames.

I am woman. Hear me roar--right off the air. Murphy Brown couldn't keep a secretary, sang Aretha Franklin songs badly but with abandon and told off Dan Quayle (in a vintage moment of art imitating life when life believed the art was real). Cybill, the fortysomething Hollywood actress, was constantly shoring up two ex-husbands and fighting to maintain some shred of dignity through a changing parade of goofball acting jobs.

"The Magic Hour," the highly anticipated but heavily criticized late-night talk show hosted by basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson, was abruptly canceled Thursday, just short of two months since its debut. The series, which airs locally at 11 p.m. on KTTV-TV Channel 11, had its last original broadcast Thursday.

Back stabbing. Harsh words. Broken promises. Misplaced loyalty. The essential components of a successful soap opera? Absolutely. But the same words also characterize the resentment much of "Another World's" cast, crew and fans harbor toward NBC, which broadcasts the final episode of the 35-year-old serial this Friday to clear airtime for a new daytime drama.

"American Family," the sprawling dramatic series about a Mexican American family from East L.A., won't be returning to PBS for a third season, despite a best miniseries Emmy nomination and a stack of admiring reviews. As a casual viewer, I had assumed the show, perhaps the most costly drama in PBS history at roughly $1 million per episode, was canceled for the most obvious of reasons -- lousy ratings, which it had in spades.

First of all, everybody pick a colored pawn that represents the Cheers character that most closely resembles your own personality and place it on its matching colored square on the game board. --From the rules for Cheers, the trivia game You knew "Cheers" was unique from the moment that snobby Diane entered Sam's place on Sept. 30, 1982, accompanied by the college professor fiance who would jilt her, sentencing her to years of servitude as a barmaid.