Best Sellers (aka: NBC Best Sellers)

Best Sellers (also known as NBC Best Sellers) was a television series broadcast by NBC during the 1976–77 season. It consisted of several mini-series based on best-selling novels, shown in a rotating series of several episodes each. The theme music was composed by Elmer Bernstein, who also scored Captains and the Kings.

The concept was similar to 1950s television serialised dramas, when plays and novels were formatted into several broadcast episodes under a single umbrella program title. It was one of the earliest examples of the modern mini-series format. The format, however, apparently did not seem to work for NBC in the mid-1970s, which ended the series after one season.

The series included the following:

Broadcast 30 September – 25 November 1976
Eight part mini-series. Richard Jordan, Perry King, and Patty Duke were among its stars.
The series storyline dealt with a rags-to-riches tale of an Irish immigrant family during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
8 episodes, 9 hours total
Broadcast 2 December 1976 – 13 January 1977
Seven part mini-series. Sam Elliott, Cliff Potts, and Darleen Carr starred
The storyline dealt with the story of two Army officers, one a ruthless, career-obsessed schemer, the other his exact opposite from World War I through World War II
7 episodes, 9 hours total
Broadcast 10 – 24 February 1977
Six part mini-series. Steven Keats, Anne Archer, Jane Seymour
The storyline dealt with a poor young man from Manhattan's Lower East Side who was determined to rise to the top of the garment industry on Seventh Avenue
6 episodes, 6 hours total (broadcast in three 2-hour blocks)
Broadcast 10 – 24 March 1977
Three part mini-series. Stephen Collins, Lauren Hutton, Jose Ferrer
The storyline dealt with an intelligence officer dispatched by the U.S. government to arrange an exchange in Argentina of industrial diamonds needed by the Germans for a secret gyroscope needed by the Allies.
3 episodes, 5 hours total (parts one/three - 2 hours; part two - 1 hour)

Note: In Britain ITV screened numerous miniseries in addition to the ones above under the Best Sellers banner until the mid-1980s, such as 79 Park Avenue, Studs Lonigan, A Man Called Intrepid, Condominium and Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls. Although it maintained the overall title, most were not produced by Universal Television (but 79 Park Avenue and Condominium were).

Media

DVD releases

On 13 January 2009, Koch Vision released a 3-DVD set of "Captains and the Kings" on DVD in Region 1. The three-disc boxset features all eight episodes.

On 31 August 2010, Timeless Media Group released a 2-DVD set of "Once an Eagle" on DVD in Region 1. The two-disc boxset features all seven episodes.

On 31 July 2007, Universal Studios released "The Rhinemann Exchange" on DVD in Region 1. All three episodes are on one disk.

Seventh Avenue is not available on Home Video.

DVD Name Ep # Release Date
Captains and the Kings (3 Disk Box Set) 8 13 January 2009
Once an Eagle (2 Disk Box Set) 7 31 August 2010
The Rhinemann Exchange 3 31 July 2007

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/20/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.