I wonder, too, whether "Us" would've been another hit for Landon (and his first on a network other than NBC) had his cancer diagnosis not curtailed everything. Say what you will about the mawkishness of "Little House on the Prairie" and "Highway to Heaven," but Landon seemed to know better than a lot of others what people wanted to see every week on TV.
In a way, however, I think Lucy herself (and maybe Aaron Spelling, who produced "Life with Lucy" for her) might have been to blame. It's one thing to be loyal toward those who helped you in the past, but the TV landscape had changed so much from the time "Here's Lucy" went off the air to when "Life with Lucy" would premiere. IIRC, her head-writers, Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Davis, had just finished working on "Alice," and their writing and producing style on that show felt old-hat even back then! Lucy really needed more modern writer/producers who could update her form of slapstick comedy for the '80's.
By
Khan ·
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.