Top Ten Anniversary: Favorite TV Series

Yes, you're probably beginning to tire of these Top Ten lists, but it must be done! Ha ha! The following programs are the ones that really stuck to me over the years and are my own personal favorites. I don't claim that they are the best, but they speak to me the most. Again, it was hard to whittle the list down, but this is how it panned out.

BARNABY JONES -- First of all, the opening theme song and the introduction of the stars and guest stars. Watching this on grandpa's knee (an appropriate place!) instilled in me a deep affection for most all "Quinn Martin productions," whose shows nearly always began that way (and were divided into "Acts" on screen.) The 1970s were a time for gimmicky detectives: the bald one, the fat one, the one with a cockatoo... This was the old one and even though Mr. Buddy Ebsen lived thirty more years after the show's premiere (!), he was a milk-drinking, supposedly non-threatening geezer. (He was sixty-five at the time of the show's debut!) But he was usually a dead shot with his pistol when the time came. The show, regardless of its real or imagined merits, is so soothing to me to watch. Familiar faces in compelling plot lines with inevitable lines like, "Call Lt. Biddle..." It's comfort food for the brain to me. I adored Lee Meriwether as Ebsen's daughter-in-law receptionist. Less so Mark Shera as a cousin who came on in the fourth season, but he's okay. The real pleasure is seeing people underestimate the old codger until they are tripped up by his forensics and keen intellect. It definitely jumped the shark, though, when Ebsen was shown disco dancing in a late episode!

CHARLIE'S ANGELS -- As a tyke, my bedtime was strictly 9:00pm. Knowing how obsessed I was with Charlie's Angels (the whole world was, it seemed, in 1976!), my mother relented and allowed me to watch it every other Wednesday. However, when previews showed that on my "off" week, the gals were going to be shackled together in a women's prison, my protestations to see the episode were so great that my mom relented and let me watch it (and thereafter I watched it every week... give 'em an inch and they take a mile! Ha ha!) I worshiped Farrah Fawcett, but liked all the Angels, including Shelley Hack, until the last season when the final cast change to Tanya Roberts (and a location shift to Hawaii) turned me off. Watching it now, as I still do on the treadmill, the gals aren't all that hold my attention. The clingy polyester slacks on the men in that era can be real eye-openers!

DYNASTY -- Somewhere out there is bound to be someone who claims to have been a bigger fan of this show than I was, though I can't imagine how. I was utterly, completely OBSESSED with it from almost the moment it started. The fact that it was going to star Linda Evans, who I hadn't seen at all in the interim since The Big Valley and Pamela Sue Martin, who'd figured heavily in The Poseidon Adventure (as well as The Nancy Drew Mysteries) guaranteed that I would be watching the three-hour premiere. The whole notion of a regular gay character was rather mind-blowing to me at age fourteen. Once Joan Collins showed up, it was must-see TV for me and most of the world. I bought every magazine that previewed or profiled the show, called Hollywood long distance to speak to Esther Shapiro directly (!) about a plot line (didn't get through to her... I wonder why not. Ha ha!) and even made certain that my senior prom tuxedo was as close a copy to the morning suits worn to Amanda Carrington's wedding that was possible on my family's budget! The show over the long haul was uneven to say the least and plagued by cast changes, but practically any episode remains fun if only for the clothes and the often chippy dialogue and campy situations.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE -- I never saw a single episode of this series in its initial airing or even in reruns (somehow it seemed to disappear in my area for a long while) until one time - late at night - a few episodes began appearing. Eventually, I got the whole series on DVD and became fascinated by the austere performances, the labyrinthine schemes of the missions and just the general team atmosphere, which had always appealed to me from my comic book days. The show was formulaic, but it was a formula that worked. And that theme song!  The show, like more than one Desilu production was racially progressive in that little or no mention was every made about Greg Morris' skin color in the story lines. Cast changes occurred with certain regularity, but generally the concept held up thanks to stalwarts Peter Graves (there after season one for original leader Steven Hill) and Morris hanging in for the long haul. The cool, sleek style of the show (including those wonderful "black & white" apartment sequences) appeals to me greatly.

