What is Masterpiece Theatre? In the beginning... Sunday evening, January 10, 1971, was the end of a typical winter weekend all across America. Television viewers who were tuned to The First Churchills did not know that they were watching television history in the making: the beginning of a westward flow of British dramatic entertainment unmatched in quality and diversity in this country. That night PBS viewers witnessed the premiere offering of a new series called Masterpiece Theatre without realizing they were taking their seats in an imaginary playhouse that would scan the shelves of classic and contemporary literature to deliver a series of unforgettable and eminently entertaining television dramas. Masterpiece Theatre came at a point in time when the quality of American commercial television entertainment was deteriorating and when programming was increasingly being directed at youngsters, often at the expense of their elders. Viewers who weren't interested in bimbos in peril or teenagers in heat were forced to join The Lost Audience, doomed to wander the television wasteland looking in vain for entertainment that didn't upset their intelligence, their tastes, or their stomach. Into this bleak landscape stepped a few visionaries at WGBH in Boston who set the stage for Masterpiece Theatre, a television playhouse devoted to dramatic adaptations of great fiction and significant biography. The appeal of such dramas had already been demonstrated by the adulation of viewers who devotedly tuned in once a week to The Forsyte Saga, the first British serial drama aired in this country. That was in 1969, the year Sesame Street premiered over the fledgling Public Broadcasting System (PBS), which had, in turn, been stimulated by the Carnegie Commission's indictment of American television as "a vast wasteland." As WGBH and other early educational stations were forming themselves into PBS, WGBH was beginning the work of creating Masterpiece Theatre. This new series took off with an overwhelmingly rich profusion of offerings -- eleven in the first season alone (The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Elizabeth R, The Possessed, Pere Goriot, and The Last of the Mohicans among them). Thanks in part to the popularity of those productions, PBS gained tremendous support and has continued to serve as a venue for the outstanding programming crossing these shores from Great Britain. Mobil (now ExxonMobil) has seen to it that these dramas always travel first class, and Alistair Cooke and Russell Baker have been our brilliant stewards, bringing a style and insight equal to the productions. And the rest is history, a history that is still being made on Sunday evenings on television sets across the country. Terrence O'Flaherty From Masterpiece Theatre: A Celebration of 25 Years (Courtesy Bay Books, San Francisco, 1999). What is Masterpiece Theatre? | Hosts + Producers | The Theme Music FAQs | What is the American Collection? | Broadcast Schedule Feature Library | eNewsletter Home | About The Series | The American Collection | The Archive Schedule & Season | Feature Library | eNewsletter | Book Club Learning Resources | Forum | Search | Shop | Feedback ©