Schedule Rewind: A look back at the Prime Time schedule from seasons past and network decisions impacting sci fi and fantasy shows.
Just three years prior to the 1969-70 season, sci fi and fantasy shows were having a banner year on television (more on that at this link). Eighteen genre entries aired across the three broadcast networks that season which included well-known shows such as Star Trek (in its premiere year), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Mission: Impossible, Lost in Space, and more. But by the Fall of 1969, the number of genre entries had dropped by half (several of which barely counted) and would continue to shrink over the coming seasons. Sadly, the networks turned away from sci fi and fantasy after shows like Trek and Lost in Space failed to find large audiences in their initial airings while costing notably more than the average show in Prime Time. Those two would eventually have lucrative runs in syndication but failed to convince the networks to commit valuable Prime Time space to sci fi and fantasy television.
ABC
Land of the Giants (Sundays 7 PM EST)
The New People (Mondays 8:15 PM EST)
The Flying Nun (Wednesdays 7:30 PM EST/Fridays 7:30 PM EST)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Thursdays 7:30 PM EST/Fridays 8:30 PM EST)
Bewitched (Thursdays 8:30 PM EST)
ABC had more than half of the genre shows that aired on the broadcast nets that season, though three of those barely count as sci fi/fantasy. The sitcoms The Flying Nun and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir both had some fantasy elements, but neither are recognized or even very well-remembered as strong genre entries from that time, and both would end their runs by the end of the year (three seasons for the former, two for the latter). Bewitched was still performing well for the network in its sixth season, finishing the year as the 24th most-watched show on television. That one may have been a sitcom as well, but it is considered a strong genre entry because it brought plenty of fantasy elements into its episodes and even had mini-story arcs across its seasons. It was also pretty darn funny, and it remained on the network for two more seasons.
The New People is another one that counts as a marginal genre entry, but it is of some interest to sci fi fans. A run-up to Lost of sorts, it follows a group of young people who survive a plane crash stranded on an island–with a fully supplied town leftover from an unused nuclear bomb site–who decide to build their own society. Rod Serling assisted with the pilot script and the show did explore some interesting socio-political themes. But it never went full-on sci fi during its short run. Interestingly, it was an experiment by ABC with forty-five-minute long episodes, paired with another show of the same length that would take up an hour and a half on the schedule and discourage viewers from changing the channel at the hour mark. But the experiment was a failure. The New People aired against that year’s Number 1 show Laugh-In on NBC and Number 2 Gunsmoke on CBS and was gone after a short, seventeen-episode run.
Land of the Giants was the one true sci fi show on ABC that season, though with Irwin Allen attached, its adherence to science was definitely specious (you can read more about the series at Cult-SciFi.com). That show was in its second season and aired against Number 9 The Wonderful World of Disney on NBC for part of the hour. It was also one of the most expensive shows on television (those big-people props cost big dollars) and its ratings had slipped in its second year. ABC cancelled it by the end of the season, ending Irwin Allen’s run of schlock sci fi shows in the ’60s that began with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in 1964. That also left the network with only one genre entry carrying over to the next season.
CBS
Mission: Impossible (Sundays 10 PM EST)
The Wild Wild West (Mondays 10 PM EST)
Get Smart (Fridays 7:30 PM EST)
CBS had the second-most genre entries during the 1969-70 season with three, all of which are well-known shows and all of which shared a spy theme. Spy fi series Mission: Impossible was in its fourth season, having debuted the same year as Star Trek. It was still doing well enough in the ratings against minimal competition from the other two networks, and it would be one of the few ’60s genre entries to carry over into the ’70s (capping off its run at seven seasons when it wrapped up in 1973). Spy fi spoof Get Smart had moved over from NBC after its fourth season, airing its final year on CBS before heading off to an extended syndication run.
Spy fi/Western series The Wild Wild West was still performing well in the ratings for CBS (you can read more about the show at this link), but it would be gone by the end of the year. A lot of concerns had surfaced by the late-60s about violence on television and a Presidential Commission put the Prime Time schedule under the microscope. The Wild Wild West happened to be one of the shows pegged as the most violent, and it fell to a network purge at the end of the year. That left Mission: Impossible as the only genre entry on the CBS schedule going into the next season.
NBC
I Dream of Jeannie (Tuesdays 7:30 PM EST)
Star Trek had been infamously cancelled by NBC the prior season leaving the network with only one genre entry on its schedule during the 1969-70 season, though it is a well-known sitcom. Network execs certainly hoped to capitalize on the popularity of Bewitched when I Dream of Jeannie first hit the schedule in 1965 (a year after the ABC series debuted). And it did perform well for the network for its five-season tenure. But it was at the end of its run as its ratings faded against Top 25 entry The Mod Squad on ABC, leaving NBC with no genre entries heading into the next season.
After a decade that had proven quite lucrative for sci fi and fantasy television, the genre limped out of the ’60s with less than a dozen shows on the schedule and all but two would be cancelled by the end of the year. Things would get worse the next season with only four total genre shows in Prime Time and the networks would continue their aversion towards sci fi and fantasy well into the ’70s and beyond. There would be a brief flirtation with big-budget sci fi TV in the late-70’s with shows like Battlestar: Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, but both of those disappeared after short runs. It would not be until 1987 that the genre would start to see a notable revival–though not on the broadcast networks–with the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation in syndication (more on that at this link).
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Follow our Sci Fi TV Schedule for all the currently airing and upcoming sci fi and fantasy television shows, and you can see the premieres for all the upcoming genre entries at this link.