STAR TREK -- It goes without saying that Gene Roddenberry's short-lived sci-fi series inspired legions of fans into forming a cult of Trekkies Trekkers who've gone on to support a long train of subsequent series and movies.  For me, it all starts and virtually ends with the first show and its vivid colors, passionate performances and glamorous guest stars, often with hair stacked to the stars and diaphanous costumes (by William Ware Theiss) with unusual pieces missing. William Shatner has his detractors, but I happen to love his enthusiastic and heroic line readings. DeForest Kelley's cantankerous doctor is my favorite (apart from the elegant Nichelle Nichols), but I also appreciate the iconic performance of Leonard Nimoy as the emotionless Mr. Spock. Grace Lee Whitney's towering basket-weave hairstyle as Yeoman Rand helped solidify my obsession with such things. I was so captivated by the uniforms of the Starship Enterprise that, as a bored teen working at Wendy's, I used to picture all the customers in the dining room wearing them, after deciding which of the three colors would look best on them, of course!

THE BIG VALLEY -- As a kid with abandonment issues, nothing hit home quite like the extremely strong familial bond of The Barkleys, especially the way they took in a bastard son of the deceased father and made him one of their own. (This development alone was a bit prickly for TV in 1965.) The show went off the air when I was two, so I never saw it until mid-day reruns years later when I became enthralled with the sweeping musical intro, the highly telegenic cast and its wealth of dramatic story material. I thought no one on earth was more beautiful than the Barbie-like Linda Evans or more handsome than blue-eyed Lee Majors. Iron-clad Barbara Stanwyck, fiery Peter Breck and even handed Richard Long completed the quintet (and complimented one another grandly.) Toss in extraordinarily good guest stars and some wondrous music within each episode and it was a total winner in my eyes. To this day, disliking my own last name incredibly, I give "Barkley" to hostesses in restaurants. And I'm still looking to kiss a Jarrod and a Nick, having already tackled the seemingly tougher ones: Victoria, Audra and Heath! LOL

THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW -- Part of my childhood viewing that stayed in my head and heart, I don't think there was anyone as multi-talented as Carol Burnett. Not only that, she was careful to surround herself with stellar supporting cast members such as Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence and Tim Conway, who all complimented her - and each other - terrifically. And early costar Lyle Waggoner was easy on the eyes to be sure. So many incredible characterizations were created on the show whether it be from the many spot-on movie parodies, Mr. Tudball & Mrs. Wiggins, the dotty Stella Toddler, Nora Desmond, the ham actors Funt and Mundane, Conway's old (old!) man and, of course, Eunice Higgins and her crazy family.  Naturally, over time, some of the topical and pop culture humor is diffused, but most of these sketches remain hilarious. Long missing from rerun broadcasts are the huge musical productions that usually closed the weekly show and those are often quite a spectacle to behold (in no small part thanks to the show's incredible costumer Bob Mackie.) Like most of the shows that comprise this list, it was the cast chemistry that truly put this in a class of its own.

THE COLBYS -- With people like Charlton Heston, Katharine Ross, Ricardo Montalban and Barbara Stanwyck among the cast as promised, there was no way I was going to miss the premiere of (what was then called) Dynasty II: The Colbys. (That theme song!!) Whatever glamour Dynasty had, and it had tons, this show outdid, especially at a time when the parent show had managed to saddle Joan Collins with a story line that had her dressed down to the point of being in a nun's habit! This was the year that Dynasty slipped from #1 and never fully recovered. The Colbys was a grand, old-fashioned, meaty family drama and power struggle with (sometimes lunatic) secrets and rivalries. Unfortunately, though I grew to appreciate her own charms, Emma Samms as the long-lost Fallon was positively 180 degrees different in nearly every conceivable area than her predecessor Pamela Sue Martin, which turned a lot of people off. A visibly frail Stanwyck's premature departure was another big hit to the show's life. But there will never be anyone like Stephanie Beacham's Sable Colby, a standout amid the gargantuan cast, as noted elsewhere. For that I will always be devoted to the show.

