A Look Back at CLIFF HANGERS - 1979

CLIFFHANGERS was NBC's attempt to give us a throwback era of the 1940's movie serials. Three separate stories over a one hour slot, with each episode having a "cliffhanger." This was to build up your excitement for the new episode next week. Not a bad idea, if the quality of the stories were actually any good.

CLIFFHANGERS ran from February 27, 1979 to May 1, 1979. It aired on Tuesdays at 8:00 p.m., opposite of HAPPY DAYS and LAVERNE & SHIRLEY. The #1 and #2 shows of the season.

The idea behind the series was to give each of the three stories about 10 episodes each. If an individual story actually became popular, it could be spun off to an actual series. But with low ratings and the high production budget associated with three different stories at the same time, CLIFFHANGERS was cancelled after 10 episodes.

About CLIFFHANGERS:


"The Secret Empire" was a pastiche of the Gene Autry movie serial The Phantom Empire. Scenes in the futuristic underground city were in color, but scenes in the 19th century wild west on the surface were "in beautiful black and white," tinted brownish. It featured Mark Leonard, best known as Spock's father on the original STAR TREK series.

"The Curse of Dracula" revolved around the notion that after 600 years, Dracula was getting tired of immortality and, in pursuit of the love of a beautiful woman, sought mortality so that he could live out his days with her.

"Stop Susan Williams": Susan Anton stars as a beautiful TV journalist investigating the murder of her brother, and stumbling on a vast international conspiracy.

Of the three stories, only "The Curse of Dracula" was able to air the conclusion of the story. "Stop Susan Williams" eventually had the whole story told as a movie of the week, which featured a reediting of the separate chapters, plus the unaired chapters.

You have to give props to NBC for trying to think outside of the box, at a time where EVERYTHING was a flop and they couldn't find a hit show to save their souls. It kind of reminds me of the NBC of today.

I doubt a concept like this could ever take off with today's audiences. Networks are better off giving 30 minutes to one series than dividing a one hour time slot into three equal parts.