Favorite TV Miniseries/Movies

North and South

The Thorn Birds. That theme song…

R1- Wasn't Kirstie Alley in that miniseries in 1985. Years before she was on Cheers.

R3 Yes she was a horny abolitionist with a taste for big black cock.

Queenie, starring Mia Sara. In particular the rape (or attempted rape?) scene featuring Kirk Douglas as the rapist.

“Take off your clothes!”

"Brideshead Revisited" (1981).

I wonder if Anderson Cooper ever watched Little Gloria: Happy At Last.

R6- I get that mixed up with Chariots Of Fire.

Favorite TV movie: Mike Nichols' Wit

Love on a Branch Line

For some reason my 2 favorite miniseries, both american and brazilian, have the same story: A priest falling in love with a woman he..err... shouldn't be falling in love with. One is of course, "The Thornbirds". We all know it and love it. The other is Hilda F5.uracao, (or "Hilda Huricane") about a rich well to do beauty queen who runs out on her wedding day from her fiance after discovering his infidelities and hitting tendencies...she runs all the way into a brothel where she decides to fuck for a living and meets the outrage of a religious small town. Hot but unfortunately haired Rodrigo Santoro (from "Love, Actually" fame2) plays the priest trying to exorcise the small town from her wanton lustfullness and falling in love with her in the process. Le sigh.....

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As a young gayling, I was both enthralled and confused by the TV serial Brideshead Revisited with Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews.

Favorite miniseries: The Jewel in the Crown

"Hollywood Wives" (1984)

The Jewel in the Crown is awesome

Feud: Bette and Joan

Another one for Little Gloria and runner-up is 1989's Small Sacrifices.

For favorite two-hour TV movies, I advance 1982's Don't Go to Sleep.

I never saw it but the once, but East of Eden with Jane Seymour, as one of the evilest characters in literature, and two Bottoms, a Bochner, a Bridges and a Boxleitner was a favorite for me and I even read the book.

They had a mini series for Gloria Vanderbilt now they should have one for Anderson Cooper called-

Little Homosexual: Happy At Last

[quote]North and South

Another vote for 1985’s “North and South”

I had forgotten who was in this, look at this cast:

[quote]Kirstie Alley

[quote]David Carradine

[quote]Johnny Cash

[quote]Mary Crosby

[quote]Lesley Anne Down

[quote]Morgan Fairchild

[quote]Genie Francis

[quote]Robert Guillaume

[quote]Hal Holbrook

[quote]Gene Kelly

[quote]Nancy Marchard

[quote]Robert Mitchum

[quote]Wayne Newton

[quote]David Ogden Stiers

[quote]James Reed

[quote]Mitchel Ryan

[quote]Jean Simmons

[quote]Georg Stanford Brown

[quote]Parker Stevenson

[quote]Patrick Swayze

[quote]Inga Swenson

[quote]Elizabeth Taylor

[quote]Forest Whitaker

Was it common for made for TV movies to have big name casts like this?

This came on past my bedtime so I only watched bits and pieces of it during the original broadcast and saw the whole thing when my parents taped it during the 1988 re-broadcast (still past my bedtime). I wonder if I would enjoy it as an adult.

[quote]The Thorn Birds. That theme song…

I've never seen the whole thing, based on IMDB it looks like I only watched parts 1&2 but enjoyed what I saw. Was this re-broadcast? I wouldn't have been old enough to watch it live so it had to have been years later.

I'm surprised there is no ABC promo for this, every thing is fan made. Here's the intro with Henry Mancini's theme in the background.

Lace.

"The Last Convertible" (chock full of eye candy like Perry King and Bruce Boxlietner)

"Poor Little Rich Girl" (Farrah Fawcett as Barbara Hutton)

And, R7, in his new book on the Vanderbilts which I just read, Anderson makes a lot of references to "Little Gloria..." According to him, it's full of inaccuracies.

R19 was a complete insult to one of the greatest english written books. The Dean movie might only b like a quarter of the story but it has more heart and better performances. Or just do yourself the favor and read the actual book.

North and South was cheesy as hell

I think that's why I liked it as a kid, R26, but that's also the reason I questioned whether I'd enjoy it as an adult.

The Winds of War

Shogun

Rich Man, Poor Man

Salem's Lot (the original)...........one of the scariest tv shows ever.............

[quote]Was it common for made for TV movies to have big name casts like this?

