Shaft (TV series)

Shaft
Richard Roundtree and Ed Barth in "The Killing", 1973.
Starring	Richard Roundtree
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	7
Release
Original network	CBS
Original release	October 9, 1973 – February 19, 1974
Chronology
Preceded by	Shaft  (1971 film)

Shaft is a series of TV movies that aired along with Hawkins and other TV movies during 1973-74 television season on The New CBS Tuesday Night Movies. Broadcast every third week, the series was based on the three films beginning with Shaft (released in 1971), and starring Richard Roundtree as private detective John Shaft.

Because it was aired on over-the-air television, CBS felt that the characters needed to be toned down. Now instead of working against the police, he worked with them, possibly because it rotated with Hawkins, another high-quality series but with a starkly conflicting demographic, and was cancelled after one season. Contemporary analysts suggested that since the two shows—Shaft and Hawkins—appealed to vastly different audience bases, alternating them only served to confuse fans of both series, giving neither one the time to build up a large viewership. Richard Roundtree himself has publicly expressed his disdain for the small-screen version of Shaft.