THE GOLDEN GIRLS -- When I speak of chemistry among a cast, this is the pinnacle of it. It makes no difference if Bea Arthur and Betty White bristled a bit behind the scenes. On screen they, along with Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, worked extraordinarily well together and generated a hit that, on paper, seemed impossible to the network chiefs: four older ladies living together in a house in Miami, Florida. An expert pilot paved the way for a terrific run in which each gal won an Emmy and created comic hijinks that one can safely say are broadcast almost every hour of every day, time and again, worldwide. Golden Girls fans know all the lines by heart and quote them all the time. We know each other. If we say the cue, another fan knows the punchline. Among my own favorite installments are the ones in which: Dorothy's friend is a lesbian, Dorothy's son is marrying an older black woman, Blanche's brother is gay, the ladies are posing for a sculptor, Blanche and Sophia are dating the same man, Rose dates a dwarf and the ladies are set to meet Burt Reynolds at a film premiere. But it's like choosing a favorite child. There's something great in practically all the episodes (though I am devoted to seasons 1 through 4, before expert director Terry Hughes left, versus the remaining ones.)

THE LOVE BOAT -- Again, the blend/chemistry of the cast made a huge impact on the success of a show, but as able as they are, the crew of the boat are not the reason why I love this show... it's the PARADE OF GUEST STARS! Several series did it, from the more dramatic Fantasy Island to the more elegant Hotel and even the delightful Murder, She Wrote, but The Love Boat was key in unearthing great stars that young Hollywood generally had no interest in, but which nostalgic TV viewers enjoyed giving the once-over to after their time in the sun had passed. While its true that a few old-timers held out and didn't take a cruise, more often than not, any old star who could still draw breath popped up on at least one episode of this show during the course of its long run. Sometimes, if the performer was musically inclined, he or she even got to perform (as in the case of Carol Channing, Ethel Merman and Ann Miller - all at once!) They even excavated long-absent, two-time Oscar-winning Best Actress Luise Rainer, fer cryin' out loud! Much of this was surely due to producer Aaron Spelling, who was a busy 1950s character actor and party host before he turned mega-producer, calling upon old friends to appear on his series.

BONUS PICS!

The initial threesome who made up Charlie's Angels were photographed endlessly as they promoted the TV-movie pilot and eventual series. I thought this one was fun. (The pilot, by the way, was expected to tank, but brought in HUGE numbers. Even then the execs could hardly believe it so they re-ran it two weeks later, thinking it was a fluke, but the ratings were even higher still! So the series moved forward.)

This looks more like something out of Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) than an Angels promo. Clearly the exact style and concept of the show had not been completely honed, even taking into consideration that this was inspired by Helmut Newton (who himslef photographed Fawcett and, later, Smith for publication.)

Raise your hand if you remember "Angels '88" (which was later retitled "Angels '89" due to production delays before being abandoned completely!) Among the carefully-selected, but doomed to being unseen, Angels were Téa Leoni and Claire Yarlett. Dig the fun brooch on the gal with the ginormous shoulder pads!

It's just tough to beat that initial combination of gals...

I liked this shot of Linda Evans and John Forsythe because it's a rare one with Linda's hair much softer (and smaller!) and her eyes look terrific in it.

Just one shot of the four albums I have that are crammed full of Dynasty and The Colbys clippings/photos.

I saved every single picture of any star who was on the show and every picture from the show. If a magazine had photos on back-to-back pages, I bought two copies...! (Now I know where my youth went!)

I give you a campy portrait of spy supreme Cinnamon Carter, as portrayed by Barbara Bain.

