Aired: 1994 (ABC)
DAD: Jack McKenna (Chad Everett) / Widower
DAD’S JOB: Trail Outfitter
KIDS: Guy (dead) (24), Brick (Eric Close) (20), Cassidy (Jennifer Love Hewitt) (15)
WHERE’S MOM?: Dead – unknown.
STAND-IN “MOM”: None
Sometimes, watching TV Single Dad shows is a painful exercise. Take THIS show, for instance. Let me see if I can lay out the story premise: Chad Everett is the owner of a travel/mountaineering/outfitter company in Oregon. His son Guy gets killed mountain-climbing. Chad’s son Brick (yes, BRICK), who left home to race cars, comes back to help his dad, who is struggling with grief, to get the company back on its feet. Sounds tedious and predictable? Guess it was — the show aired three times before getting the axe. That, and putting it on opposite NBC’s “Must-See-TV” Thursdays was the icing on the burial cake.
Doesn’t it feel like there should be an exclamation mark after that show name? McKenna!
Jennifer Love Hewitt was a Kiss of Death for some of these TV Single Dad shows, apparently. She was on Byrds of Paradise the same year, and it croaked too!