American Dreamer stars Robert Urich as fictional character Tom Nash, formerly a high-powered network correspondent who was forced to reassess his priorities following the death of his wife.
To do this, he moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he supported his family by contributing a column about "real people" to a Chicago newspaper.
His editor, Joe Baines (Jeffrey Tambor), felt Tom was completely wasting his talents and drove out from Chicago weekly (a huge sacrifice, from his viewpoint) to attempt to convince Tom to return the world of "hard news".
Tom sometimes "broke the fourth wall" to address the viewers directly about his thoughts regarding the situations he encountered.
This philosophizing gained only a small audience and the program was cancelled at midseason, although selected episodes were rerun the following summer.