Here's a second, even more random - though glamorous - portrait from the shoot. You can read more about Bain right here.

Strange elements in the posing for this The Big Valley portrait. Note the monochromatic blouse and pants (courtesy of Nolan Miller) on Linda Evans' Audra Barkley which would later become a staple of her Krystle Carrington wardrobe as well, often in tones of burgundy and blue.

The transformation of Audra Barkley from golden-haired colt to Brushfire Barbie (under the direction of new husband John Derek, who enjoyed crafting all his women into the same basic ideal...!)

A later version of the cast of The Love Boat. Pat Klous had replaced a substance-addicted Lauren Tewes for two seasons, Jill Whelan as Gavin McLeod's daughter had grown up to be an assistant and humpy Ted McGinley was brought on as ship's photographer.

Were you one of the seven people who watched The Love Boat: The Next Wave?  Doomed from the start thanks to a telegenic, but uninspired, cast, it also suffered the blow of star Robert Urich developing cancer during its run (which he bravely fought through, eventually appearing without hair in the wake of treatments.) Few guest stars of note came aboard, though one episode did reunite members of the first show's cast. The Love Boat ran for 250 episodes. The Next Wave ran for 25...

No matter how humiliating, did you really think I was going to refrain from sharing my senior prom photo with it's "design on a dime" approximation of the Moldavian massacre wedding suits?! Ha ha! Remember... I did say OBSESSED. But that's what TV has the power to do to us sometimes, then and now. I hope you enjoyed this post.

I Love You, Still

As I've toddled along with this blog, I - quite surprisingly and inadvertently - have found myself feeling the need to explain, rationalize or perhaps even apologize for where some of my obsessions come from. Obvious to any long-time reader here, I have a thing about 1970s disaster movies, elaborate hair, chiffon, all-star casts and several other things. One more obsession of mine is the carefully-arranged still photo of the cast from a TV series! This one is actually from the sub-par, but nevertheless welcome, Dynasty: The Reunion (1991), which at least gave a modicum of closure to the series which was cancelled with a cliffhanger. (Hey! At least I'm not like that chick on TV whose obsession in smelling and sucking on soiled diapers! Ha ha! She's out there. Look her up if you dare!)

In this case, the best I can figure is that I, as an only child of divorced parents, sought both order as well as teamwork and togetherness. All of my favorite comic books as a kid were team-oriented, with people coming together to tackle the enemy. My all-time favorite was The Legion of Superheroes (as I once delved into here.) Look at the way they are drawn (by Mike Grell) in this picture. I think at some point I transferred my affection for artwork like this onto those group shots you'd see in magazines (think the annual TV Guide Fall Preview issue!) I also have always liked tangible items like this that allow me to "have" the people and things I adore available to me. My recent post of TV and movie star Mexican cards whetted my appetite for more photos like those, so now we'll take a look at some.

Another sort of "team" was The Impossible Missions Force of the long-running Mission: Impossible (1966-1973.) Though silver daddy Peter Graves was not the initial leader of the team, he and his friends shown here were the group that made the show a hit and a household name.

I dearly love the expressions and body language of that same quintet in this pose below. I don't think I consider Barbara Bain the same caliber of actress that Emmy voters did (she took home three in a row!), but she certainly gave awesome face on the series!

Later, Graves was head of a reconfigured team, this time with Leonard Nimoy, fresh off of Star Trek, and Lesley Ann Warren, best known to that point for playing Cinderella in 1965.

Do you recall when this series was revitalized in 1988? Conceived as a way around a costly writer's strike (and filmed in Australia to boot!), it sought to refilm existing scripts from the old show with a few changed words here and there! The strike ended in time for that initial approach to only occur four times and the show ran for two seasons. In a first, one of the regular agents (Terry Markwell, the female) was killed on the show and replaced by Jane Badler for the second season. One neat twist, though, was having Greg Morris' real life-son Phil Morris play his character's son in the redux.

