The Season 14 contemporary TV thread

[Stephen Morgan]

As I stated in an earlier post I have a Radio Times for the week beginning September 4th 1976. I may have others too, but not to hand.

The cover of the magazine features Gemma Jones as The Duchess of Duke Street, an Edwardian serial following the fortunes of Louisa Trotter, cook to the famous and owner of the infamous Bentinck Hotel. The series also stars Christopher Cazenove and June Brown.

New and returning series this week include series two of The Good Life starring Richard Briers, Felicity Kendal, Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin starring Leonard Rossiter as the titular bored businessman who strives to release himself from his mundane everyday life at Sunshine Desserts, going to extremes in finding extraordinary ways out. One of the funniest scenes in this is where he imagines his mother in law as a hippopotamus.
The Two Ronnies also return, as does Parkinson for another series of his popular chat shows.
Saturday nights at this period came to be known as a "Golden Era" for popular, light entertainment with it's great line up of shows from around six in the evening to late night, from Doctor Who, Bruce Forsyth and the Generation Game, The Duchess of Duke Street, The Two Ronnies, Starsky and Hutch and Parkinson. A fantastic line up of shows which certainly held their audience.
Late night viewing on BBC2 in this week featured "The Masters of Terror" film season, this week featuring John Barrymore in the classic 1931 film The Mad Genius, and Vincent Price in 1961's The Pit and the Pendulum.
As we go through the week we find on Sunday a new five part adaptation of Lorna Doone in the children's serial slot at five o clock. Later on Sunday evening the popular series The Brothers returns. Page 15 has a feature on this show and shows a picture of Colin Baker and Liza Goddard as their characters are married in the series. This series is followed by repeats of series one of Fawlty Towers.
Monday sees the return of popular medical series, Angels, following the lives of trainee nurses in fictional St Angelas hospital.
Tuesday's early evening viewing features The Ellery Queen Whodunnit, a new series of The Dick Emery Show and the return of Mastermind.
Wednesday includes a new series of detective show Softly Softly, starring Frank Windsor, while the aforementioned Reginald Perrin begins his show at 9:25.
Thursday evenings include the obligatory Top of the Pops, this week presented by Jimmy Saville, a new series of comedy Happy Ever After starring Terry Scott and June Whitfield, a new series of Kojak, starring Telly Savalas as a tough cop in a tough town, New York. The nine o clock nes is followed by documentary Sailor, about life on board HMS Ark Royal, this series used as its theme Rod Stewarts Sailing, resulting in the track racing back up the charts to number two a year after it had originally been number one.
At 9:55 a new series, Gangsters by Phillip Martin begins. This series deals with gang wars, drug smuggling, immigrants and the prostitution racket, which Martin feels is symptomatic of any British town.
Friday evenings in comparison seem a little low key with loads of regional opt outs. The highlight of Friday however is the new series of The Good Life.
I'll try and dig out some more Radio Times, I'm sure I have some, and I'll report back with some more schedules from this period of 1976.

OH! I almost forgot, the main reason I kept this particular issue was because of the Doctor Who feature on page 9 heralding the start of the new season. Phillip Hinchcliffe talks about how he feels the traditional Doctor Who monsters have become out-dated, and about how he and the cast and crew enjoyed filming in Portmeirion in North Wales.