Thanks @DRW50 . It's nice to get a glimpse of this, though I agree with @te. I expect that if it ever did turn up it would be disappointing.
There seems to be a lot of press regarding Beacon Hill in the papers with mixed reviews and lots of ongoing discussion of what wasn't working and more post-mortem analysis of why things didn't work out. In a very little sense, the show was cancelled the weekend of October 25th after two weeks of disastrous ratings against the World Series. The October 14th episode The Million Dollar Gate had a rating of 9.77 and a 17 share; this landed it the position of the lowest rated nighttime show for the entire week. The October 21st episode, The Suitors, received a 8.2 rating 13 share. It rebounds pretty quickly the next week with The Test where 10.8 / 20 share but remains among the lowest five shows for the week.
There are lots of complaints given about the show. Some people liked the pilot episode, while others thought there was too much focus on sex. The episodes did not air in order, which Jackie Babbin complained about as the second aired episode The Colonel and the Fawn, the episode featured in the promo, was a later episode and Babbin felt it gave the show's audience a false sense of what the show was about as it was another sex heavy episode. Then, they switched episodes at last minute an week three showed The Marblehead Club instead of The Poor Little Thing. The consensus seemed to be that most people thought the show improvied around episode 5, which introduced the speakeasy run by the chaffeur Harry Emmet, an oblivious physically disabled Rob Lassiter, and Grant Piper, the son of the black chef.
In addition, there seemed to be some interest around the political storyline as Benjamin Lassiter groomed his son-in-law, Trevor Bullock, for the poltiical world and they backed Peabody Carbury for a political posiiton. The general audience and reviewers felt that Benjamin Lassiter was a clearly a thinly veiled Joseph Kennedy, which everyone involved in production claims was false. They did, however, say that the Lassiter sisters were based on the Cushing sisters.
There was lot of coverage about the production. Costumes had to be made, not rented, because there was supposedly nothing around from that era, which sounds suspect. There were live plants and freshly baked food in scenes. The production team would scour junkyards looking for authentic pieces to polish and restore in order to create authenticity and accuracy. A butler was hired as a consultant to explain how the staff should act.
There seemed to be some consultants who were brought over from England by the executive producer, Beryl Vertue, including Jean Marsh and John Harkesworth. Vertue stated that Harkesworth worked on the last produced episode, the unaired The Visit about Charlotte Hacker arriving from England to critique how the Americans ran their household. It sounds a little bit meta by that point.
After the cancellation, there were lots of complaints about the writing by actors who seemed to think things fell off after pilot and that the scripts were so bad that Jackie Babbin had to tell the cast to stop laughing when writers were on set. Some felt things got better towards the end.
There were structural complaints as well. Some that have already been stated and restarted over the years about how it was unlikely that nouveau riche Irish would be living on Beacon Hill in 1920s. Some point out that there wasn't enough of a distinction between the social classes from the clothes theywrote to the amount of intermixing between the two groups. Others pointed out that the Irish staff serving in an Irish household really ignored the complexities and interconnection of race, ethnicity, religion, and class in American. It was suggested that even a wealthy Jewish family with Irish servants would have allowed more of that to come to the surface.
At least one early episode hints at some of those possibilities. In The Marblehead Club, Benjamin Lassiter is put up for membership at an exclusive club by his snobby neighbor, Cleveridge, This occurs while Fr. Tom Lassiter, Benjamin's brother, is visiting after 20 years in India with Fr. John Dilip Singh. Tom comments about how men of color are treated and tries to get him out of town. Accustomed to his new homeland, Tom and John walk arm in arm in public causing a stir. The setup is rich in issues of social class, race, societal custom, sexuality and gender roles, and religion but I'm not sure how this was all handled by the scriptwriter David Wiltse.
Sidney Caroll, who wrote the pilot, outlined the next 12 episodes, but stated that his outlines were heavily edited and disavowed most of the work after the pilot. There also was ongoing issues with censorship according to Jackie Babbin. In addition, there was quite a bit of back and forth about the general direction of the show. Carroll and Vertue seemed to want a quieter series, while the network wanted somethign bolder. While Vertue loved the final script about the visiting sister, the network didn't like it. Ultimately, Vertue went on to say you couldn't make a show like Upstairs, Downstairs in the States because of the structure of the television industry.
The reviews were mixed, but I suspect some of the issues were that the reviewers were mostly male. One even complained that the products advertised in the commercials were female oriented, There is probably a bit of sexism in these. One post-mortem review was hypercritical of Kathryn Walker's acting but devolved into a critique of her looks, which is clearly unnecessary. Paul Rudd seemed to be the stand out new star of the group. George Rose , Beatrie Striaght, and Stephen Elliott were typically cited as among the stronger actors. David Dukes got mixed reviews in the beginning, but was praised later in the run fairly consistently.
Another reason I suspect it didn't catch on was the cast was too large. Despite there being 18 or so lead cast members, there were usually at least one additional featured guest star every week to drive the story. I think you could have easily reduced the show to 10-11 cast members by cutting several of the Lassiters (Trevor, Maud, and Rosamond) as well as several of the servants (Terrence, Maureen, and Marilyn). I know Brian and Rosamond were emerging as a major couple, but I would have combined Rosamond and Betsy's roles. Fawn's love Giorgio may also have been expendable in the long run.
@Franko Neighbors' score was composed by Bill Conti, a far cry from his Dynasty theme.
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dc11786 ·
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