What Might've Been: The Good Life (1971)

Here's a novel idea that should've worked, but didn't.

Take, for example, a wealthy couple, deciding they need to take a few steps back. They hire themselves out to another wealthy gentleman as his butler & maid. Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? Well, yeah, but viewers didn't think so.

The Good Life was a collaboration between Screen Gems (now Sony Pictures Entertainment) and Lorimar, which was finding its footing at the time. Lorimar collaborated with Filmation for the 1/2-live-action, 1/2-animated special, Aesop's Fables, also in 1971, but would hit the jackpot the next year with The Waltons.

Larry Hagman, a year removed from I Dream of Jeannie, and Donna Mills co-starred, along with David Wayne, in his first sitcom since the short-lived Norby a few years earlier. The Good Life lasted just half a season, and would be replaced by Jack Webb's Emergency! in the winter of '72. Hagman & Wayne would cross paths again when Wayne joined the cast of Dallas several years later, and Mills would also find greater success, co-starring in the Dallas spin-off, Knots Landing.

Suffice to say, I never saw the show, so there won't be a rating. However, I couldn't resist this intro video from the pilot. Don Messick is the narrator.