Reply With QuoteProbably the OXO family advert....
Anyone know what the longest mini series was ? I don't mean one like Rome that had a gap between so was two seasons
Probably the OXO family advert....
Babylon 5 is normally regarded as the longest in total though it ran for 5 seasons.
In terms of one season War And Remembrance and the brilliant Centennial must be two of the longest.
it depends on what you would class as a 'mini series'? is it a series that lasted longer than expected such as 'upstairs downstairs' or something classed as a 'mini series' that lasted up to 20 episodes such as the many dickens adaptations (for example,'bleak house' and 'little dorrit' in their half hour format')
a 'mini series' in my eyes is something like 'the cazelets' which was unlike either of the examples described above.
One that lasted only a season and was meant to like Brideshead
name='alastairr']One that lasted only a season and was meant to like Brideshead
i see! so basically,that would be an adaptation of a novel? as i imagine any original (mini) series would be extended if successful therefore rendering it a 'series' rather than a 'mini series'? i'm not being argumentative but merely trying to make a contribution!
A mini series usually runs on consecutive days and does not have 'episodes' as such but 'parts'. I would imagine Winds of War or War and Remembrance would make the longest.
but series that run on consecutive days etc usually have a definite episode allowance (i can't think of a better term),'winds of war' for instance,was an adaptation,again,followed up by 'war and remembrance' as two books with a definite conclusion before their tv adaptation.
name='alastairr']One that lasted only a season and was meant to like Brideshead
Not quite sure what this means but both The Forsyte Saga and The Pallisers were single season series of 26 episodes
I seem to remember "The Winds Of War" going on a bit. I thought it was longer than WW2 !
I certainly "remember" it as being weekly, and that I only watched it to see Robert Mitchum.Originally Posted by Boom Man
If a mini-series was shown "daily" it couldn't really last more than three or four episodes could it?
I think ROOTS was a very ground-breaking "mini-series" at the time, but I cannot recall how long it lasted.
Another one that comes to mind was the German one, HEIMAT, but I don't think I watched that anyway.
With no commercials The Winds of War clocks in at just under 15 hours. In the US it was broadcast on consecutive nights.
Its sequel War and Remembrance is just under 23 hours. Although it was filmed as one project it was shown in two blocks in November 1988 and May 1989.
The Pallisers and The Forsyte Sage were both shown in continuous blocks so they win
7 nights presumably, with a three hour opener?
What stamina. What a schedule!!
According to imdb, Heimat was 11 episodes of 90 minutes.... makes 16 and one half hours.
Last edited by Moor Larkin; 08-10-12 at 12:40 PM.
You have sound logicThe Pallisers and The Forsyte Sage were both shown in continuous blocks so they win
Although WaR is just one book whereas Trollope and Galsworthy are many
It says here that it was ROOTS that set the pattern for consecutive night broadcast in the USA; but the reason they did it that way seems amusingly un-sequitous.
ABC programming chief Fred Silverman hoped that by airing the series on consecutive nights should it prove to be a flop it would cut the network's losses--and get 'Roots' off the air before too many viewers had taken notice of it.
http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/roots.htm
As Peppard might have remarked, "I love it when a plan comes together.".......
I was just reading up on a quoted example of an earlier mini-series, which was Rich Man Poor Man, in 1976. That was shown weekly in the USA so the whole notion of a mini-series being shown daily does seem to have been a happy accident, following the success of the Roots experiment. According to wiki, the BBC showed Roots over a 12 day period between April 8th and 20th.
I was also reading that Lew Grade's "Jesus of Nazareth" was an early fore-runner of the concept too. I can remember that being on, but have no idea if it was shown weekly, or shown on consecutive nights in the UK, or at least all within one week here.
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