Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing 1775, which aired on CBS in 1992.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, we take a trip into the past.  Welcome to 1775!

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by David Trainer, originally aired on September 5th, 1992)

The year is 1775 and the streets of Philadelphia are awash in rumors of war and revolution.  While some prepare for war and others continue to declare their loyalty to the British Empire, Jeremy (Ryan O’Neal) and Annabelle Proctor (Lesley-Anne Down) just try to run their inn and find suitable husbands for their three daughters.  The youngest daughter (Danielle Harris, of Halloween fame) wants a horse because all of her friends have a horse.  She also wants to run off with a patriot and is offended when the pro-British Governor Massengill (Jeffrey Tambor) stops by the inn.

The Proctors know that one way to marry off their daughters would be to have them attend a fancy ball.  Unfortunately, that would require paying money that they don’t have.  Jeremy may have to ask his smug brother-in-law for cash.  His brother-in-law’s name?  George Washington.  Who plays George Washington?  Somewhat inevitably, Adam West.

Now, I know Adam West playing a smug and superficial George Washington might sound like a lot of fun but West only shows up for one scene and it’s a short one at that.  And he really doesn’t get any fun lines or really any opportunity to do any of his trademark Westing.  It’s a bit of a wasted opportunity.

Actually, the entire show feels like a wasted opportunity.  Reportedly, 1775 was an attempt to do a Blackadder for America but the pilot lacks all of Blackadder’s lacerating wit.  Instead of poking fun at American history and traditions in the way that Blackadder did to the Brits, 1775 is just a typically lame family sitcom that happens to take place in 1775.  The youngest daughter wants a horse …. BECAUSE IT’S 1775!  If it was the modern era, she would want a car.  That’s the entire joke.

As for the show’s cast, Lesley-Anne Down delivers a few snarky put-downs with elan but Ryan O’Neal appears to be lost in the main role.  Have you seen that famous clip of Ryan O’Neal saying, “Oh man, oh God,” over and over again?  Well, that’s the level of his performance here.  O’Neal sleepwalks through the show, delivering his lines in the weary voice of someone who needs the paycheck but otherwise could hardly care less.  When he gets exasperated with his daughters, he sounds numbly homicidal.  It’s not a pleasant performance and it features none of the fierce intelligence that Rowan Atkinson brought to countless incarnations of Edmund Blackadder.

Not surprisingly, only one episode of the show aired before it was canceled.  The series didn’t even reach the start of the Second Continental Congress but that’s okay.  We all know how that went.