Today in History: Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Television 
“Lost in Space” on CBS aired its final original episode in 1968. The series ran for three seasons and was canceled due to the high cost of production. A “Lost in Space” theatrical movie was produced in 1998 and Netflix rebooted the series for three seasons…Walter Cronkite, “the most trusted man in America,” signed-off as anchorman of the “CBS Evening News” in 1981… Country Music Television, or CMT (in short), launched in 1983…”In the Heat of the Night,” based on the theatrical of the same name and starring Carroll O’Connor, debuted on NBC in 1988. It aired on NBC through 1992 and moved to CBS for two final seasons (and four follow-up made for television movies)…Melodramatic telefilm “Those She Left Behind” starring Gary Cole and Joanna Kerns premiered on NBC in 1989. It scored an enormous 25.1 household rating, the largest for an NBC TV movie in three years. Its co-star Colleen Dewhurst won an Emmy later that year for Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie…Long-running docuseries “Intervention” debuted on A&E in 2005…The inaugural season of comedy “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” starring Ellie Kemper, Tituss Burgess, Jane Krakowski and Carol Kane, was released on Netflix in 2015. The series, created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, was originally developed at NBC but then sold to the streamer. Four seasons were produced, receiving a total of 20 Emmy nominations throughout its run…The TV movie “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” starring Halle Berry, Michael Ealy and Ruby Dee, premiered on ABC on this day in 2005, and scored an impressive 24.6 million viewers on the night — the most for a telefilm on any network since Nov. 28, 1999 (CBS’ “One Special Night”). Based on the novel by Zora Neale Hurston, the executive producers included Oprah Winfrey and Quincy Jones…In a memorable scene on the Fox drama “24” in 2006, intelligence analyst Edgar Stiles (Louis Lombardi) was among those to succumb to a nerve gas attack unleashed upon the Los Angeles office of CTU …Three short-lived series debuted in 2022: HBO’s “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” starring John C. Reilly; Starz paranormal comedy “Shining Vale” starring Courtney Cox, Greg Kinnear and Mira Sorvino; and, NBC dating competition “The Courtship.”

Celebrity Birthdays
Actor-director Rob Reiner (“All in the Family”) is 77; actress Anna Maria Horsford (“The Bold and the Beautiful”) is 77; pop singer Kiki Dee is 77; TV personality John Stossel is 77; sports correspondent Armen Keteyian is 71; actor Tom Arnold (“Jackie Thomas”) is 65; comedian DL Hughley is 61; “Nashville” star Connie Britton is 57; actress Moira Kelly (“One Tree Hill”) is 56; actress Amy Pietz (“Aliens in America,” ″Caroline in the City”) is 55; NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal is 52; rapper Bubba Sparxxx is 47; rapper-producer Tyler, the Creator is 33; actress Millicent Simmonds (“A Quiet Place,” “Wonderstruck”) is 21.

Did You Know?
The episode of “In the Heat of the Night” titled “Every Man’s Family” (which originally was telecast on CBS on Nov. 10, 1993) was a proposed spinoff series focused on Alan Autry as Capt. V.L. “Bubba” Skinner. But interest in the drama was waning and it never moved forward.