Sometimes, kinda like [italic]a Bridge Too Far[/italic] or [italic]the Longest Day[/italic] which had tons of stars. Vehicles like that give work to established stars on the downslide as well as newcomers. A more middling size cast would be [italic]Rich Man, Poor Man[/italic], which was a big break for Nick Nolte and Peter Strauss, but also included Ed Asner, Ray Milland, Dorothy McGuire, Bill Bixby, Robert Reed, Van Johnson, Kim Darby (she used to be big, really), Dorothy Malone, Dick Sargent and Gloria Grahame. The cast includes Oscar winners and popular TV actors, which would attract a lot of viewers.

R30- So did Little Gloria: Happy At Last- Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, Christopher Plummer.

Roots

I was ten years old at the time and it made a huge impact on me. The only thing I asked for that year for my birthday was the novel. (My grandmother could not understand why my mother got it for me. "It's all he asked for," she told her.) I still have that copy with dustjacket. Ben Vereen as Chicken George was astonishing. And the theme is still burned in my brain.

R30, don't forget DL fave George Maharis

Backstairs At The White House

“I know about that house on K Street.” My friends and I went around saying this for weeks in the same high emotional delivery as it was in the tv show.

R34- I watched that with my parents in early 1979. I was 13 years old. We all enjoyed it.

I recently rewatched Moviola. “Scarlett O’Hara Wars” still stands up as the best of the three episodes. The other two are extremely cheesy with the Marilyn Monroe episode being hilariously so.

R36 Where did you find the other episodes? I've only seen the Scarlett one because it was included as a bonus feature on my DVD of GWTW. Also, has anyone ever seen a copy of "Malice in Wonderland" starring Elizabeth Taylor? I've wanted to see it for years but I've never been able to find it.

Celebrity - featuring a gay plot line, pretty daring back then

1987's A Pack of Lies with Ellen Burstyn and Teri Garr.

[quote] Was this re-broadcast?

I remember The Thorn Birds being re-broadcast in 1993 or ‘94.

I Claudius, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and House of Cards

The Thorn Birds is available on Amazon Prime (or at least it used to be)

I really liked And The Sea Will Tell… starring Hart Bochner in one of his SEXIEST roles as a murderous ne’er-do-well on an island, with his girlfriend, who ends up befriending another couple and killing them. A true story.

I *think* it was a miniseries and not just a two-hour presentation.

Upstairs, Downstairs

QB VII

R44 Can you really count Upstairs, Downstairs as a miniseries? The original one ran for five series/seasons and had one spin off. The revival ran for two.

Upstairs Downstairs was on for five seasons and sixty episodes- NOT a miniseries but a series.

[quote]I wonder if Anderson Cooper ever watched Little Gloria: Happy At Last.

Anderson Cooper MASTURBATES to Little Gloria: Happy At Last.

[quote] Where did you find the other episodes?

R37, The first episode, The Silent Lovers, is on YouTube. I’ll see if I can remember where I downloaded the third episode, This Year’s Blonde.

good cast

Next rainy day check this out.

I've seen so many titles listed here that I had completely forgotten about. Thanks DL. I'm putting a list together of things to watch this winter, assuming I can find them.

There needs to be a streaming platform of just vintage TV miniseries.

The Barbara Hutton is on youtube

No love for Fresno? Carol Burnett’s miniseries spoof of primetime soaps?

Some good ones on here have already been mentioned. I have a couple miniseries from the 1980s that are guilty pleasures. If Tomorrow Comes with Madolyn Smith and Tom Berenger was always a favorite. It was adapted from a Sidney Sheldon novel. I loved the Robin Hood-like theme of international cat burglar Tracy Whitney stealing from the rich and giving to charity, and keeping plenty for herself! It had a good cast with a younger Liam Neeson as a French detective and Richard Kiley as Tracy's mentor in international thievery.

I also liked I'll Take Manhattan based on Judith Krantz's book. It is another example of a good casting job. Valerie Bertinelli as Maxi Amberville (d'Amberville in the book), daughter of a publishing tycoon played by king of the miniseries Barry Bostwick. Francesca Annis played her cold fish English mother. Perry King was her diabolical uncle who hated Barry Bostwick's character. Perry was the jealous younger brother who coveted everything Barry had. He has an affair with and fathers a son with Barry's wife, who passes the kid off as Barry's. It also had Julianne Moore as Maxi's childhood friend India, who becomes a famous actress, and Tim Daly as Maxi's blind brother Toby who is a well renowned chef. Hunky Jack Scalia played Maxi's husband whom she divorced but never got over.

