Roots: The Next Generations

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Roots: The Next Generations
Genre Period piece
Creator Alex Haley
Directed by John Erman (eps. 1, 3, 4, 7)
Charles S. Dubin (ep. 2)
Georg Stanford Brown (ep. 5)
Lloyd Richards (ep. 6)
Produced by Stan Margulies
Starring James Earl Jones
Dorian Harewood
Irene Cara
Georg Stanford Brown
Stan Shaw
Debbi Morgan
Music by Gerald Fried
Budget US$16.6 million
Country United States
Language English/Mandinka
Original channel ABC
Original run February 18, 1979 – February 24, 1979
Running time 840 minutes
No. of episodes 7
Preceded by Roots (TV miniseries)
Followed by Roots: The Gift

Roots: The Next Generations is a 1979 television miniseries that continues the story of the family of Alex Haley from the 1880s, and their life in Henning, Tennessee, to the 1960s, with Haley researching his family history and his travels to Africa to learn of his ancestor, Kunta Kinte. This sequel to the 1977 miniseries is based on the last seven chapters of Haley's Roots: The Saga of an American Family and additional material by him.

Roots: The Next Generations was shot with a budget of $16.6 million, nearly three times that of the original.[1]

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

The story resumes in 1882 where Tom Harvey (Georg Stanford Brown), the great-grandson of Kunta Kinte, has become a prominent leader of the black community in Henning, Tennessee. Although he has established a working relationship with the town's white leader, Colonel Warner (Henry Fonda), race relations in the community are still strained. Jim Crow laws, literacy tests, and later the Ku Klux Klan increase the tensions.

A sub plot involves Colonel Warner's youngest son, Jim (Richard Thomas) falling in love with African American school teacher, Carrie Barden (Fay Hauser). Colonel Warner disapproves of this and gets Tom to let her go or close down the school. After having an argument with Tom's oldest daughter, Elizabeth (Debbi Morgan), who had not accepted a boy that she fell in love with, based on the fact that he was half white, Tom decides to let her stay. Jim and Carrie get married in Memphis, and Col. Warner disowns his son by cutting him out of his will, but will ensure that no harm comes to them.

Tom's youngest daughter Cynthia (Bever-Leigh Banfield) falls in love and marries hard-working Will Palmer (Stan Shaw). Despite the racial oppression, Will wins the trust of the local business leaders and is allowed to take over the local lumberyard after its previous owner Bob Campbell (Harry Morgan) ran it into the ground.

As both the town and the lumber business grows, Will and Cynthia are able to send their daughter Bertha (Irene Cara) to Lane College in September 1914, by which time both Tom and his wife Irene (Lynne Moody) have died. There, Bertha meets and falls in love with classmate Simon Haley (Dorian Harewood), the son of a sharecropper. With an insufficient amount of money to attend A&T College, Simon gets a summer job as a porter for the Pullman Company. He meets a passenger who later identifies himself as R. S. M. Boyce (James Daly), an executive of the Curtis Publishing Company, and offers to help pay Simon's tuition and board.

Soon after he graduates from A&T, Simon enlists in the military to fight in World War I and is deployed to France with a segregated, all-black unit. He returns to America after the war and, despite the problems associated with the 1918 flu pandemic and the Red Summer of 1919, reunites with and marries Bertha. Simon then gets a job as a professor of agriculture at the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical Institute. During the New Deal era, Simon tries to organize the local farmers, much to the resistance of the local white cotton landowners. Some time later, Bertha dies from internal bleeding, as Alex (Kristoff St. John) and his younger brothers are staying with their grandmother and great aunt, she shows him a tree limb that Will had been working on before he died which shows historical dates and their ancestors.

As World War II approaches, Simon convinces his seventeen-year-old son Alex (now portrayed by Damon Evans) to enlist in the military. Alex joins the U.S. Coast Guard. During his service in the Pacific theater of operations, he teaches himself how to write stories, also gaining help from a officer (Andy Griffith). After the war, he successfully petitions the Coast Guard for permission to transfer into the field of journalism, but his career ambitions end up costing his marriage to his first wife Nan (Debbie Allen).

Approaching his 40s, Alex (now played by James Earl Jones) has become an established journalist in the 1960s, drawing high-profile interviews with such figures as George Lincoln Rockwell (Marlon Brando) and Malcolm X (Al Freeman, Jr.), and collaborating with the latter to write The Autobiography of Malcolm X. A visit to his relatives in Henning then sparks his desire to research Kunta Kinte and the rest of his family history. The miniseries ends after Alex travels to Africa and listens to a tribal historian tell the story of Kinte's capture.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production

Producers Stan Margulies and David L. Wolper were initially reluctant to make a sequel to the 1977 miniseries, but later agreed to do it.[1] Writer Ernest Kinoy then originally wrote an outline for Roots: The Next Generations based on the final seven chapters of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and about 1,000 pages worth of family recollections that Alex Haley dictated into a tape recorder.[1]

The producers aimed for casting high quality actors, and basically had no trouble signing the people they wanted because of the success of the first miniseries.[1] While Georg Stanford Brown reprises his role as Tom Harvey, James Earl Jones was selected partially due to his physical resemblance to Haley. Wanting to also participate in the miniseries, Marlon Brando basically just called out of the blue and asked for a small yet memorable role; he was cast as George Lincoln Rockwell.[1]

[edit] Broadcast history

[edit] Episode list

Roots: The Next Generations originally aired on ABC as 7 two-hour episodes for consecutive nights from February 18 to February 24, 1979.

