Television
70 AMERICANWAY
January 1 2008
The new Fox series
The Sarah Connor Chronicles
films partly on the slice of Warner Bros. back
lot recently vacated by the
Gilmore Girls
, which
means that small-town america just became
a whole lot scarier. Fictionally, anyway. actu-
ally, the two shows do share a common theme
— both are about a single mother raising an
only child. Of course, Lorelai Gilmore only had to
deal with your normal mother-kid stresses, not
the constant threat of a suspicious FBI agent; a
plethora of murdering, time-traveling cyborgs;
and the future fate of the entire human race.
1963:
The Farmer’s
Daughter
Sixteen years removed from
the featurefilm of the same
name, which starredLoretta
Young and JosephCotten,
this serieswon aGolden
Globe andmanaged to collect
apile of Emmy nominations
in just three full seasons.
The plot followed aSwed-
ish farmgirl whomoved to
Washington, D.C., towork as
aU.S. congressman’smaid.
Happens all the time.
1969:
TheCourtship of
Eddie’s Father
This 1963movie about a
widowerwhose son, Eddie, is
trying toget him to remarry
was perfect family-friendly
TV for the late 1960s. And
Bill Bixby, whowent on to
star asBruceBanner inTV’s
The IncredibleHulk
, was the
perfect lost-in-love father
figure for four seasons. As
longas noonemade himan-
gry. Youwouldn’t likeEddie’s
fatherwhenhe’s angry.
1970:
TheOddCouple
Could you improve on this
Neil Simon play or on the
movie by the same title
starring Jack Lemmon and
WalterMatthau?Not really.
And you coulddo awhole
lotworse than this Tony
Randall/JackKlugman series,
which lastedfive years.
1972:
MASH
The 1970movie, which
starredDonaldSutherland
andElliott Gould, was no
slouch, but theTV series,
which ran for 11 years, is
legendary. The show’s finale
remains the highest-rated
series-TV episode in history.
Plus, the show taught us how
tomake a still.
1974:
Planet of theApes
For CharltonHeston, we’re
willing to suspenddisbelief
and accept that apes run the
world. Butwhen it comes to
theTV version, we’ve got to
havemore thanRoddy
McDowall in a ridiculous-
looking rubbermonkey suit.
This series, based on the
1968movie, produced ex-
actly 14 episodes.
TheSarahConnor Chronicles
has toovercome futuristic
killer robots
and
meet
audience expectations.
ByJosephGuinto
Mother
Knows
Best
FromBig Screen to Small Screen»
abrief and incomplete history of TV adaptations of featurefilms
