I forgot, until now, to finish this series of new fall shows in 1973.

CBS was the highest rated network in 1973-4. So they didn’t have many new shows in fall of ’73. On Sunday at         7:30 they had The New Perry Mason. It didn’t star Raymond Burr. Instead Monty Markham was Perry Mason and Sharon Acker was Della Street. It landed with a big “thud” and only ended up with 15 episodes being shown before cases were closed.

For the Tuesday 9:30 – 11:00 time slot CBS rotated two series with big stars. Hawkins starred James Stweart as a big city District Attorney that moves to a small country town to practice law. The other series in rotation was Richard Roundtree reprising his role as Shaft. That show had to cut out almost all of the sex and violence that was in the movie by the same name. I think both of these series cost a lot because of their big name stars and didn’t get good enough ratings to cover costs. So in the end only 8 episodes of each were produced. For the rest of the ’73-’74 season CBS put on movies in that time slot.

Calucci’s Department was about Joe Calucci that ran an unemployment office. It starred James Coco and had a large cast. It only hung on for 13 episodes then the actors found themselves in the unemployment line.

Last new series was Role Out!. With M*A*S*H being a big hit for CBS, they brought out this series about a World War II Army trucking company. They ended up parking their trucks after 13 episodes.

Out of the top 10 shows for 1973-4 CBS had 9 out of 10: All in the Family, The Waltons, M*A*S*H, Hawaii Five-O, Maude, Kojak, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Cannon. The other show in the top 10 was Sanford and Son on NBC.