ABC
The Hardy Boys
Battlestar: Galactica
ABC Sunday Night Movie
I can’t say I remember much from 1978 with perfect clarity, but I do recall the build-up for Battlestar: Galactica. This was going to be Star Wars for television, and the glimpses we were shown prior to its debut seemed to back up that lofty ambition.
The special effects were a breakthrough for TV at the time, dazzling viewers even if they were watching on a 16” Zenith. The merchandising tie-ins were ready to go, in anticipation of a profitable holiday season – action figures, Viper and Cylon Raider spaceships, lunchboxes, comic books, trading cards.
And then the show debuted. It still looked good, and there were a lot of pretty people in the cast (Richard Hatch, Maren Jensen, Dirk Benedict, Laurette Spang), but that wasn’t enough to compensate for the dull adventures of a ragtag fugitive fleet, led by Ben Cartwright, pursued by evil robots as they searched for the “paradise planet” called earth.
It was gone after one season but obviously not forgotten. Twenty-five years later the Sci-Fi Channel launched a critically acclaimed new version of the show that became the network’s most successful original series, and popularized “frack” as substitute profanity for a word you still can’t say on basic cable.
The Hardy Boys returned for a shortened third season, this time without the alternating stories featuring Nancy Drew.
Frank and Joe were now working for the government, looking into cases that apparently couldn’t be solved by a well-funded Department of Justice and FBI. I still enjoyed these episodes, especially the two-parter “Defection to Paradise” featuring David Gates, who performs several songs from his band Bread.
CBS
60 Minutes
Mary
All in the Family
Alice
Kaz
For decades 60 Minutes was the gold standard for investigative broadcast journalism. That’s not the case anymore, following widespread accusations of biased reporting and deceptive editing of taped interviews. But in 1978 the newsmagazine was still in the capable hands of producer Don Hewitt and correspondents Mike Wallace, Morley Safer and Harry Reasoner, and at #6 in the Nielsens it was the highest-rated show of the night.
Just one year after shutting the doors to the WJM newsroom for the last time, Mary Tyler Moore returned to prime time in Mary, a comedy variety series. Its supporting cast included David Letterman, Michael Keaton, James Hampton, Dick Shawn and Swoosie Kurtz.
How could it miss? Check out this episode online and judge for yourself.
Maybe she didn’t stay away long enough for the public to miss her, or maybe the variety format was already on life support by 1978, and any attempt to revive what had stopped working even for Carol Burnett was doomed from the start. Still, given all the good will Mary had built up with the TV audience after starring in two of the medium’s greatest sitcoms, you’d think they would have given her more of a chance. They didn’t – and despite being sandwiched between two top-ten hits, 60 Minutes and All in the Family (#9), Mary was canceled after just three episodes.
Maybe she didn’t stay away long enough for the public to miss her, or maybe the variety format was already on life support by 1978, and any attempt to revive what had stopped working even for Carol Burnett was doomed from the start. Still, given all the good will Mary had built up with the TV audience after starring in two of the medium’s greatest sitcoms, you’d think they would have given her more of a chance. They didn’t – and despite being sandwiched between two top-ten hits, 60 Minutes and All in the Family (#9), Mary was canceled after just three episodes.
In its third season, Alice (#13) delivered another hit that helped CBS win the night. But that lead-in didn’t do much for Kaz, a pretty good show starring Ron Leibman as car thief Martin Kazinski, who studies law in prison, passes the bar, and joins a prestigious law firm as a criminal defense attorney.
The show was canceled after one season, but Leibman won the Emmy as Best Actor in a Drama Series, over such distinguished competition as Ed Asner in Lou Grant and James Garner in The Rockford Files. I could see how some viewers might have found his character too abrasive, but I’m a sucker for a good courtroom drama, and this was one I hoped would have lasted longer.
NBC
Wonderful World of Disney
The Big Event
Lifeline
All three of NBC’s offerings, two of which were covered here in previous blogs, finished outside of the top 30. But Lifeline deserves more acknowledgment than it ever received for being one of the first reality TV programs on a major network. Film crews followed real doctors at hospitals in different cities for months, waiting for something dramatic to happen, which it always eventually did.
Why did viewers not show more interest? I think the temperament of the TV audience was different then. People didn’t have the same morbid curiosity in watching real life-and-death crises unfold. That has changed now, when you can find the most gruesome footage imaginable online, which has only rendered such moments less shocking, reducing them to just another form of video ‘entertainment.’ Just my opinion, but I think we were a better people and a better country before the internet turned us all into voyeurs.
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)
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)
Young Dan’l Boone (1977)
Rafferty (1977)
Mulligan’s Stew (1977)
Big Hawaii (1977)
We’ve Got Each Other (1977)
Lifeline (1978)
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