A Look Back at SUPERTRAIN - 1979

The late 70's was a very bad time in NBC programming history. Perhaps even worse than the recent dry years, here in the early 21st century. NBC was trying everything, even if it ment making copy-cat programs of successful series from CBS and ABC. SUPERTRAIN was both truly horrible and a direct rip-off of THE LOVE BOAT.

THE PLOT:
As we said, it was direct rip-off of THE LOVE BOAT, so each week, a slew of new passengers would board the nuclear powered Supertrain, to go from New York to LA in 36 hours. We would see the drama of each of the spotlighted passengers and by the end of the trip, their problems were solved.



THE CAST:
Most of the cast was made up from the guest stars of each week, but the most recognizable face of the series was veteran character TV character actor Edward Andrews. He along with Harrison Page and Robert Alda were the only cast members to make it all 9 episodes. The others cast members, including veteran actress Nita Talbot, were cut after the 5th episode.


THE RUN:
The series kicked off at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, February 7, 1979, as a two hour event. After it's 5th episodes, on March 14th, NBC pulled the series, because of low ratings, to try and retool it. The series came back on April 7th and ran for just for weeks before being pulled for good on May 5th. Some were repeated over the summer of '79, but just the nine episodes made it to the air.

SUPERTRAIN almost helped bankrupt NBC as it was the most expensive series, to date. Coupled that with NBC losing out on airing the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and NBC was almost in the tank. TV Guide ranks SUPERTRAIN 28th in it's Worst TV Shows of All Time list.