TVSquad

The TV is a weird beast. Your show can have ridiculously high ratings, receive greater critical claim than the Mona Lisa and achieve a cult following not seen since the People's Temple, and the network can still pull the plug on you.

TV Land doesn't work like Reality Land, if the Reality Land is in fact reality and not some bizarre reality land where meat-hungry producers are the gods of fate. TV has a different equation for success.

Here are the ten telltale signs that your new show will spend eternity shining in the pantheon of the cosmos and the rest of its life on Best Buy's DVD shelves.

On May 6 at 9:00 p.m., NBC will air Saturday Night Live in the '90s: Pop Culture Nation. The special, as evidenced in the title, will look at the late night mainstay and the actors who called the show "home" during the '90s. Having gone to high school and college throughout the '90s, this is the era that sticks in my memory the most, when folks like Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Norm MacDonald, Phil Hartman, David Spade, Chris Farley and Dana Carvey were just funny guys no one had ever heard of before.

The special will include interviews with former cast members, insight from repeat hosts Alec Baldwin and John Goodman, plus interviews with writers Tim Herlihy and Adam McKay, who went on to successful careers as film writers. If you're a fan of Saturday Night Live, it's probably worth checking out, but especially if you happen to be around my age and these episodes were the ones you quoted and discussed with your friends the next day in school.