I miss the trashtastic miniseries of the 1980s. Many of them were TV events and pulled in high ratings.

Don’t forget to include the miniseries that thrust Meryl Streep on the world.

R56 Holocaust was very good, I can’t forget poor James Woods with his broken fingers desperately trying to draw. But for me Playing for Time was much more intense and better done. Of course I had seen the 60 Minutes piece on her before the movie, so knowing it was a real person intensified it. And then with Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Alexander in it was phenomenal. I had no idea Christine Baranski was in it? Also, it was filmed where my grandmother lived.

Scruples starring Lindsay Wagner

The Switch 1993-Gary Cole plays a guy who ends up paralyzed from the neck down and fights the legal system to die with dignity. Craig T. Nelson plays a radio host who befriends him. The movie was inspired by a true story.

I liked Mare Winningham in Who Is Julia (1986).

Who IS julia, though??

Too Rich The Secret Life Of Doris Duke with Lauren Bacall, i think I'm the only person who liked it

The Jewel In The Crown.

Everyone wanted to fuck Hari Kumar!

V, the most extraordinary miniseries ever.

The Lost Room is very good if you like sci-fi.

Centennial is great if you like historical fiction. It’s very sweeping.

Loved the books, love the miniseries

Bare Essence

Princess Daisy

Caroline? A Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation starring Stephanie Zimbalist as a woman who claims to be the daughter of a wealthy guy thought to have died in a plane crash.

R63- Honey, these are gay men- They want Hari Kumar to FUCK THEM.

I absolutely lived for miniseries when I was a kid in the 80s; the first one I remember seeing was Beulah Land (1980), with Lesley Ann Warren as a Southern Belle in the Civil War era. After that, I'd try to watch them all, even repeats of the classics like Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), which ran on a local channel in 1984, and Centennial (1978), when it aired on TBS around the same time. Watched Roots (1977) on VHS in the early 90s -- I was a sobbing basketcase at the end of each episode. A few years ago, I read The Jewel in the Crown quartet and then watched the fabulous 1984 mini. There are some older miniseries I would love to see: Captains and the Kings (1976), 79 Park Avenue (1977), and The Last Convertible (1979).

1983 was the peak of the golden era mini: The Winds of War and The Thorn Birds aired on ABC within a month of each other in February and March, NBC had V in May, and CBS had Chiefs in November. The final episode of The Thorn Birds was another that had me crying buckets.

Some other favorites: The Blue and The Gray (1982), Marco Polo (1982), Ellis Island (1984), The Last Days of Pompeii (1984), Mistral's Daughter (1984), Kane & Abel (1985), North and South (1985), If Tomorrow Comes (1986), Napoleon & Josephine (1987), Queenie (1987), and Lonesome Dove (1989), the last great miniseries of the golden age.

Another vote for the 1981 Brideshead Revisited. I also have to say The Winds Of War, despite most of the cast being too old and other flaws.

Shogun

Sins

Grace Kelly

79 Park Avenue. The courtroom scenes were gripping.

The Two Mrs. Grenvilles....

Love dramas based upon real life stories, and that of famous 1955 "Woodward" murder case is one of best. But it's also one of the saddest that had no happy ending for any of family involved. Father murdered, mother committing suicide as did both sons eventually.

William Woodwar, Jr. murder case

More...

Rich Man, Poor Man

I've always liked 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐬 (1980), a miniseries in three parts ('The Expeditions,' 'The Settlers,' and 'The Martians'), based upon the 1950 collection of connected stories by Ray Bradbury.

I used to think it suffered from poor special effects, like older sci-fi, depicting rockets descending backwards from the sky; 'rockets 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑𝑛'𝑡 possibly come down that way,' I used to think, but that was before 21st century trillionaires made it happen, vindicating the older depictions.

My favorite story of the three is the last third of 'Part One - The Expeditions,' where a member of the third expedition, John Spender (Bernie Casey), loses himself, and disappears from the landing party for a few days, only to return and confront some of the crew. "I'm the last Martian," he tells one particularly obnoxious crewmember, before pointing a Martian weapon at him and shooting him. That whole story, of Spender and what happens to him, has haunted me for decades. (The third story of Part One begins at 01:02:26 at the link below.)