My Journey Through 1970s TV: Wednesday Nights, 1976

How do you follow up a night when your network features the season’s two highest-rated shows? If you’re ABC, you do it with three more hits to dominate yet another evening. Give credit to CBS for at least hanging in there with a mostly successful mix of new shows and returning favorites. As for NBC…well, better luck on Thursday.

ABC
The Bionic Woman
Baretta
Charlie’s Angels

After being introduced on two popular episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man, Jaime Sommers was spun off into her own series and was an immediate hit, finishing the season at #14. 

If I’m in the mood for some bionic action these days I will almost always opt for this series over its predecessor, thanks to consistently better and more grounded stories (at least until season 3) and the captivating presence of Lindsay Wagner.

Baretta (#8) was still a top ten hit in its third season, but it was quickly surpassed in popularity by a new show featuring three little girls who went to the police academy. Charlie’s Angels (#5) was the breakout hit of the season, destroying its competition and landing its three stars on the cover of Time magazine. 

Sadly, its first season would be the only one with the original lineup of Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith. Farrah’s quick departure, largely engineered by husband Lee Majors, would put the series’ future in jeopardy, but the network need not have worried, as we’ll see when we get to 1977.

CBS
Good Times
Ball Four
All in the Family
Alice
The Blue Knight

In its fourth season Good Times finished at #26, as audiences (not to mention his fellow cast members) began to tire about every episode being about J.J. (Jimmie Walker). The season opened with a shocking two-part episode in which family patriarch James Evans is killed in a car accident.

Jim Bouton’s Ball Four is still considered one of the best books every written about life in the Major League. It figured to be a challenging book to adapt for television, with its frank depictions of what goes on in baseball locker rooms, but from what I’ve read about it they tried their best. I’ve never seen it (maybe because it disappeared after just five episodes) so on the list of “missed shows” it goes.

All In the Family was CBS’s highest-rated show of the night, finishing at #12 – not bad for a series in its seventh season. Next up, a new show based on the film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Alice (#30) became a popular long-running show, but it never did anything for me. My grits remain un-kissed.

In 1973 CBS aired The Blue Knight, based on a book by Joseph Wambaugh about a police officer nearing retirement. William Holden starred, but wasn’t interested in reprising the role in a series, so George Kennedy stepped in. 

It drew enough viewers in its first season to return in the fall of 1976 but was then canceled after ten episodes. George Kennedy was always cool, but he was no match for Farrah Fawcett.


NBC
The Practice
NBC Movie of the Week
The Quest

Pity the poor programming wizards at the Peacock network in 1976. If it weren’t for bad luck, they would have no luck at all.

The Practice (not the one with Willam Shatner as Denny Crane), was as close as they got to a show anyone cared about, coasting through two undistinguished seasons on viewer affection for stars Danny Thomas and Shelley Fabares. Thomas played a lovable but grumpy old doctor, Shelley played his daughter, and his nurse was played by Dena (“It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature") Dietrich.

The Quest tried unsuccessfully to bring westerns back to prime time. Kurt Russell and Tim Matheson played brothers who hit the trail searching for their sister Patricia, who like Russell’s character was abducted by Indians. Each week they’d ride into a new town, get involved in some local trouble and then be on their way. The show was canceled before they could find Patricia - hopefully she's adjusted to her new life by now.

None of this was working so the network took bold action in December; it canceled the Movie of the Week and introduced three new sitcoms: CPO Sharkey, The McLean Stevenson Show and Sirota's Court.

Sometimes you just can’t win.


Shows Missed:
The Don Knotts Show (1970)
San Francisco International Airport (1970)
Nancy (1970)
The Headmaster (1970)
The Man and the City (1971)
Search (1972)
Assignment: Vienna (1972)
The Delphi Bureau (1972)
Jigsaw (1972)
The Little People (1972)
The Sixth Sense (1972)
Tenafly (1973)
Faraday & Company (1973)
Kodiak (1974)
The New Land (1974)
McCoy (1975)
Joe and Sons (1975)
Beacon Hill (1975)
Mobile One (1975)
Big Eddie (1975)
Executive Suite (1976)
Ball Four (1976)

The Things We Can Learn from Classic TV

If anyone ever asked me what minerals can be found in granite, I could tell them the answer: quartz, mica, and feldspar. Sadly, however, no one has ever asked me that question. I’ve even tried to steer the occasional conversation around to the topic, hoping to show off my expertise – “Hey, does that look like granite to you?” Still, no luck.

