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The expanded budget may actually be most visible in the show's casting. Besides such strong young actors as Richard Thomas, Fay Hauser, Dorian Harewood, Stan Shaw and Irene Cara, Roots 2 features Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Brock Peters and Paul Winfield. James Earl Jones will play Haley, a close friend. Perhaps the biggest coup is the casting of Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland as the wealthiest white couple in late 19th century Henning. Both movie stars are fans of the original Roots and jumped at the chance to appear in the sequel. "From what I see," says Fonda, "The New Generations is even better than Roots. The scripts sent to me were the best I'd ever read in any medium, full of beautiful ideas and writing." He particularly liked playing a man whose racial views are contrary to his own. "I don't always play good guys," he explains. "Once in a part, I massacred a whole Western farm family." Another Roots 2 bad guy may be Marlon Brando, who is negotiating to make a rare TV appearance as American Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell in the final episode.
Audiences may not find Roots 2 quite as powerful as Fonda does, but the first and only complete episode looks promising. Much in the manner of the original series, soap opera and history are blended to potent effect. A moving death scene for Chicken George (now played by Avon Long, succeeding Ben Vereen) is skillfully set against a nuts-and-bolts account of the advent of Jim Crow laws. With the help of subtle performances by Fonda, De Havilland and Thomas, the white characters seem less abjectly evil than those of Roots 1.
Still, some of Roots 2's creators worry that the more recent historical material may lack the shocking impact of the first show's depiction of slavery. Says ABC Vice President Esther Shapiro: "It's easy to do whips and chains. Roots 2 is about feelings. It is about blacks throwing off the emotional bonds of slavery that a proclamation cannot take away." But Alex Haley is satisfied that the new show will do its proper job: to present black families who "love each other, struggle together and overcome obstacles to achieve goals." And this time around, the author's family will be literally as well as figuratively onscreen: Haley's niece Ann, 16, has an acting role in the fourth episode.