Of a similar nature, falling in between the old MI and the new version, was Today's F.B.I. (1981-1982.) Though this little-known show starring Mike Connors was not a hit, I recall loving it as a young teen for its teamwork aspects. The female agent here (Carol Potter) would later appear in the early seasons of Beverly Hills 90210.

That very same season brought still another lesser-known, group effort crime-fighting show, this one called Strike Force (1981-1982) and starring Robert Stack.  The way the agents are all lined up in the corner photo made me happy. Note that MI, F.B.I. and Strike Force all featured a trusty veteran, a black guy, a woman and two other men... sticking to formulas they believed would work!

Let's switch gears for a moment to enjoy some classic comedy series portraits. It's fun to see the gang from I Love Lucy (1951-1957) looking happy and healthy and in color.

Likewise, this color shot of the male cast of The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968) is appealing.

My Three Sons ran from 1960-1972 and had quite a few cast changes along the way.  Even this shot was taken after the oldest son left (replaced by the adopted Ernie) and original helpmate William Frawley gave way to William Demarest.

By the time the show went off the air, the cast was far more crowded indeed, with wives, children and so forth (but, alas, in this shot, not my beloved Don Grady!)

I enjoyed seeing this portrait of The Clampetts from The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971) posing with their frequent foil Mr. Drysdale and the ever-trusty Miss Jane Hathaway. You can find more about Miss Irene Ryan here.

Here we have the cast of McHale's Navy (1962-1966.) Do you spot future stars Tim Conway and Gavin McLeod amongst the men? There's also handsome Edson Stroll, who you can see a bit more of right here!

How fun is this picture of Bewitched (1964-1972)that has the nosy neighbors The Kravitzes in it with Darren and Samantha? I do think Sam should have wriggled her nose and done something about the state of Tabitha's dolls hair, however!

This second portrait isn't posed in the manner that most of the rest of these are, but I couldn't resist sharing it because of the amusing expressions in it and how attractive Elizabeth Montgomery looks.

Here's a color shot of another supernatural set of relatives, The Addams Family (1964-1966.)

Of the photos in this post today, I think this one might be the most beautiful. I love everything about it: the colors, the lighting, the staging... Whenever I catch Gilligan's Island (1964-1967) now, I find it startling idiotic for the most part, but I loved it as a kid and have a residual fondness for the cast.

This is also a fun, colorful portrait of all the folks from Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967-1973.)

What about this rare shot of the men from The Brady Bunch (1969-1974)?  Taken right at the beginning of the series, it has youngest son Mike Lookinland sporting the brown wig he was initially made to wear!

By the time the long-running Happy Days (1974-1984) left the air, there was precious little remaining of the initial cast of characters. Though he was unfairly maligned as being part of this show's (and others!) decline, the divine Ted McGinley was one gorgeous looking man. Look at that face!

Running just as long was The Jeffersons (1975-1985), a spin-off of All in the Family. Though she was only on the first two seasons before falling ill with lung cancer and dying soon after, Zara Cully (a nonsmoker) was a total hoot as Mother Jefferson.

The Facts of Life (1979-1988), a Diff'rent Strokes spin-off, underwent radical changes after its first season. Four girls were fired from the show, leaving three, and then a new fourth one (Nancy McKeon) was hired. Later, health problems forced Charlotte Rae to leave the series, which Cloris Leachman then took over.  I'm sure we all recognize the handsome devil next to Lisa Welchel, who made seventeen recurring appearances on the show.

This is an early photo from Family Ties (1982-1989), taken when (a beardless!) Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter still thought they were going to be the stars of the show rather than the young Michael J. Fox, who soon became the chief focus of storylines and publicity.



Night Court, as seen below, ran from 1984-1992 and John Larroquette won four consecutive Emmys for his smarmy character.

The Golden Girls debuted in 1985 and was an instant hit, running until 1992. There are tributes here to Bea Arthur, Betty White and Rue McClanahan if you're inclined to read more about them!

