![\"Dennis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772432348_73_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nThe fall of 1986 wasn’t just a cause for celebration because the Mets won the World Series \u2014 especially if you were a dedicated TV watcher. That season 40 years ago brought viewers many notable shows. In fact, Newsday’s longtime TV critic Marvin Kitman was over the moon about what the three networks were\u00a0presenting (and this would be the last fall for\u00a0the Big 3; Fox’s prime-time lineup would debut\u00a0in 1987). For the usually acerbic Kitman, this was a miracle akin to Mookie Wilson’s little roller up along first that went\u00a0between Bill Buckner’s legs.<\/p>\n
“There are\u00a0so many new good TV shows this fall season, I sometimes think\u00a0I am losing my mind,” Kitman wrote. “Or I’ve died and gone to heaven. The sitcoms are actually funny, the dramas are taut and gripping. Never in my 17 years as a TV critic have the good shows outweighed the\u00a0bad.”<\/p>\n
Here are five series that made the Class of ’86 so memorable:<\/p>\n
ALF<\/p>\n
PLOT\u00a0A furry visitor from outer space (ALF=Alien Life Form), who sounds\u00a0like a Catskills comic, gets\u00a0adopted, more or less, by a nice suburban family.<\/p>\n
WHAT NEWSDAY SAID “My favorite show of the year in any category, gets funnier every week … ALF, who talks like an old vaudevillian, makes the show seem like The Muppets Meet Danny Rose at the Carnegie Deli for a Pastrami Sandwich. I’m really hooked on it.”<\/p>\n
WHERE TO WATCH NOW\u00a0Tubi, Pluto TV, Roku, Prime Video, Peacock, MeTV+<\/p>\n
AMEN<\/p>\n
PLOT With “The Jeffersons” canceled, Sherman Hemsley moved on out from the Upper East Side to be born again as a Philadelphia pastor.<\/p>\n
WHAT NEWSDAY SAID “Although ‘Amen’\u00a0isn’t one of the ‘hot’\u00a0new shows upon which critics’ attentions have been focused, ad executives say that it is funny, with an established star, and happens to follow one of last year’s top shows, ‘The Golden Girls,’\u00a0in NBC’s Saturday lineup.”<\/p>\n
WHERE TO WATCH YouTube<\/p>\n
CRIME STORY <\/p>\n
Dennis Farina was the no-nonsense Lt. Mike Torello in “Crime Story.” Credit: PictureLux\/The Hollywood Archive \/Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n
PLOT Set in 1963 Chicago, the drama focused on tough-as-nails Windy City cop Lt. Mike Torello (Dennis Farina) and his Major Crimes Unit as they battled bad guys led by the creepy Ray Luca (Tony Denison).<\/p>\n
WHAT NEWSDAY SAID “What makes it good anyway is that the characters are very\u00a0interesting. There is moral ambivalency in the stories that is true to life. It’s tough sometimes to tell the good guys from the bad. That’s\u00a0why police chiefs hated ‘Crime Story’\u00a0so much. They loved old police shows where everything is simplified: The good guys didn’t wear both hats.”<\/p>\n
WHERE TO WATCH Pluto TV, Roku, Prime, Peacock<\/p>\n
L.A. LAW ![\"These](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772432349_58_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
These serious-looking counselors mean business: The cast of “L.A.Law”: (back row, left to right): John Spencer, Susan Rattan, Corbin Bernsen, (3rd row): Larry Drake, A Martinez, Blair Underwood, (2nd row): Alan Rachins, Sheila Kelley, Jill Eikenberry, (front): Michael Tucker, Richard Dysart Credit: 20th Century Fox Licensing\/Merchandising \/ Everett Collection<\/p>\n
PLOT Yuppie attorneys work, love and backstab at\u00a0a high-powered Los Angeles firm. A terrific ensemble cast included the then-relatively\u00a0unknown Jimmy Smits, Blair Underwood and Harry Hamlin.<\/p>\n
WHAT NEWSDAY SAID ” ‘L.A. Law’\u00a0is a realistic (relatively) law show. It’s not one of those fill-in-the-numbers dramas. You could call ‘Matlock’\u00a0\u2014 the other\u00a0big law show this year on NBC \u2014 a Southern ‘Perry Mason.’\u00a0But you couldn’t call ‘L.A. Law’\u00a0an L.A. ‘Perry Mason.’\u00a0It’s to Perry what\u00a0admiralty law is to whiplash cases. My fingers are crossed for it in\u00a0the ratings.” [No need to worry:\u00a0“L.A. Law” ran\u00a0for eight\u00a0seasons and became a genuine water cooler show.]<\/p>\n
WHERE TO WATCH\u00a0Hulu, Disney+<\/p>\n
SLEDGE HAMMER!<\/p>\n
PLOT OK, you probably don’t remember this comedy with David Rasche as a bumbling tough-guy cop who seemed to channel Maxwell Smart more than he did Dirty Harry.\u00a0The chattering class loved it, regular viewers not so much.<\/p>\n
WHAT NEWSDAY SAID “This is the funniest unseen network show in history.\u00a0This story of a cop who talks to his gun is on opposite ‘Dallas’\u00a0and ‘Miami Vice.’ So what if it isn’t as funny as ‘Get Smart.’\u00a0What is these\u00a0days? But it is very, very amusing.”<\/p>\n
WHERE TO\u00a0WATCH Pluto TV<\/p>\n
HONORABLE MENTIONS\u00a0“Designing Women,” “Matlock” and “Head of the Class”<\/p>\n
![\"Andy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772432349_904_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
\n\tAndy Edelstein, Newsday’s entertainment editor, supervises coverage of TV, celebrities, movies and pop music. He has written three books on popular culture, including “The Brady Bunch Book.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fall of 1986 wasn’t just a cause for celebration because the Mets won the World Series \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,12080,92],"class_list":["post-498820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-nostalgia","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}