Show r Networks cranking out the By JO H ANDERSON T'rire Television may be an intimate art form but don’t tell that to TV’ network programmers This V 5 ear the rage is for epic mini-seripreferably with historical sweep strong O'icarjo made-for-T- es characters dollops of sex and colorful action Those formulas worked last season and the forecast this fall: More of the same The networks also discovered of crankthat the ing out their own footage is cost-per-ho- ur cheaper than buying Hollywood’s output The result: a binge of what the trade calls “long-forprogramming” This m season th§ three major networks or will launch 15 mini-serimore CBS starts it all off Mon es tral's Daughter” Here is a rundown on the ng more-promisi- upcoming ef- forts planned for this vear First ABC: about a mass murderer’s con game and the socialite who becomes his prey pawn protector and love Four hours “siz- zling ” look at the public and pri- vate lives of Rodeo Rangers those glamorous women who shop Rodeo Drive by day and bed in Beverly Hills by night based on the novel by Jackie Collins sister of Joan Five of Masscovering four “The Kennedy achusetts” “Hollywood Wives” a California” “A Death in generations of the prominent clan Eight hours include: NBCs mini-seri“Fatal Vision” from Joe about McGinniss best-selles “AD” home-invadin- 1 said “It blows for three days six days or nine days and it’s supposed to drive people crazy In fact if you commit a murder while a Mistral is blowing that’s an extenuating circumstance You can say you were driven the tumultuous years Twelve hours er “Christopher Columbus" with Irish actor Gabriel Byrne sailing from Genoa to discover America and Faye Dunaway as Queen Isabella Six hours AD 9 century with Kate Burton and a final TV outing by her father Richard Burton Seven hours “The Life and Times of Robert F Kennedy” with Brad Davis as JFK’s younger brother and a script based on Arthur Schlesinger Jr’s biography en hours Sev- “Wallenberg" with Richard Chamberlain as Swedish diplo“Space” the TV launching who of James Micherer’s novel with mat Raoul Wallenberg saved thousands of Jews in the James Garner and an waning days of World War II cast Thirteen hours all-st- sion that he would be like I think of Mistral more as a Van Picasso because he painted in Gogh if Van Gogh had been not evocative word for me” the South of France in the same Dutch but French I think of A word she hopes will not be general area of the country so I Mistral not as crazy Van Gogh evocative to the audience is “P- made him absolutely unlike Pi- was certifiably nuts — but as icasso” but she admitted that much more artistically the kind his in detail other casso of every of painter Van Gogh was” given the location and the wild in I life as chardeliberately put of her lifestyle Whatever the persona of its acter it is bound to be injected many differences as possible yet fathe most central character “Mistral’s “He isn’t Pablo Picasso” she if you say ’Name 9 artist’ mous out contemporary said “I knew people would imDaughter” is packed with all the 10 mediately jump to the conclu of people would say ’Picasso’ elements upon which Krantz has hell-roari- ng R Standard-Examin- 30-6- “Evergreen” Belva Plain’s novel about “a beautiful Jewish immigrant girl who rises from household maid to become a wealthy matriarch torn between the love of two men” Six hours NOTHING DOWN YOU PAY FIRST PAYMENT AND RECONDITIONING FEE TAX & LICENSE 43 MO RESPONSIBILITY AT END OF CLOSED END LEASE "A GREAT TRANSPORTATION BUT ECONOMY-SUPE- 2 TV Preview Ogden Four hours On CBS: from Procter & Gamble Productions with Ava Gardner John Houseman Jennifer O’Neill Ben Vereen and “Ellis Island” about several in one of his last efforts James European immigrants who arrive Mason bringing new meaning to in New York at the turn of the er Green Beret Capt Jeffrey MacDonald convicted of murdering his wife and daughters at Fort hours Bragg NC after trying to pin g a hip“North and South” the crime on MaEva Malden Karl with that of the genre sprawling saga pies one teen previewer calls “fami- rie Saint Andy Griffith Barry lies torn apart by the Civil War Newman and Gary Cole Four and that kind of stuff” from the hours mini-serimaster producer Da“The Sun Also Rises” ErL vid Wolper (“Roots” “Thorn nest Hemingway’s views on Birds”) Twelve hours es American expatriates in Europe after World War I with Jane Seymour and Hart Bochner Four hours crazy by the Mistral It’s a very MisitraJ From Page day with eight hours of “Mis- mini-seri-es ar writbuilt a ing careen sex passion cruelty sex ruthlessness sex greed betrayal and sex — in short all the things that keep critics huffing that she writes “trashy” books multi-million-dol-lar Krantz whose husband Steve Krantz is executive producer of “Mistral’s Daughter” said such critical jabs no longer bother her mos LEASE NO CUSTOMER PR1CE-ANIT S A FORD! D Week of Sept 23-2- 9 |