Encounter (Canadian TV series)

Encounter (originally titled General Motors Theatre, also known as CBC Theatre, Ford Television Theatre, and General Motors Presents) was a Canadian television anthology drama series, which ran on CBC Television under various titles from September 18, 1952 until January 1, 1961, and in the US on ABC from October 5 to November 2, 1958 as part of The Woody Woodpecker Show.^[1] The series consisted of one-hour episodes of romance, adventure, or mystery stories.

Cast and crew[]

Austin Willis, Patrick Macnee, Barry Morse, and William Shatner were among those who appeared on Encounter.^[2] The series also supported the earlier careers of many Canadian actors, such as James Doohan, who played a role in the GM Presents production of "The Night they Killed Joe Howe" (1960).^[3]

The series was a breeding ground for writing and directing talent such as William Kotcheff, Donald Jack, and Arthur Hailey. One of Hailey's plays for the strand, Flight into Danger (1956), was later remade as the feature film Zero Hour! and was also screened by the BBC in the United Kingdom. It was a significant factor in General Motors Theatre producer — and CBC Supervisor of Drama — Sydney Newman moving to work in the UK, where he later worked on and created an anthology series similar to General Motors Theatre, such as Armchair Theatre and The Wednesday Play (he would later go on to create Doctor Who.)

Canadian Run[]

First transmitted under the sponsored title on October 5, 1954, a new 60-minute drama was aired each week. As suggested by the title, the program was sponsored by the General Motors automobile company. It was effectively the same series as the unsponsored CBC Theatre, which had run its first season from December 1, 1953, to April 20, 1954, with General Motors becoming the title sponsor for the second season.^[4][5]

Following some concerns, the series moved to a Sunday evening slot in 1956, where it had competed with the American network CBS's enormously popular game show The $64,000 Question in the key Toronto market (where American broadcast signals could be received from across the border), General Motors pulled out and the show disappeared for two years. It returned in 1958 after The $64,000 Question had been canceled, under the new title General Motors Presents.

For its final run in the summer of 1961, the series had not the originally-produced dramas but broadcasts of a bought-in British anthology series called .

American Run[]

The show was one of the first Canadian programs to be sold to an American network. ABC had planned to air 39 episodes of the series but aired only five. Originally, Encounter was scheduled to follow the western series Colt .45. The program faced competition on CBS from Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The $64,000 Question. Also, NBC at the time aired part of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show.^[6]

At this time, it is not known what program succeeded Encounter in the 9:30 Eastern time slot beginning on Sunday, November 9, 1958. The following season The Alaskans, an adventure program set in Alaska and starring Roger Moore, Dorothy Provine, and Jeff York, aired on ABC during the original encounters time slot.^[7]

Encounter is not the shortest-running series on an American television network. In the fall of 1966, The Tammy Grimes Show, a situation comedy starring Tammy Grimes, ran only four episodes on ABC before it was cancelled.^[8]100 Grand, an ABC quiz show, lasted for only three episodes after its debut in the fall of 1963 on the Sunday evening schedule. A program called Turn-On, promoted as a sophisticated answer to NBC's Laugh In, was canceled on the air during its first and only episode in February 1969.

References[]

External links[]

• Encounter at IMDb
• General Motors Theatre - Canadian Communication Foundation
• Information at CBC Television Series 1952 to 1982