Television: Sputtering into the Fall

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New shows are scarce as the actors' strike continues

Will Mork return to Ork? Will Hawkeye Pierce ever be sued for malpractice? Who did shoot J.R.? With the actors unions' strike against the three major television networks grinding into its eighth week, viewers may have to wait another month for the answers.

Except for the actors, 85% of whom are "at liberty" in even the best of TV times, few will be hurt by the strike. The networks will not lose money, since advertisers "buy" seasons as well as individual shows, and the fall is a season of high viewership. Nor will the advertisers lose out; if the ratings plunge on reruns they will be compensated by next spring, when original programs are still running.

Both CBS and ABC are brazening out the strike. "We are just running repeats, made-for-TV movies, film features and sports," says an ABC spokesman. Only 20% of its series schedule, including Monday Night Football, will be new. CBS has 25%: new episodes of 60 Minutes and The Tim Conway Show, plus theatrical and made-for-TV movies.

Only NBC is in the chips because Fred Silverman, the network's president, long ago put his bet on "reality programming" like Real People, Games People Play and Speak Up America. It may be a dubious TV genre—mixing 60 Minutes with The Gong Show—but it is one unaffected by the strike. With such shows, plus the World Series, Magazine with David Brinkley, Disney's Wonderful World and new episodes of three old series, NBC can boast that through the end of October, it will air 75% new programming. The capricious god who filched the Olympics from NBC may now have decided to smile on Silverman, who last week was awarded an 18-month extension on his reported $1 million-a-year contract.

Two of the upcoming headliners:

SHOGUN (Sept. 15-19, NBC). As his opening bid in this high-stakes game, Silverman has scheduled the twelve-hour mini-series of James Clavell's novel Shdgun. This saga of an Elizabethan seaman's initiation into the ways of feudal Japan has sold over 4 million copies, and soon another 3 million will be on sale. The NBC version cost over $20 million, perhaps the most ever spent for a TV film.

In adapting this swashbuckler, Writer-Producer Eric Bercovici has largely ignored Clavell's panorama of Japanese political intrigue to concentrate on the low-key love story involving the pilot Blackthorne (Richard Chamberlain) and his interpreter, the Lady Todo Mariko (Yoko Shimada). It is just as well. Chamberlain possesses a star quality peculiar to television actors. Dr. Kildare has matured into a placid handsomeness. He is alert, restful, kind. He listens closely and makes love tenderly. Shimada has a grave, delicate beauty that dignifies the languorous pace of her affair with Blackthorne. Theirs is a passive passion, a love rooted in respect and loyalty, a meeting of hearts over bodies, a surrendering to the rhythm of Mariko's culture. As Blackthorne adapts to the Japanese language, so does Shdgun—and so must the viewer.