Miss White is the last remaining Girl alive and now has the wise-cracking old lady part on the remarkably successful TVLand series Hot in Cleveland (2010-present.)

You can never be sure who you're going to run into in these old shots. This one from Gunsmoke (1955-1975) includes the young and handsome Burt Reynolds, who was a semi-regular on that stalwart series from 1962-1965 before later emerging as a top movie star. (His character on the show was called "Quint," which inspired him to name his adopted son Quinton in 1988.)

Another long-running western was Bonanza (1959-1973.)

Like many shows, it endured a series of cast changes over the years. I don't know how much this latter day publicity shot actually made it to print across America since Michael Landon's naughty bits are practically on full display here!

My own favorite western series is The Big Valley (1965-1969), whose cast was not only great looking, but shared tremendous chemistry with one another in any combination.

Family shows often have sprawling casts to fill up a group photo. Here we see an early gathering of The Waltons (1971-1981.) By the time the kids grew up and married and the semi-regular townspeople continued to be seen, the number of people on the show increased even further.

A childhood favorite of mine was Eight is Enough (1977-1981), which also had a large cast. Faced with an early hurdle (the mother on the show, Diana Hyland, died after only four episodes), Betty Buckley was brought on as a new (step)mother and the show went on to reasonable success. (Of course, Grant Goodeve, at the top, was my favorite and my chief reason for tuning in!)

Looking at some crime-fighters for a moment, we see the cast of The Mod Squad (1968-1973.)

This is an early portrait of the triad which made up Charlie's Angels (1976-1981.) Remarkably, this configuration of ladies only occurred during the first season, with Farrah Fawcett departing (but forced to come back for a series of guest appearances.)

I had to include this hilarious additional shot (so to speak) of the gals, which looks as if it could have been snapped by Laura Mars!

Do you know who these ladies are? What if I told you they were the initial choices to be Charlie's Angels? No, I'm only yanking your chain. This is the cast of a lesser-known show called Flying High (1978-1979), all about the romantic, funny and sometimes adventurous escapades of three airline stewardesses. Connie Selleca would later score with The Greatest American Hero (1981-1983) and Hotel (1983-1988), while blonde Pat Klous would fill-in for a terminated Lauren Tewes on The Love Boat from 1982-1986. The third girl, Kathryn Witt didn't fare as successfully, with only sporadic work afterwards.

As a fan of large cast shows, I adored L.A. Law (1986-1994) when it premiered, as did many viewers.

Lifeguards came and went like the tides on Baywatch (1989-2001), a series I never watched, but I include this picture for the beefcake value of dreamy blond David Chokachi

This is a shot from a very little-known show called Empire (1984), meant to satirize the corporate greed that signified the 1980s. It only lasted for six episodes, perhaps because no one "got" the joke that being greedy was wrong?

Another obscure series was The Most Deadly Game (1970-1971), which concerned three criminologists solving unusual crimes. Designed as a showcase for Inger Stevens, she committed suicide after filming the pilot and so Yvette Mimieux was brought in on the fly to reshoot the pilot and costar in the series, but it was gone after only 13 episodes.

We're going to finish out this rondolet of randomness with a string of portraits from one of my favorite genres, the prime-time soap opera! For me, there is nothing more fun than a bunch of glammed-up people posing dramatically for the camera to promote their show. The grandmama of prime-time soaps was Peyton Place (1964-1969) and this is a casual pose of all the available cast members on that given shooting day.

The genre really didn't come alive again until Dallas hit the airwaves in 1978, lasting until 1991. This portrait is from 1981, not long after series patriarch Jim "Jock Ewing" Davis passed away.

Several of the actors were back in 2012 for a redux of the show, which is still running, and I was startled to find that it really wasn't bad! The funeral episode for Larry "J.R. Ewing" Hagman was particularly great and included even more people from the old series.