The reason I know this is not because of a geology course I took in college, or because I have more interest in rocks than the average American. I know it because the minerals in granite were casually mentioned in an episode of The Secrets of Isis called “Rockhound’s Roost.”

This was also the series that taught me the Latin name for crow (Corvus), and how to distinguish a crow from a raven. 

These diverse (and arguably useless) nuggets of knowledge illustrate how watching even the most unsophisticated television shows can make us smarter, whether we realize it or not.

What I learned from Isis did not graft itself in my memory after my first viewing of the show in the 1970s. I’d guess for most people those types of dialogue exchanges just sail by as we focus on the story and characters. But after repeated exposure to these episodes, our wealth of knowledge on a variety of topics is almost certain to expand.

Repetition is the secret sauce that also made the Schoolhouse Rock shorts so effective. Clever concepts and catchy songs helped, but the generation that grew up with Saturday morning cartoons in the 1970s watched these segments dozens, maybe even hundreds of times over the years. And now, decades later, many of us can still recite the entire Preamble of the Constitution from memory.

Science was always my most challenging school subject, but here again help arrived from unlikely places. On The Brady Bunch when Peter was falling behind in his science class, Greg and Marcia gave him some rhymes to help with recall (“A vertebrate has a back that’s straight!”).

And how many kids learned more about the human cardiovascular system from Potsie, courtesy of “Pump Your Blood” on Happy Days?

My guess is that other classic TV fans are better at this than I am. Those with greater retention may be able to pick up on an informative line of dialogue after just one or two viewings. I need more than that. Everyone’s memory works differently, and mine sometimes doesn’t work at all.

But if you ever need to know more about granite, you know who to call.

Your turn – what has classic TV taught you?

The General Lee Flies Again

As a fan of the classic TV era, I’m always excited by those times when life imitates art.

One of them happened a few weeks ago in Somerset, Kentucky, population about 12,000, when 40,000 people showed up to watch the General Lee jump over a fountain in the town square.

The event was organized by a local car club and a stunt group called the Northeast Ohio Dukes of Hazzard County. The man behind the wheel was Raymond Kohn, who had performed similar jumps before. Each one requires months of preparation and planning.

“You get one shot at it. This is a very scary situation,” he said. “You’re putting yourself in a life-and-death situation on purpose.”

So why do it? Why drive a car at top speed up a ramp, soaring more than 150 feet in the air, before hitting the ground – hard – risking life and limb in the process? And Kohn wasn’t the only one in danger. When the General landed parts of the car were sprayed out along the road, and one cameraman barely got out of the way as the car skidded toward a row of barricades before stopping.

I think moments like this say something about the magic of television, of the relationships forged between characters and the viewers who idolized them. Over the course of seasons and years they became as familiar to us as our own families, and we wanted to visit them and share in their stories. Since that isn’t possible, we look for ways to bring some of their fictional world into ours.

That’s what happened when the General flew that day in Kentucky. It couldn’t hit the ground and keep moving the way it did when Bo Duke was driving, but that was the other magic of television. 

In reality every car jumped on The Dukes of Hazzard was immediately totaled. Over the course of the series more than 300 Dodge Chargers flew over rivers and barns and trains and then were ignominiously towed to their final resting places.

But that was okay. In the moment, as fans, we believed. And in that moment in Somerset, thousands saw something they only ever thought they could see on TV.

There have been other such crossovers – the Brady Bunch house, for instance. HGTV bought the home shown on every episode of the series and completely transformed the interior, so it now matches the layout and frozen-in-time décor of the rooms that once existed only on Paramount soundstages. I’m planning my visit later this year.

Southfork Ranch, as seen in Dallas for 13 years and more than 350 episodes, is also open for tours. According to the website, you can see Lucy’s wedding dress, the Dallas Family Tree and Jock’s Lincoln Continental.

Here in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Hilton was once home to Star Trek – The Experience, a combination dining/shopping/museum/attraction which might have been the only place on earth where one could purchase a six-pack of Romulan Ale.

The first time you enter what you think is going to be a motion simulator attraction, the lights suddenly go out, and when they come back on you find yourself standing on the transporter pad of the USS Enterprise. It was a remarkably believable effect, and while you were still getting your bearings after the swerve you are escorted by uniformed crewmembers through the ship’s corridors and into a perfect recreation of the bridge.

Sadly, the attraction closed in 2008 – but there’s a recreation of the original series’ Enterprise in Ticonderoga, New York.

