Best Sellers (TV series)

Best Sellers (also known as NBC Best Sellers) was a television series broadcast by NBC during the 1976–77 season. It consisted of several mini-series based on best-selling novels, shown in a rotating series of several episodes each. The theme music was composed by Elmer Bernstein, who also scored Captains and the Kings.

The concept was similar to 1950s television serialised dramas, when plays and novels were formatted into several broadcast episodes under a single umbrella program title. It was one of the earliest examples of the modern mini-series format. The format, however, apparently did not seem to work for NBC in the mid-1970s, which ended the series after one season.

The series included the following:

• Taylor Caldwell's 1972 novel, Captains and the Kings

Broadcast 30 September – 25 November 1976

Eight part mini-series. Richard Jordan, Perry King, and Patty Duke were among its stars.

The series storyline dealt with a rags-to-riches tale of an Irish immigrant family during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

8 episodes, 9 hours total

• Anton Meyer's 1968 novel, Once an Eagle

Broadcast 2 December 1976 – 13 January 1977

Seven part mini-series. Sam Elliott, Cliff Potts, and Darleen Carr starred

The storyline dealt with the story of two Army officers, one a ruthless, career-obsessed schemer, the other his exact opposite from World War I through World War II

7 episodes, 9 hours total

• Norman Bogner's 1967 novel, Seventh Avenue

Broadcast 10 – 24 February 1977

Six part mini-series. Steven Keats, Anne Archer, Jane Seymour

The storyline dealt with a poor young man from Manhattan's Lower East Side who was determined to rise to the top of the garment industry on Seventh Avenue

6 episodes, 6 hours total (broadcast in three 2-hour blocks)

• Robert Ludlum's 1974 novel, The Rhinemann Exchange

Broadcast 10 – 24 March 1977

Three part mini-series. Stephen Collins, Lauren Hutton, Jose Ferrer

The storyline dealt with an intelligence officer dispatched by the U.S. government to arrange an exchange in Argentina of industrial diamonds needed by the Germans for a secret gyroscope needed by the Allies.

3 episodes, 5 hours total (parts one/three - 2 hours; part two - 1 hour)

Note: In Britain ITV screened numerous miniseries in addition to the ones above under the Best Sellers banner until the mid-1980s, such as 79 Park Avenue, Studs Lonigan, A Man Called Intrepid, Condominium and Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls. Although it maintained the overall title, most were not produced by Universal Television (but 79 Park Avenue and Condominium were).