Dallas' success led to a spin-off series (which, oddly enough, had been conceived first! Dallas was built from the backstory of the character of Gary Ewing) called Knots Landing (1979-1993.) This is why its conception came so quickly and easily on the heels of Dallas. The show had already been developed to a certain point. This hooty shot is from the 1982-'83 season.

Falcon Crest (1981-1990) was nestled in to a time slot directly after Dallas, which made for a nice one-two punch on Friday nights. Jane Wyman won the role of iron-willed matriarch Angela Channing after Barbara Stanwyck declined the part. (Babs made a a return to TV in 1985 with the prime-time soap The Colbys, but soon regretted it, departing after one season.) In Falcon Crest's pilot, Clu Gulager and Samantha Eggar played the roles that ultimately went to Robert Foxworth and Susan Sullivan.

Another staggering success during this period was Dynasty (1981-1989), which upped the ante on glitz and glamour. The shot below is from the 1982-'83 season.

This one from 1983-'84 shows off Joan Collins' new, shorter hair and evidence of the stiff and "stately" posing that the actors were encouraged to do in order to suggest a high class demeanor.

This 1985 shot confronts us with the sadly deteriorating Rock Hudson, the fullback shoulder pads of Linda Evans and a necklace that Ali MacGraw kept on hand in case a ping pong tournament suddenly broke out!

As these warhorses were running out of steam, a new type of soap was coming along, though I didn't watch it myself.  Beverly Hills 90210, a youth-oriented series, ran from 1990-2000. (This early cast shot doesn't even include Luke Perry! Or Tori Spelling, for that matter...)

A follow-up series that spun off from 90210 was the successful Melrose Place (1992-1999.)

But you've all probably seen these photos time and again. Next, I will put forth some prime-time soaps that failed to catch on. These pictures are even more interesting when you consider that the casts should have attracted an audience, but didn't... A huge flop in 1975 was the Upstairs, Downstairs (1971-1975) rip-off Beacon Hill. Today's Downton Abbey-loving viewers might have nibbled at it a bit more, but it limped along for only 13 episodes before being cancelled.

The upper class players are shown above, while here we see the servants gathered together.

In 1980, NBC tried to get in on the game (CBS and ABC were enjoying great success) with Flamingo Road, but it just never made it the way others had.  It was cancelled by 1982.

At the start of 1983, NBC tried to launch Bare Essence, which had first seen life several months before as a successful miniseries on CBS. The series (with several key roles recast - i.e. no Linda Evans, Donna Mills or Lee Grant!) couldn't make it beyond 11 episodes. (And I'm sorry about the shoddy quality of this photo, but I couldn't find a decent-sized, clean group shot!)

They tried once more in 1983 with a western-set soap called The Yellow Rose. Despite its promising cast of actors, it was off the air after 22 episodes.

Still, CBS wasn't without failure either. In 1983 they launched Emerald Point N.A.S., with the promise of some handsome naval hunks like Charles Frank and Andrews Stevens and it tanked! Like Yellow Rose, it lasted for only 22 episodes.

And ABC had its own problems with Paper Dolls (1984), an ultra-glitzy examination of the modeling world. It limped along for 14 episodes before its demise...

Yet another failed attempt by NBC at a prime-time soap was Berrenger's in 1985. Centering on a high-end department store and the family who ran it, the show was yanked after 11 episodes had aired. (Do check out Yvette Mimieux's hair! And how could anything with Ben Murphy not succeed?  Jeesh!)

The network's last ditch effort to establish a prime-time soap came in 1991 when they re-envisioned a daytime favorite with a vast cult following.  Dark Shadows came and went in just a couple of months with a dozen episodes broadcast. Today's vampire-loving TV viewers might have sunk their teeth into this, but at the time, few people were biting...

Today's series still use promotional shots like these, often better, naturally, but I like the old fashioned ones (surprised?) Nevertheless, Modern Family (a contemporary show that I do watch) seems to have a lot of fun with their group photos. So I leave you with these and hope that you enjoyed this meditation on still photos!