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Maybe so, but last week Silverman announced that this series too would do a vanishing act for a whole month after its premiere. If it returns, it will be in a new and tougher time slot (Sundays at 10 p.m.), when it will be opposite Kaz and ABC movies. Says one NBC insider: "Silverman has little hope for Lifeline; he's taking the coward's way of introducing a show." So much for taking chances.
Once the dust settles from NBC's upheavals, the 1978-79 season may prove to be the most competitive in years. ABC is returning with its winning (and largely Silverman-created) schedule, along with five new series. In Battlestar Galactica, premiering Sept. 17, it has the fall's only sure ratings blockbuster. An elaborate space fantasy starring Bonanza's Lome Greene, the show's special effects are the work of Star Wars Wizard John Dykstra. But CBS has its strongest lineup since Silverman left that network in 1975. It remains to be seen whether ABC'S new and untested programming chief, Anthony Thomopoulos, can beat back a serious challenge from his competitors.
Still, some things never change, including all three networks' conviction that audiences like characters whose names begin with a hard k sound. While Kojak and Columbo have retired to reruns, their places will be filled this fall by such heroes as Kaz, Eddie Capra, Jack Cole (Sword of Justice), Joe Casey (Waverly Wonders), Joe Kelley (Grandpa) and even Professor Charles Kingsfield Jr. (Paper Chase). It's enough to drive a viewer krazy.
Three good shows:
The Paper Chase (Sept. 9, CBS, 8 p.m.). All summer CBS has been touting The Paper Chase as its classiest new program. One can see why. Well acted and produced, this series has a highbrow setting (a law school), a prestigious star (John Houseman) and harpsichord music on the soundtrack. As if all this were not proof enough of culture, the first episode contains not one but two 25¢ words: "contradistinction" and "propitious." PBS would kill to have a show like this.
Nonetheless, The Paper Chase is unlikely to tax the minds of viewers. Based on a negligible 1973 movie (which won Houseman an Oscar as best supporting actor), the series is a high-minded exercise in old-school TV sentimentality—a sort of Teacher Knows Best. Houseman plays a legendary professor whose stony exterior belies a heart as big as a lecture hall. He is surrounded by a bevy of students (one farm boy, one city slicker, one feisty woman) who try to curry his favor and share his wisdom. Since the first episode recounts virtually the entire plot of the movie, The Paper Chase may have nowhere else to go except oblivion. CBS has put it opposite ABC'S killer hits, Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, and that is a far from propitious sign.
Kaz (Sept. 10, CBS, 10 p.m.). Ron Leibman is a brash and at times abrasive character actor who does not have what it takes to be a movie star. The small screen is another matter. TV audiences adore performers who burst into their living rooms like loudmouthed relatives. Though such actors as Peter Falk, Telly Savalas, Robert Blake and Carroll O'Connor never caused a sensation in movies, they all made it quickly to TV superstardom. Thanks to Kaz, Leibman will soon join their ranks.