Stolf's Oldies October
Mini-History of the Mini-Series
What was the first mini-series on TV? If there were ever a case of “depends on how you look at it,” this is it. You'll often hear that it was "Roots," but several other candidates are also mentioned. How come? Isn't the first, THE FIRST? No, because back in the day, 3 different formats...and inevitable variations...were considered "mini-series."
Consecutive Night Mini-series…A traditional “see you next week” series continues season after season as long as viewers watch it and it’s profitable to produce. A mini-series is more like a movie or a one-shot “special” in that it has a definite story to tell with a beginning and an end. Here, the episodes aired on consecutive nights…1, 2, or all 3 hours of prime time. To me this is the essential innovation of the mini-series genre…you didn't have to wait 7 days to see what happens.
Weekly Mini-series…This resembles an ordinary series, in that the installments are aired once a week…but when it’s over, it’s over. There were variations…the first 2 or last 2 episodes may have been on back-to-back nights, for greater impact. But again, this is how it was planned…it was not dependent on viewership for it to continue. I know of no mini-series of any kind that “stopped” in the middle due to poor ratings.
2-Part Movie…Which is to say, a “made-for-TV” movie which is split into 2 parts, and is broadcast on 2 consecutive nights. Unusually long theatrical movies were shown on TV over 2 nights as well. Would you say that really isn't a mini-series...because only 2 nights in a row isn't much of a "series"? Trouble is, from the very beginning of the mini-series phenomenon, and then even more so as the genre became popular, 2-part movies WERE called mini-series, which is why there are several candidates for “first.” Let's sort them out…
(1) The Blue Knight…NBC 1973…aired on 4 consecutive nights, Tuesday thru Friday beginning November 13…each episode one hour, at 10PM. An adaptation of Joseph Wambaugh’s novel of the same name, starring William Holden as the world-weary veteran cop on the beat, Bumper Morgan…it was made possible by Wambaugh’s success with the anthology series "Police Story." It spawned a short-lived regular series 2 years later with George Kennedy. Lorimar, the production company that made it, considers it to this day the first mini-series and so do I...so that's my answer: THE BLUE KNIGHT!
TV Guide’s Fall Preview issue that year (9/8/73) described it as a “miniseries of 4 one-hour dramas.” This is the first time I am aware of them using the term...but they also mentioned a “6 hour miniseries”…that would eventually air 5 months after "The Blue Knight"…and that was…
(2) QB VII…ABC 1974…ran for 3 hours on Monday April 29, and for an unprecedented 3 and a half hours the following night. Besides You-Know-What, this is the one most often cited as the first. But it's tricky, because technically "QB VII" was a 2-part movie! Again, based on a best-selling novel…and there are several reasons why it certainly might be considered the first, despite "The Blue Knight" being chronologically first. It established the idea of each part being longer than the typical dramatic series' one hour. More importantly, it was promoted as an EVENT. Yes, "The Blue Knight" was obviously innovative in its 4-night format, but here’s what TV Guide said in the extensive article that ran the week of "QB VII"…
“The most ambitious, longest, and certainly the most expensive single movie project yet produced for television…a mammoth commitment by ABC…a sizable risk…everyone involved seems to possess a sense of pioneering, of participating in a very special dramatic venture.”
It’s hard to read such commentary, and not sense a “first” in there somewhere. But notice that now they're calling it a “movie,” and nowhere in the article or in ABC’s advertising was the word “mini-series” used. In fact, the full-page ad touts it as an “Electrifying World Premiere,” exactly what they'd call movies, theatrical and made-for-TV alike. "The Blue Knight" was successful, and praised by critics, but it had nowhere near the build-up or the impact…and "QB VII" got the full TV Guide cover to itself the week it was on..."The Blue Knight" did not. "QB VII" proved the concept, and its success told the industry you could spend lots of money…and lots of time…on one story, and that lead to…
(3) Roots…ABC 1977…aired for 8 consecutive nights, Sunday thru Sunday beginning January 23…some nights for 2 hours, other nights for just 1, for a total of 12 hours, doubling the length of "QB VII." Most commonly cited as “the first mini-series.” And a blockbuster is was, one of the few mini-series to have a sequel, the 14-hour "Roots: The Next Generation" 2 years later. Unprecedented publicity and advertising…this time a full 2-page spread in TV Guide.
"Roots" is thus remembered as the mini-series that burst the genre wide open…and that would continue to be the hottest programming format for the next 2 decades. Certainly "Roots" deserves to be “first” in some sense, altho not technically first as we have seen. But here’s a curious thing: "Roots" was broadcast over 2 ½ years after "QB VII"…so what was happening in the meantime? And that’s why I had to divide “mini-series” into 3 distinct formats, because of…
(4) Rich Man, Poor Man…ABC 1976…9 episodes, beginning Sunday February 1st for 2 hours, 2 hours the next day, Monday, then continuing for 7 more consecutive Mondays, each one hour, except the final 2, which were 2 hours long, for a total of 13 hours, spread over a month and a half. And there’s the dilemma in defining “mini-series”…at the beginning, they really hadn’t settled on the format: consecutive nights or once a week?
The trouble with calling "RM, PM" the first mini-series is that several other weeklies preceded it…"Moses the Lawgiver" on CBS, 1-hour episodes for 6 weeks…and Judd Hirsch in "The Law" on NBC, one hour, then one hour the next week, then skipping a week, then finishing with a 3rd hour. But do these qualify, with no segments longer than 60 minutes? The format was in a state of flux…and get this: when "QB VII" was re-run a year after its initial broadcast, it was spread out over 3 consecutive nights instead of the original 2...so NOW it was a mini-series, and no longer a 2-part movie??
Yet while it seems that "RM, PM" can't really be the first, at the time it was indeed considered the trendsetter…TV Guide’s Fall Preview (9/18/76) called it exactly that, listing the many mini-series that were being developed in its wake, including "Roots." And the fact remains, in 1975 and 1976, apart from the "QB VII" re-run, there were NO consecutive night mini-series. So there is a case to be made..."RM, PM" was also one of the few to merit a sequel, again a weekly...and it is considered to this day one of the best of the breed.
And altho the term “mini-series”…or "miniseries" without the hyphen…surfaced in 1973, it was not used exclusively…”multi-part production” and “multi-parter” were common. And really, “mini-series” was from the beginning just too mundane for the network hype machine…they were often termed “Novels for Television." But those who love to quibble and nitpick sometimes suggest 4 other possibilities for the "first mini-series"...we'll reminisce about those and weigh their qualifications next month...till then, rock on!
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