Shows you think deserved one more season (1 Viewer)

[MartinP.]

Because, with movies in "decline" (ie., audiences not wanting to go out to see depressing Nixon-era Oscar-bait before Star Wars came along), television was THE national bread-and-circuses entertainment, period.

Yeah, all those depressing movies like Funny Girl, Oliver, What's Up, Doc?, Romeo & Juliet, Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Lon in Winter, The Odd Couple, Bullitt, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Hello, Dolly, True Grit, Cactus Flower, Airport, Sweet Charity, The French Connection, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, The Poseidon Adventure, Fiddler on the Roof, Summer of '42, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Shaft, Willy Wonka, A Touch of Class, Paper Moon, The Sting, and American Graffiti. Just to name a few.

 

[jayembee]

You forgot The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

 

[Neil Brock]

The problem I had with "Bus Stop" when I sampled a half dozen episodes that are available is that it became clear the premise of the series wasn't workable in terms of using the "bus stop" as a focal point or a jumping off point which was why Marilyn Maxwell quit the show halfway through the season. You might as well have just called it by the name of the town. I didn't get the feeling that the other "regulars" of the show were well-integrated into the proceedings either.

You're right, they could have called it anything. It was an anthology with the regulars very incidental to the storylines. Which in my view was what made the show so great. Each week was a completely different story and guest cast, unlike shows where every plot has to revolve around the regular performers. It opens up far more intriguing plots. I've seen them all (thank you LOC) and I would say that probably 3/4 of them are great with the others not that bad. I don't know what the ratings were but the Fabian episode killed any chance for the show's renewal. Never a positive thing for a show to invoke a congressional hearing. Networks tend to frown upon that sort of thing.

 

[Jack P]

The regulars IMO have to be there to have a definable role and integrate more seamlessly like in "Naked City" or how "Dr. Kildare" relies on the strength of its two leads interacting with the guest stars. In fact, the Fabian episode was a perfect example of how the regulars were not well-served because what happens at the end has big ramifications for the life of Richard Anderson's D.A., yet it's never addressed in the episode! If you're going to spend money to sign top-notch actors to be your regulars, you have to give them something to do, and it's no surprise to me that Maxwell had enough and walked. It's not as if we were lacking in "stand-alone" anthology shows in that era that didn't depend on any series regulars to move things along. If you're going to have one though that has regulars, then give them something to do once in awhile and not make them such stick figures who might as well not be there.

The violence of the Fabian episode I'd note didn't shock me as much as it would have people of that era. If anything, Nehemiah Persoff was just as repulsive a character in *his* episode if not more.

 

[Ejanss]

Yeah, all those depressing movies like Funny Girl, Oliver, What's Up, Doc?, Romeo & Juliet, Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Lon in Winter, The Odd Couple, Bullitt, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Hello, Dolly, True Grit, Cactus Flower, Airport, Sweet Charity, The French Connection, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, The Poseidon Adventure, Fiddler on the Roof, Summer of '42, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Shaft, Willy Wonka, A Touch of Class, Paper Moon, The Sting, and American Graffiti. Just to name a few.

I was there--I remember the days when our local theater always showed kiddie matinees on Saturday (either the great 60's classic matinees still traveling around in the 70's, or our manager digging up Marx Brothers classics), simply because there WAS nothing for kids to see during regular hours, as they probably wouldn't be going to see The French Connection or the Lon in Winter.

 

[Neil Brock]

The violence of the Fabian episode I'd note didn't shock me as much as it would have people of that era. If anything, Nehemiah Persoff was just as repulsive a character in *his* episode if not more.

I don't think it was so much just the violence or the amoral character that caused the uproar but that it was a Fabian, a clean cut teen idol who was portraying the character. Anyone who has watched TV over the decades expects Nehemiah Persoff to be playing a repulsive character! If he didn't, it would be a surprise.

The anthology posing as a series with regulars seemed to not be uncommon in the early 60s as television was transforming from the 1950s where there were a great many pure anthologies. True, in other shows the regulars were given a bit more to do but the weekly stories still would revolve around the guest stars. That became less and less the case later in the decade.

 

[danielanderson4500]

I'm not sure I think 70's shows are so much better. I think series from then and now are just so radically different in tone. I think "shock factor" and excessive realism of the shows on today are a big deterrent for some (myself included regarding most shows). Especially when people are just trying to escape the grim realities of life, seeing it mirrored on screen might be a turn off.


Not to say I can't recognize great series when they air. I never got too much into Game of Thrones (I watched it complete, but certainly didn't love it) but 'The Sopranos, and Dexter are two of my all time favorite TV shows. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the late 90's was an amazing series that showed you can still have "escapism" in spades -- funny, dramatic, dark, weird and wonderfully written.
It showed how amazing a series can be when given the perfect formula of talented writers.

Considering most shows of the 70's were designed solely for the reason of "escapism" after we got out of the draining, and sobering Vietnam war, and the turbulent 60's. TV of the time was made as a sort of a perfect drug to forget, and escape. That is why I love 70's TV. I am taken out of the confides of the real world and transported to a simpler time of fun, light shows (The Muppet Show, The Love Boat, Happy Days,) to the the short lived sci-fi greats like Planet of the Apes, or Logan's Run, and finally the fantastic crime dramas of the period like Hawaii Five 0, Barnaby Jones, The Rockford Files etc.

I'm sorry, but these two shows for me defined the 80s.

 

[Phil Iturralde]

It would of been nice if, ...

Legend (1995) - The Complete Series
--- staring Richard Dean Anderson & John de Lancie

... had more than 1 Season (12 episodes). The stories were way ahead of its time.

This DVDs PQ is ok (a little better than VHS), but watchable. It's the fun stories that makes up for the average PQ.