September 21, 1990 – May 23, 1994
Evening Shade is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from September 21, 1990, to May 23, 1994. The series stars Burt Reynolds as Woodrow "Wood" Newton, an ex-professional football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers, who returns to rural Evening Shade, Arkansas, to coach a high-school football team with a long losing streak. Reynolds personally requested to use the Steelers as his character's former team because he was a fan.
The general theme of the show is the appeal of small-town life. Episodes often ended with a closing narration by Ossie Davis, as his character Ponder Blue, summing up the events of the episode, always closing with "... in a place called Evening Shade." The opening segment included clips from around Arkansas, including the famous McClard's Bar-B-Q in Hot Springs National Park.
Summary
A former pro football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers who quit after an injury, Wood Newton has settled down to a quiet life in Arkansas as the coach of the Evening Shade High School football team, which is notorious for its long losing streak.
Wood and his wife Ava, whom he married when she was only 18 (a grievance frequently voiced by her father Evan Evans, owner of the local newspaper) are devoted to each other despite their age difference. Ava is an ambitious, successful practicing lawyer who in the first season is elected District Attorney while pregnant with their fourth (unintended) child Emily, who is born in the first-season finale. Among Wood and Ava's closest friends are the somewhat-older town doctor Harlan Eldridge and his trusting wife Merleen, who always believes the best of people.
The show's plots focus on the various difficulties that Wood faces in living a very different life than he ever expected, as well as the obvious family pressures of two jobs and four children. Additional tensions come from Ava's aunt Freida, Evan's perennially discontented sister, who especially disapproves when Evan begins dating town stripper Fontana Beausoleil, who discovers in season two that she is Merleen's long-lost daughter, whom she gave up for adoption at age 15. Evan and Fontana get married in a three-part episode in season two and have a child in season three.
The show also gets mileage out of the incongruity of the decidedly unathletic but well-meaning assistant coach Herman Stiles, the best the school's budget can afford. During the first season, he catches the eye of Evening Shade High's prim and proper principal, Margaret Fouch, and they start dating.
On July 12 and 19, 1993, CBS aired two parts of an hour-long pilot, Harlan & Merleen, as a proposed spin-off of the series. The pilot had the Elldridges open their home to young pregnant women who needed help (one of whom was played by Leah Remini). The pilot did not achieve series status.