Where To Watch
11 brilliant TV shows from the 1970s that only lasted one season
Kolchak, Cylons and Mel Brooks deserved more episodes.
Even TV shows that last a mere 13 episodes can become classics. We're talking about the days long before "prestige television." In the Seventies, you had M*A*S*H, The Waltons, Happy Days and Gunsmoke pumping out hundreds of episodes.
The following titles never got that chance, mostly due to scheduling. Monday Night Football blocked as many acting careers as field goals that decade. But some of these shows shut down due to medical reasons… or actors simply quitting. They are all worthy of revisiting. Heck, we've aired some.
Let's take a look.
1. Battlestar Galactica
Released in the wake of Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica brought similar space action to the small screen. Some might argue that the Syfy remake from the 2000s is superior, but the original Cylons are infinitely cooler. Just look at them. Okay, in some way, Battlestar got a second season, if you count Galactica 1980. But that earthbound sequel is so different, it classifies as a spin-off.
Image: The Everett Collection
2. Dan August
Burt Reynolds, before the mustache. Perhaps the 'stache gave him his Seventies mojo. This homicide mystery should have been a smash. Norman Fell, future Mr. Roper, played the grizzled partner. Check the rest of the cast. Harrison Ford and Billy Dee Williams! Yeah, Han and Lando! Plus: John Ritter, Mickey Rooney, Ricardo Montalbán, Carolyn Jones, Lee Meriwether, Martin Sheen, Dabney Coleman, Joan Van Ark, Jan-Michael Vincent… phew, that's a lot of star power for one season and only the half of it.
Image: The Everett Collection
3. Funny Face
Sandy Duncan is an adored legend of stage and screen. Filling Audrey Hepburn's shoes is no enviable task, but Duncan charmed audiences and critics in this TV adaptation of the 1957 musical-comedy Funny Face. The sitcom ranked No. 8 in the Nielsen ratings for the 1971–72 season. The reason it lasted just 13 episodes is wild. Duncan suffered headaches on the set and a tumor was discovered behind her left eye. After powering through the first half of the season, she underwent surgery as production was halted. CBS gave her time to recover, but the following year, the network heavily retooled and retitled the series, dubbing it The Sandy Duncan Show. New cast, new writers, new filming format.
Image: The Everett Collection
4. Get Christie Love!
Teresa Graves was the first African-American woman to star in her own hour-long drama series. Released at the height of the Blaxploitation cinema craze, Christie Love was based on a real cop, Olga Ford. She joined the New York City police department in 1958, becoming one of 35 African-American women on the force. In 1970, she began practicing Buddhism. "Several Christie Love episodes are based on Olga Ford's more exciting cases," Graves told Jet Magazine in November 1974.
Image: The Everett Collection
5. Kolchak: The Night Stalker
In Kolchak's debut, the intrepid investigator of the arcane was hunting a vampire in seedy Las Vegas. The Night Stalker TV movie aired in January of 1972, drawing a massive 33.2 rating / 54 share by Nielsen's measurement. That's just a massive audience. When the series launched, it was simply called The Night Stalker. Weeks into its inaugural season, the show took a month-long hiatus. When it returned, with "The Werewolf," the series was branded Kolchak: The Night Stalker. The Monster of the Week format set the mold for future series like The X-Files and Fringe. But perhaps the wildest fantasy on the show was the Cubs winning the '74 World Series in Kolchak's fictional Chicago.
Image: The Everett Collection
6. The Magician
When it premiered in the fall of 1973, The Magician was Harry Houdini meets James Bond. Here was a master escape artist who drove a growling sports car and lived inside a jumbo jet. ("It's like any other mobile home, only faster.") The title character was played by rising star Bill Bixby, who was hot off The Courtship of Eddie's Father and the earlier hit My Favorite Martian. Bixby learned magic to perform tricks on camera. This short-lived spectacular had a big influence on budding creators. Remember in The X-Files how young Mulder is watching The Magician when his sister is abducted?
Image: The Everett Collection
7. Toma
The network thought he was bluffing. Tony Musante said he only wanted to do one season of this gritty cop series. Producers figured it was a negotiating tactic. It was not. Musante bailed and the show recast and retooled into the more traditional action hour Baretta. Toma had more of a Serpico vibe, based on the career of a real detective, Dave Toma, who made cameos throughout the series. Toma splashed violence across the screen and dealt with heavy urban issues. Some complained. But it was ahead of its time.
Image: The Everett Collection
8. Van Dyke and Company
Dick Van Dyke and Andy Kaufman? What a genius comedy pairing. Kaufman became a regular player on this 1976 sketch and variety showcase, honing a lot of his act for television. His "foreign man" character, which blossomed into Latka Gravas on Taxi, lost a "Fonzie lookalike" contest to a black man in a particularly hilarious bit.
Image: The Everett Collection
9. What Really Happened to the Class of '65?
This anthology drama checked back in with Boomers a decade after leaving high school. The casting agent deserved a trophy — Kim Cattrall, Jessica Walter, Jane Curtain, Larry Hagman, Dana Plato, Linda Purl, and many more booked the show early in their careers. Don Johnson, who played a Vietnam vet, perhaps sticks most in the memory of those who caught the show.
Image: The Everett Collection
10. When Things Were Rotten
In the spring of 1975, the British comedy ensemble Monty Python released its first complete narrative film, the cult classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Mel Brooks had released his campy western satire Blazing Saddles the prior year. It was a shift in the style of comedic filmmaking, to more sketch-based, sarcastic, and satirical lampoons — movies like Airplane and Spinal Tap. When Things Were Rotten just doesn't exactly grab you from the TV Guide page. Mel Brooks' Robin Hood could have clicked better, or even the concept's eventual film title, Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Dick Gautier (Hymie on Get Smart) and Dick Van Patten starred as Robin and Friar Tuck. Mel Brooks movies are cult comedy classics. His TV show should also be remembered.
Image: The Everett Collection
11. The Young Rebels
The Mod Squad meets Ben Franklin? That was essentially the concept of this Revolutionary War drama that tapped into the Boomer wave in 1970. Louis Gossett Jr. was the big name here — although hardly big at the time — playing one of the guerrillas sticking it to the British. The show did strive for some historical accuracy, set in a time that somehow, oddly rarely gets covered on television.
Image: The Everett Collection
118 Comments
Also:
The Man from Atlantis
Logan's Run (based on the 1976 film)
Sierra (a lot like Emergency!)