With the cultural impact of television having declined significantly since the year 2000 or so, I think it’s unlikely that any series will ever achieve a level of popularity that would manifest itself in a similar way. Just look at the recently announced Emmy nominations and consider whether a series with eight episodes on Apple TV+ could ever penetrate the public consciousness the way network shows once did. People don’t seem to take their favorite shows to heart the way they used to – you’ll get a phenomenon every so often like Yellowstone or Stranger Things, but will they still be on people’s minds 30, 40, 50 years from now? I wouldn’t bet on it.

Footage of the General Lee’s jump is up on YouTube, and one of the comments was “This is the America I want to live in.” Me, too – even if it’s the America that so many detest now, that would celebrate a car named after a Confederate general with a Rebel flag on the roof. We knew the difference between legacy and hate, and between fantasy and reality. And when a slice of the classic TV fantasy enters into reality, it’s always something to remember.

My Journey Through 1970s TV: Tuesday Nights, 1976

Nights like this were the reason videocassette recorders were invented. Those magnificent machines were still $1,000 or more back then but were worth the investment for families torn between the top-rated series airing on ABC and CBS, and some pretty good shows on NBC as well.

We take for granted now the ability to watch TV on our schedule, but 50 years ago every program decision came with the knowledge that there might be something good on another network that we’d have to wait until summer reruns to catch. Which of these series got your vote in 1976?

ABC
Happy Days
Laverne & Shirley
Rich Man, Poor Man Book II
Family

With Happy Days ranked #1 for the season, followed by Laverne & Shirley at #2, ABC stakes its claim as the most popular network of the second half of the decade.

Season four of Happy Days opened with the fondly-remember three-parter “Fonzie Loves Pinky,” featuring those dreaded demolition derby villains the Malachi brothers, and Roz Kelly as the Fonz’s one true love, Pinky Tuscadero. If you were the right age, it probably ranked as one of the most awesome things you’ve ever seen on television.

By now the family-oriented stories and subtler humor were supplanted by stories that kept television’s most popular character in the spotlight in nearly every episode. A poster of Henry Winkler as the Fonz became the best-selling poster of all time – though that would not last for much longer.

Rich Man, Poor Man Book II continued the saga of the Jordache family. It’s classified as a miniseries but with 21 episodes it held its timeslot from September to March and ranked as the 21st most popular show of the season.

Family was ABC’s only Tuesday series to finish outside the top 25, which is ironic because it’s also the best series of the night on any network. I wrote this about it a few years ago: After 20 years of sensationalized reality TV, the idea of dramatizing the normal low-key reality of life with one Pasadena family now seems like an incomplete pitch; what’s the hook? Is the father psychic or is the mother leading a double life? Does the son have superpowers? Is the daughter trans or a pop singer or something else that will bring in a broader demographic?

When the writing and the acting are as perfect as they are here, no other incentive should be necessary. To watch Family is to be wholly drawn into the joys and sorrows and relationships of fictional characters, and to believe that every word they say is extemporaneous and could not possibly have been typed by someone else months earlier.



CBS
Tony Orlando & Dawn Rainbow Hour
M*A*S*H
One Day at a Time
Switch

M*A*S*H ranked at #4 in the Nielsens and One Day at a Time, in its first full season, finished at #8. Those without VCRs, you had decisions to make.

Adding “Rainbow Hour” to the title and a weekly monologue from George Carlin was not enough to save Tony Orlando & Dawn’s variety series – just as well given the poor decision to focus more on comedy than music in this, its second and final year. Thankfully Switch still had a couple more seasons of shows built around clever con games. For me this was as good a series as The Rockford Files – I just wish it would have stuck around as long.

NBC
Baa Baa Black Sheep
Police Woman
Police Story

The unfortunately named Baa Baa Black Sheep (which became Black Sheep Squadron in its second season) starred Robert Conrad as Marine Corps aviator Greg “Pappy” Boyington, who commanded a squadron in World War II known as the Black Sheep. The stories were loosely based on the real exploits of the group. Conrad always excelled at these heroic types, and kept busy in the 1970s in shows like The Duke and A Man Called Sloane. Sometimes I think he took those parts just to keep getting invited back to the Battle of the Network Stars.

Police Woman and Police Story were in the middle of their successful runs, the latter series in particular maintaining a remarkably high level of quality for an anthology examining different aspects of police work.

While NBC failed to place any of these shows in the top 30, those who opted for this lineup were also in for a perfectly fine evening of television. Maybe viewers would need two VCRs.

