"Playhouse 90", The Virginian (1962), and Saturday Showcase (1960) come to my mind. IMDb says The Big Party (1959) is 60 minutes but I saw an episode a couple years ago and it was 90 minutes.
Please, name some other examples of a 90-minute TV series.
I admit this thread only exists because I can't get to sleep.
Have you played Atari today?
Full episodes of Top Gear (UK) came out to 90 minutes on American TV. After the premieres, they were cut down to an hour for re-runs.
- What are you gonna do, when the world catches on?
Sherlock.
Do you even know what honor is?
- A horse.
The Virginian (1962)--television's first 90-minute Western series, though in syndication the episodes were usually edited down to one hour.
I'll leave it stand, though I just noticed you mentioned this one in your OP.
50 Is The New Cutoff Age.
Arrest And Trial, 1963-54.
The Name Of The Game, 1968-71.
I'm not sure if these mystery series from the 70s counts as shows in the usual sense,--Columbo, McCloud, McMillan & Wife--as they're arguably more like TV movies.
Yes, there was a wave of them in the early 1970s. Shaft (the series) was another.
formerly ProfessorAndro
That's right. Roy Scheider starred in one. Wasn't the Richard Widmark Madigan another?
shareYes. I don't remember these shows, but the Brooks/Marsh book tells me it was mostly NBC experimenting with 90-minute rotation series. The one that lasted was their Mystery Movie, usually on Sunday and usually a rotation of Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan and Wife.
Madigan was part of a Wednesday rotation with Cool Million and Banacek. That must have flopped, because the next year only Madigan survived, rotating with Tenafly, Faraday and Co., and The Snoop Sisters, which sounds a lot like Murder, She Wrote.
Shaft was on CBS, rotating with Hawkins and movies. ABC tried it with Assignment Vienna, Delphi Bureau, and Jigsaw. TV movies were very popular at the time, but it must have been confusing for viewers trying to find one of these shows.
formerly ProfessorAndro
That's right. Thanks. I remember the Sunday night NBC lineup the best. It had legs, and Columbo was the standout hit of the three 90 minute shows. Shaft struck me as ill-timed, coming too soon after the movie; while Hawkins just plain struck me as a bad idea. Good in theory maybe, but it looked like something that wasn't going to fly. Those ABC shows were more intrigue-based, as I recall; not that I watched them, but that's how they were marketed. They looked expensive, too, and their star players weren't all that well known at the time.
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