Jason Evers is fairly amazing in this show that served as the failed pilot for his college series "Channing", named after the fictional college where his character works as a new instructor. The dramatics hold up quite well.
It was broadcast by Alcoa Premiere (and reviewed by various newspapers) in March 1962, but IMDb incorrectly also as a duplicate "The Best Years", shown on Alcoa Premiere as a second pilot, but in fact it is the same year-old episode, merely retitled.
I enjoyed Evers' work in the '60s, especially his horror cheapie "The Brain that Wouldn't Die" that lived on as a cult feature in all those Thriller Theater movie syndication packages, and "Channing" could have made him a star if it had clicked.
For the series, the role of Evers' wife (played by Nancy Hadley( was dropped, whereas she is featured in this pilot version. The subject matter has to do with mental illness, and I surmise that that very touchy topic may have been too much for a series (especially to be treated in the very first episode launching same), hence the rejection.
The professor and his wife have moved into a rented room (planning to go house-hunting if he's successful first as an instructor at Channing College), and his backstory has him on the rebound after a scandal at his previous Sedgwick College, involving a female student of his who committed suicide, for which he was incorrectly blamed.
Sure enough, on his first day of class teaching on modern (not really) plays by Chekhov, Ibsen and others, he encounters Burt Brinckerhoff as an extremely nerdy, erratic student is way too intellectual for his peers. Evers takes him under his wing, but by indulging the unbalanced kid he threatens to bring harm, not only to other students but clearly to his own "on probation" career.
Burt, whose work I was not impressed with in other shows like "Combat!" and "Route 66" is terrific here, painting a complex character who is brilliant and also insane, chalked up to a hereditary illness. (In a Gothic subplot that doesn't really fit in with the rest of the pilot, his mad mother is not shown, but only heard screaming from behind a locked door in his home!) The other major subplot has a fine performance as a rotter by Paul Carr, playing literally the Big Man on Campus who needs to take (and pass) Evers' course to graduate on time, but can't seem to fit doing the work on studying the plays Evers' assigns into his busy, busy schedule in many campus club and working on the student newspaper. He's really hateful, but the screenplay also shows he's human underneath.
The very serious tone to this peek at college life holds up well 60 years later, and Henry Jones is incredibly empathetic as the college dean who introduces the story and in a very odd structural element, introduces snippets of three future stories (flashbacks) at the end of the show, likely unused material or perhaps salvaged for the later "Channing" series.
It was broadcast by Alcoa Premiere (and reviewed by various newspapers) in March 1962, but IMDb incorrectly also as a duplicate "The Best Years", shown on Alcoa Premiere as a second pilot, but in fact it is the same year-old episode, merely retitled.
I enjoyed Evers' work in the '60s, especially his horror cheapie "The Brain that Wouldn't Die" that lived on as a cult feature in all those Thriller Theater movie syndication packages, and "Channing" could have made him a star if it had clicked.
For the series, the role of Evers' wife (played by Nancy Hadley( was dropped, whereas she is featured in this pilot version. The subject matter has to do with mental illness, and I surmise that that very touchy topic may have been too much for a series (especially to be treated in the very first episode launching same), hence the rejection.
The professor and his wife have moved into a rented room (planning to go house-hunting if he's successful first as an instructor at Channing College), and his backstory has him on the rebound after a scandal at his previous Sedgwick College, involving a female student of his who committed suicide, for which he was incorrectly blamed.
Sure enough, on his first day of class teaching on modern (not really) plays by Chekhov, Ibsen and others, he encounters Burt Brinckerhoff as an extremely nerdy, erratic student is way too intellectual for his peers. Evers takes him under his wing, but by indulging the unbalanced kid he threatens to bring harm, not only to other students but clearly to his own "on probation" career.
Burt, whose work I was not impressed with in other shows like "Combat!" and "Route 66" is terrific here, painting a complex character who is brilliant and also insane, chalked up to a hereditary illness. (In a Gothic subplot that doesn't really fit in with the rest of the pilot, his mad mother is not shown, but only heard screaming from behind a locked door in his home!) The other major subplot has a fine performance as a rotter by Paul Carr, playing literally the Big Man on Campus who needs to take (and pass) Evers' course to graduate on time, but can't seem to fit doing the work on studying the plays Evers' assigns into his busy, busy schedule in many campus club and working on the student newspaper. He's really hateful, but the screenplay also shows he's human underneath.
The very serious tone to this peek at college life holds up well 60 years later, and Henry Jones is incredibly empathetic as the college dean who introduces the story and in a very odd structural element, introduces snippets of three future stories (flashbacks) at the end of the show, likely unused material or perhaps salvaged for the later "Channing" series.