Shows Missed:
The Don Knotts Show (1970)
San Francisco International Airport (1970)
Nancy (1970)
The Headmaster (1970)
The Man and the City (1971)
Search (1972)
Assignment: Vienna (1972)
The Delphi Bureau (1972)
Jigsaw (1972)
The Little People (1972)
The Sixth Sense (1972)
Tenafly (1973)
Faraday & Company (1973)
Kodiak (1974)
The New Land (1974)
McCoy (1975)
Joe and Sons (1975)
Beacon Hill (1975)
Mobile One (1975)
Big Eddie (1975)
Executive Suite (1976)

Remembrances and a Celebration

Occasionally the classic TV era generates multiple headlines decades after its departure. Usually that mean obituaries, and there were three of note this past week.

The one that hit closest to home with me was Rick Hurst, as I knew him. Not well, but when I wrote my Dukes of Hazzard book he was the first cast member I interviewed. “Starting at the bottom,” he said, smiling, as we took our seats at a café in Los Angeles coincidentally called Dukes.

When Sonny Shroyer temporarily left the series to star in the spinoff Enos, Hurst was brought in as the new deputy, Cletus Hogg. He would remain on the show after Shroyer returned, ultimately appearing in 55 episodes.

He played cops on other shows as well, including Sanford and Son, The Partridge Family, Love, American Style and Get Christie Love. And he was a regular on two short-lived series, On the Rocks and Amanda’s. His IMDB page lists more than 70 credits.

He was a busy character actor and a good one, and more importantly he was a kind and humble man. After my book came out I met up with him at a park in L.A. where he was watching his son play in Little League. He signed my book after several other cast members had done so, and once again joked about being at the bottom of the list.

“I don't know about y'all but I believe in an afterlife,” wrote Ben Jones (Cooter), “and I can see Rick up there in Heaven with Jimmy Best and Sorrell Booke and Denver Pyle, putting on the funniest show inside those Pearly Gates.”

Newspaper headlines identified Lalo Schifrin, who died at age 93, as “composer of the Mission: Impossible theme,” and if that were all he did it would still be an impressive legacy.

One of the series’ defining qualities was how quickly its stories moved - once that fuse was lit in the opening credits and the IM force got their marching orders from Mr. Phelps (or Mr. Briggs), the pace rarely slowed as elaborate plans were executed with expert precision. Schifrin’s propulsive theme managed to capture that same feeling of intensity, setting the perfect tone for the stories that followed.

He scored other TV shows – Mannix, Medical Center, T.H.E. Cat, and movies as well, but there’s a reason Mission: Impossible is always referenced first when his name is mentioned. Whatever you think of the M:I film series with Tom Cruise, give them credit for knowing they’d never come up with better music than what Schifrin already created.

Bobby Sherman was not eulogized as a TV star, but he first came to national attention in the series Here Come the Brides (1968-1970), for which he also performed the theme song, “Seattle.” He had seven top 40 hits, more than fellow Tiger Beat teen idol David Cassidy, but not as many as Donny Osmond. Then he left show business to become a paramedic, which is pretty awesome.

The passing of Bill Moyers comes at a time when debate rages in Washington over whether a government that is trillions in debt should continue to fund PBS. Moyers was one of public television’s most respected journalists, perhaps best-remembered for his six-part interview series “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth.”

He was a liberal but a principled one, who largely kept his personal politics out of his shows and specials – until he was driven over the edge by Donald Trump like so many on the left. He once said that Trump had “an open sore” instead of a soul.

On a happier note, June Lockhart turned 100 recently. She’s the second nicest celebrity I have ever interviewed, and I’ve had the pleasure to speak to her a few times over the years. The first time was for my book What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History. Going into the project I wondered how many people would be willing to discuss their participation in such moments, but June was delighted to reflect on the infamous Lost in Space episode “The Great Vegetable Rebellion.” That was the one, you may recall, in which the Robinson family were menaced by a man in a carrot suit.

“The shooting of it was beyond anything you could imagine,” she told me. “We could not keep it together.” Her recollections were more entertaining than the show, and we also got to chat about her first classic TV series, Lassie, and her time on Petticoat Junction. As a General Hospital fan, I also remember her as Mariah Ramirez, Felicia’s mother.

We who celebrate the Comfort TV era do so because we think it’s worth celebrating, and find what it gave us to be preferable to what we’re being offered now. I know there will be more sad days like this as we say goodbye to those who entertained us, and occasionally a heartening milestone also worthy of observance. As Linda Ellerbee used to say, and so it goes.

