War and Remembrance (miniseries)
War and Remembrance is an American miniseries based on the 1978 novel of the same name written by Herman Wouk. The miniseries, which aired from November 13, 1988, to May 14, 1989, covers the period of World War II from the American entry into World War II immediately after Pearl Harbor in December 1941 to the day after the bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It is the sequel to the 1983 miniseries The Winds of War, which was also based on one of Wouk's novels.
War and Remembrance
- Dan Curtis
- Earl W. Wallace
- Herman Wouk
Dan Curtis
United States
English
12
Dan Curtis
John F. Burnett
Peter Zinner
1620 minutes
- ABC Circle Films
- Dan Curtis Productions
- Jadran Film
November 13, 1988 –
May 14, 1989
Plot[edit]
The television mini-series continues the story of the extended Henry family and the Jastrow family starting on December 15, 1941 and ending on August 7, 1945 and their life experiences during World War II.
Broadcast[edit]
The scope of the production had required it to be greenlit years in advance. By 1988, network viewership had shrunk to just 68 percent of television viewers. As a result, by the time the series aired, it was never expected to earn a profit. ABC stated that they fully expected to lose at least $20 million on it.[6] The miniseries was originally intended to run on consecutive nights in January 1989,[6] but the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike caused ABC to move the first half, chapters I–VII, up to air in the fall of 1988.[21] The strike raised ABC's ratings hopes, because it meant that the series would run without any other original programming opposite it on the other networks.[6] However, when they were broadcast in November 1988, the first seven episodes no longer aired on consecutive nights, as originally planned,[8] running instead spread out over eleven days.[22]
Although the miniseries won every time slot against its competition on NBC and CBS, and outperformed ABC's regular programming,[7] it still underperformed ABC's ratings expectations, with the first chapter averaging an 18.6 Nielsen rating and a 29% viewer share.[21] Because the ratings were lower than ABC had promised the various sponsors, the network was obligated to give additional free "make-good" advertising time to them. The low ratings were also reported to be partly responsible for ABC entertainment head Brandon Stoddard losing his job in April 1989.[7] Dan Curtis blamed the lower-than-expected ratings partly on the confusing airdates, saying in a 2002 interview that ABC "skipped Saturdays and Mondays, the viewers lost the thread, and they didn't even put up a sign saying 'To Be Continued' at the end of the first half."[8] In addition, because the editing schedule was so compressed, ABC allowed Curtis to turn in episodes of enormously varying length, running anywhere from two to three hours with commercials, often with odd running times like two hours and five minutes or two hours and twenty minutes.[7] As a result, the episodes had extremely inconsistent start and end times each night they ran.[5] NBC mocked ABC's airing strategy in a promo for their November sweeps programming, comparing their schedule of various regular series, television premieres of acquired films, the Vanna White telefilm Goddess of Love and a Comedy Store special against ABC's "eighteen hours of a war story that doesn't end."[23]
Due to the lower than expected ratings for the first half, the second half, chapters VIII–XII (marketed by ABC as "The Final Chapter"), had several hours cut before airing.[8] The second half was also mixed and aired in mono, instead of the stereo used on the first half. This was not a cost-cutting measure, but the result of a technical issue encountered with airing the stereo mix on the first half.[24]
With the series costing $105 million to produce,[25] Capital Cities/ABC lost an estimated $30-$40 million on the production.[8] This began the downfall of the miniseries, where the format faced decreasing lengths and ratings into the mid-1990s as a result of increasing VCR ownership and cable television; by the 1996–1997 season, the longest-running network miniseries airing was a six-hour adaptation of The Shining (1996).[25]
Awards[edit]
War and Remembrance received 15 Emmy Award nominations, including best actor (John Gielgud), actress (Jane Seymour) and supporting actress (Polly Bergen), and won for best miniseries, special effects and single-camera production editing.[26] It also won three Golden Globes, receiving trophies for Best Miniseries, as well as two awards for John Gielgud and Barry Bostwick, who tied for Best Supporting Actor.[27]