Some professions lend themselves better to television than others, and that of the pilot (let's face it, astronauts are little more than uber-pilots) is one of them - unless it involves adventure, that is. If it involves straight drama, the problem is that you're challenged to be just as involving when you're grounded as when you're in flight; the only thing anyone remembers about "Spencer's Pilots" is its stirring theme music*, and "Call To Glory" was similarly forgettable.
"The Cape" was no more successful in that respect; to be fair it wasn't really a BAD show - from Corbin Bernsen onwards nobody's acting stunk up the place, and the writing was okay (plus the sight of Bobbie Phillips post-"Murder One" and pre-those "Chameleon" TV movies was never a minus) - but it never really overcame the basic problem of what to do with the characters, and it played far too much like a soap for comfort, except when it launched into space... of course, it would have been too implausible to have a crisis occur every week (in real life, thankfully, accidents in the US space programme are rare), and they didn't. But it was at the expense of making the show more attention-keeping.
Mainly notable as one of the last shows produced by MTM before Twentieth Century Fox swallowed the cat whole - a sad comedown from the days of "Rhoda" and "Hill Street Blues."
"The Cape" was no more successful in that respect; to be fair it wasn't really a BAD show - from Corbin Bernsen onwards nobody's acting stunk up the place, and the writing was okay (plus the sight of Bobbie Phillips post-"Murder One" and pre-those "Chameleon" TV movies was never a minus) - but it never really overcame the basic problem of what to do with the characters, and it played far too much like a soap for comfort, except when it launched into space... of course, it would have been too implausible to have a crisis occur every week (in real life, thankfully, accidents in the US space programme are rare), and they didn't. But it was at the expense of making the show more attention-keeping.
Mainly notable as one of the last shows produced by MTM before Twentieth Century Fox swallowed the cat whole - a sad comedown from the days of "Rhoda" and "Hill Street Blues."