The Twilight Zone, Season Two: 3 Classics and 3 Wasted Trips

I've been watching The Twilight Zone for as long as I’ve been watching television. But as I wrote here back in March, I’ve never owned the series or experienced all the episodes in order in their entirety. But as I wrote here back in March, I’ve never owned the series or experienced all the episodes in order in their entirety.

That’s what I’m doing now. And it’s been an interesting experience – especially in how I’ve been discovering quite a few episodes that I’ve never seen before.

After finishing the first season I wrote a piece here listing my three favorite episodes, and three I could have done without. I have now finished season two, so let’s do it again.

The Three Best

The Howling Man

A traveler seeks shelter in a remote European monastery. The monks are reluctant to let him in, and he soon discovers why: in one of its cells, they claim to be holding the Devil prisoner. His agonized howls echo through the stone walls at regular intervals. Curious, the visitor confronts the figure in the cell, who appears to be a normal man professing his innocence. Is he right? And will the traveler let him out?

This is one of the classic TZ episodes even casual fans recall, made more memorable by the gravitas brought to the role of Brother Jerome by the grandiose John Carradine.

Twenty-Two

The surreal world of dreams, and whether they have any impact on our reality, was a theme explored in more than one Twilight Zone episode. “Shadow Play,” also from this season, starred Dennis Weaver as a man trapped in the same recurring dream of being in prison awaiting execution. It’s good, but I found “Twenty-Two” to be even more unsettling.

The set-up is similar: a nightclub dancer is in a hospital seeking answers to why she keeps having the same terrifying dream. In it, she awakens from her hospital bed, takes an elevator down to the basement level, and walks down a darkened hallway until she reaches room 22 – the morgue. A severe-looking nurse swings the door open and says, “Room for one more, honey."

I really liked how this one ended as it suggests that some nightmares might be good for you. Arlene Martel, usually quite the exotic looker but not here, plays the nurse – it’s a small role but one not easily forgotten.

The Obsolete Man

In a Kafkaesque courtroom, sometime in humanity’s possible future, a man is judged to be obsolete by the all-powerful State. He is a librarian in a time when books have been banned, and he believes in God despite the State insisting there is no such entity. He is sentenced to die and is allowed to choose the method of his execution – and that’s where the condemned man sees an opportunity for reprisal.

Much of “The Obsolete Man” is a two-character piece, with Burgess Meredith as the humble librarian, and Fritz Weaver as the arrogant Chancellor, representing the State. I’m not sure if the climax owes more to Tennessee Williams or Night of the Living Dead – but either way it’s by far the most unsettling scene of the entire season.

The allusions of fascism are hardly subtle – at one point the Chancellor even says men like Hitler and Stalin had the right idea but didn’t go far enough. But that lack of subtlety is not a flaw, especially since the lesson in this episode is one that apparently needs to be taught to every generation, especially our current dumbed-down one that needs a reminder that fascism once meant something concrete, and was not merely a slur to hurl at people you don’t like.

For a more in-depth examination of this episode, I am happy to refer you to Mitchell Hadley’s analysis, from his forthcoming book Darkness in Primetime.

Which episodes almost made the list? Quite a few, starting with “Eye of the Beholder” with Donna Douglas, which may be the season’s most famous offering.

“The Invaders” with Agnes Moorehead was an ambitious experiment – telling the story of an alien invasion without any dialogue. I also liked “Nick of Time,” with William Shatner nearly throwing away a promising future after becoming obsessed with a fortune telling machine in a small-town diner.

Time travel stories were big this season, with people from the present being transported to the past (“Back There”) and people from the past being transported to the present (“A Hundred Yards Over the Rim”). My favorite was “The Odyssey of Flight 33,” through its ambiguous ending may frustrate some viewers.


The Three Worst

The Mind and the Matter

There’s a reason why “the comedy stylings of Rod Serling” is not a phrase in common parlance. The series’ lighter-side episodes rarely worked, and this is one of the worst. Comedian Shelley Berman plays a man fed up with his crowded city, who uses the power of his mind to make everyone disappear – and then he has conversations with himself about how he still feels miserable.

A Thing About Machines

Bartlett Finchley (Richard Haydn) is a fussy luddite who hates machines, so much so that they start to hate him back. In one particularly ridiculous moment, he is chased around his home by his electric razor.

