With The Silent Force, ABC had asked producer Aaron Spelling to develop what was meant to be their answer to CBS' Mission: Impossible, which was a huge hit. Unfortunately, Silent Force was only a half-hour show, not enough time, really, to tell the stories they wanted to.
Worse, it was airing opposite Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In over on NBC. Game over, as Silent Force barely got into the following calendar year before being cancelled.
Ed Nelson (ex-Peyton Place) toplined as government agent Ward Fuller. Lynda Day (George) would move to Mission: Impossible the following season after the departure of Barbara Bain.
Here is a trailer for the show.
Too bad this ain't out on DVD, because it could've been good television on a different night.
No rating.
Really belatedly:
ReplyDeleteThe pilot for The Silent Force is now on YouTube.
It's 43 minutes long - the right length for an hour-long show - which Silent Force was clearly supposed to be.
1970 was a back-up-the-truck year for ABC; they only had a half-hour left on the schedule, so Aaron Spelling & Co. had to compress to keep the sale.
That meant a half-hour: two scheduled regulars (Norman Alden and Richard VanVleet) were dropped, and the scripts all seemed to start at Act II.
Academic, really: between Gunsmoke and Laugh-In (and add in the football delay on the West Coast), all was settled well in advance.
That happened a lot back then ...
TIL.
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