Episode Approximate time period Featured Kinte family member(s)
Chicken George Tom and Irene Harvey Elizabeth Harvey Cynthia Harvey Palmer Will Palmer Bertha Palmer Haley Simon Haley Alex Haley
Part I 1882 – 1883 Yes Yes Yes Yes
Part II 1896 – 1897 Yes Yes Yes Yes
Part III 1914 – 1917 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Part IV 1917 – 1921 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Part V 1932 – 1933 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Part VI 1939 – 1950 Yes Yes Yes Yes
Part VII 1960 – 1967 Yes Yes

[edit] Ratings and viewers

The miniseries was watched by an estimated 110 million[2][3][4][5][6] viewers and averaged a 30.1 rating[4] and 45% share[4] of the audience.

Episode Weekly Ratings
Ranking[5][a]		 Number of
Households		 Number of
Viewers		 Rating Share Date Network
Part I #8 N/A 65 million[7] 27.8%[7] 41%[7] 01979-02-18 February 18, 1979 ABC
Part II #9 22 million[3] 65 million[8] 29.5%[3] N/A 01979-02-19 February 19, 1979 ABC
Part III #4 24.4 million[3] 70 million[8] 32.7%[3] 50%[8] 01979-02-20 February 20, 1979 ABC
Part IV #6 23.7 million[3] N/A 31.8%[3] N/A 01979-02-21 February 21, 1979 ABC
Part V #7 23.6 million[3] N/A 31.7%[3] N/A 01979-02-22 February 22, 1979 ABC
Part VI #10 21.5 million[3] N/A 28.9%[3] N/A 01979-02-23 February 23, 1979 ABC
Part VII #11 N/A N/A 28.6%[3] N/A 01979-02-24 February 24, 1979 ABC

^[a] Part I aired a week prior to the rest of the series in the ratings.

[edit] TV One

In July and September 2007, the network TV One reran the series hosted by several of the original cast including Lynne Moody, Dorian Harewood, Stan Shaw, Kristoff St. John, and Irene Cara.

[edit] DVD release

The miniseries was released on DVD by Warner Bros. on October 9, 2007

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Rich, Frank (February 18, 1979). "Television: A Super Sequel to Haley's Comet". Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912386,00.html. Retrieved 2010-02-26. 
  2. ^ "ABC Soard in Ratings With 'Roots' Sequel". Schenectady Gazette: p. 12. February 24, 1979. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=MgwhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UnIFAAAAIBAJ&dq=roots%20the%20next%20generations%20ratings&pg=1194%2C7147519. Retrieved 2010-02-26. 
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "110 million see 'Roots' video special". The Tuscaloosa News: p. 8. March 1, 1979. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=nDAdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0p4EAAAAIBAJ&dq=roots%20the%20next%20generations%20ratings&pg=6626%2C36002. Retrieved 2010-02-26. 
  4. ^ a b c "'Roots' Ratings Dip". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: p. 29. February 28, 1979. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=MkwNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OG0DAAAAIBAJ&dq=roots%20the%20next%20generations%20ratings&pg=4905%2C3529170. Retrieved 2010-02-26. 
  5. ^ a b Hanauer, Joan (February 28, 1979). "ABC Takes "Roots" Again". The Bryan Times. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=-xMpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=lVEDAAAAIBAJ&dq=roots%20the%20next%20generations%20ratings&pg=5350%2C4725707. Retrieved 2010-02-26. 
  6. ^ Museum of Broadcast Communications
  7. ^ a b c "Sunday's 'Roots II' Tops 2 Movies But 'Mork & Mindy' Leads Nielsens". Toledo Blade: p. P-4. February 20, 1979. 
  8. ^ a b c Harrison, Bernie (February 24, 1979). "Final 'Roots" Series May Lose Viewers". The Times-News: p. 11. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AkcaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rSQEAAAAIBAJ&dq=roots%20the%20next%20generations%20ratings&pg=4602%2C5131210. Retrieved 2010-02-26. 

[edit] External links

Alex Haley's Roots
Books
Television
Roots • Roots: The Next Generations • Roots: The Gift • Alex Haley's Queen
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roots:_The_Next_Generations&oldid=478474707"
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Interaction
Toolbox
Print/export
Languages