Mr. Dingle the Strong

Burgess Meredith starred in one of the season’s best episodes but also plays the title role in one of its most forgettable. Dingle is given super-strength by perhaps the most ridiculous aliens ever seen on the series, and then they take it away. 

That’s pretty much it. Don Rickles is in it, which helps, but not enough.

While I begin exploring season 3, what were your favorite season 2 shows?  

My Journey Through 1970s TV: Monday Nights, 1976

Made-for-TV movies, like variety shows,  were a staple of network programming throughout the 1970s, as evidenced here by both NBC and ABC on Monday nights in 1976.

The reason networks scheduled weekly movies is that they were consistently popular, equaling or besting both sitcoms and drama series in the ratings. ABC’s Monday Night Movie ranked #3 for this season – a higher rating than Monday Night Football achieved in that same time slot.

Though most of the titles have been lost to the ages, the best of them are still fondly recalled by classic TV fans – Brian’s Song, Trilogy of Terror, Duel, The Night Stalker. Thankfully, YouTube and other online services have resurrected dozens from television oblivion, and they’re just as enjoyable now as they were 50 years ago.

How consistent was the quality? Here are just some of the titles ABC presented in the calendar year 1976:

Eleanor and Franklin (winner of 11 Emmy Awards)
Charlie’s Angels (the pilot movie for the series earned a remarkable 54 share)
Brenda Starr (Jill St. John as the famed reporter from the comic strip)
The New Daughters of Joshua Cabe (wonderful light-hearted western with Buddy Ebsen, Karen Valentine and Lesley Ann Warren)
The Love Boat (pilot for another hit series)
Look What Happened to Rosemary’s Baby (sequel – of sorts – to the classic horror film)
Smash-Up on Interstate Five (cheesy but fun disaster film with Robert Conrad that ranked #6 the week it aired)

What else did Monday nights in 1976 serve up? Let’s take a look.

ABC
The Captain & Tennille
ABC Monday Night Movie

All it took to get your own variety series in the ‘70s was a couple of hit records. As a television personality, Daryl Dragon was so stiff that even guest appearances by Charlie’s original Angels didn’t coax much of a smile from him. 

Still, the Captain & Tennille’s show was better than the Starland Vocal Band’s, though not as good Sonny and Cher’s. The musical performances were great, the comedy spots not so much, but there’s something about the glitzy charms of these vintage variety shows now that can still make one long for happier times.


NBC
Little House on the Prairie
NBC Monday Night Movie

Little House ranked #15 for the year in its third season, with NBC’s Monday Night Movie not far behind at #20. All in all, an impressive showing for the network that spent much of this decade behind its competitors.

CBS
Rhoda
Phyllis
Maude
All’s Fair
Executive Suite


CBS was the only network opting not to show a movie on Monday nights, which would seem like sound counter-programming strategy. But it didn’t work. All five shows in its lineup finished outside the top 30 in 1976.

This was the season in which Rhoda’s marriage fell apart, which may have depressed enough viewers who adored her that they didn’t stick around for the retooled Phyllis, canceled after this season.

Maude suffered a precipitous ratings drop, from #4 the previous year to #31. 

Part of that could be attributed to floundering lead-ins, but it has also been suggested that this was right about the time audiences were seeking out lighter, more escapist fare, instead of comedies in which issues were debated and everyone yelled at each other.

Which means All’s Fair could not have debuted at a worse time. The Washington DC-based sitcom starred Richard Crenna as a conservative political columnist in a relationship with a liberal news photographer, played by the apparently ageless Bernadette Peters. 

Episodes frequently featured current event political debates – just the kind of content that viewers seeking relief from such conflicts were trying to avoid.

Executive Suite was another early attempt at a prime time soap. I never saw it so on the “missed shows” list it goes. Not many people saw it in 1976 either apparently, as it didn’t last a full season. CBS would revisit the genre two years later with much greater success – you could even say they struck oil.

Shows Missed:
The Don Knotts Show (1970)
San Francisco International Airport (1970)
Nancy (1970)
The Headmaster (1970)
The Man and the City (1971)
Search (1972)
Assignment: Vienna (1972)
The Delphi Bureau (1972)
Jigsaw (1972)
The Little People (1972)
The Sixth Sense (1972)
Tenafly (1973)
Faraday & Company (1973)
Kodiak (1974)
The New Land (1974)
McCoy (1975)
Joe and Sons (1975)
Beacon Hill (1975)
Mobile One (1975)
Big Eddie (1975)
Executive Suite (1976)