Hawkins (TV series)

Hawkins
Stewart as Billy Jim Hawkins.
Genre	Mystery
Created by	Robert Hamner David Karp
Starring	James Stewart Strother Martin
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	7
Production
Running time	90 minute
Release
Original network	CBS
Original release	October 2, 1973 – September 3, 1974
Chronology
Preceded by	Hawkins on Murder (1973)

Hawkins is a television series which aired for one season on CBS between 1973 and 1974. The mystery, created by Robert Hamner and David Karp, starred James Stewart as rural-bred lawyer Billy Jim Hawkins, who investigated the cases he was involved in, similarly to Stewart's earlier smash hit movie Anatomy of a Murder (1959). Despite being critically well received and winning a Golden Globe Award (Best Actor in Television Drama Series, Stewart), the series was cancelled after one season consisting of seven 90-minute episodes. Stewart requested the cancellation since he believed that the quality of scripts and directors in television could not continuously measure up to the level to which he was accustomed with theatrical films.

Seen as part of The New CBS Tuesday Night Movies, it alternated every third week with the TV movie adaptations of Shaft, along with other' single issue original broadcast TV movies. This was a popular programming strategy in television entertainment programming in the late 1960s; and continuing into the 1970s. it was generally known as a wheel series. Two or more regular programs were rotated in the same time slot. Sometimes the wheel series itself was given its own umbrella title and was promoted as a single unit instead of promoting its separate components.

Contemporary analysis suggests that since the two recurring series shows (Shaft and Hawkins) appealed to vastly different audience bases; alternating the broadcasts only served to confuse fans of either series, giving neither one the time to build up a large viewership. In addition, the third rotating element, was not a series production at all, but a single issue feature-length film. And as the format itself, was yet still new and novel, viewers for either of the programs (including the first-run movies), would tune in to see their favored series; only to be confronted (in two out of every three weeks) with a program that they had little or no interest in; and, no desire to learn anything about.