Stop Susan Williams

I cannot believe anyone still remembers this show! For years, my sister and I thought we were delusional, as no one we spoke to from our generation had any recollection of watching such a series. We still rank the Cliffhangers trilogy as one of the best little memories of our childhood. It was a truly engaging show, often creepy, but always fun. We would glue ourselves to the set, popcorn at hand, and watch the crafty tales unfold without blinking.

I am writing this as I am working a security shift and as I was checking the boiler room at a specific building (at a local college) I had a flashback to a TV show I remember my mother watched in the late 70's where the main character was walking around in a basement boiler room and was being stalked by a green monster. I tried to recollect the name of this series when it finally hit me that the series was called 'Cliffhangers'. I am amazed how many people remember this short lived series from the 70's. Is it out on DVD? As a kid I was always in tune with good sci-fi and horror and if I remember this series had much of that genre. It would be amazing if the Sci-Fi channel could show this series as I remember my mothers disappointment as they did not show the ending.

Susan Anton starred in STOP SUSAN WILLIAMS, one of three segments in the CLIFFHANGERS series, which was just a great show. The other two segments were about a cowboy living in the 1880s who discovers an advanced civilization living under the American prarie(this segment was filmed in black and white), and the other was about Dracula, living in modern day L.A. and pursuing a woman whose mother he had bitten and killed years before. To be honest, the Dracula segment held my interest more because I was in the 3rd grade and crazy for monsters and ghosts at the time. To my best memories, each storyline got about 20 minutes during the hour-long show and, as the title of the show indicates, each segment ended with some sort of life and death situation(one segment ending that I remember from the Susan Williams segment: Susan unknowingly takes a bubble bath as a cobra slithers across the floor toward her bathtub!)Despite being a sure-fire hit for kids, the show doesn't seem to have done too well; I remember that the last episode containing the resolutions of the Susan Williams and cowboy segments was never aired, the series presumably being cancelled due to low ratings. Isn't that infuriating? I took some consolation in the fact that the Dracula storyline was resolved, with a great climatic ending in a wax museum that Dracula had selected as a make-shift lair, with a great fire ala HOUSE OF WAX! Come to think of it, there were several rip-offs of other horror movies, like a sequence where the heroine is partially vampirized by Dracula and taken to a convent where an exorcism is performed on her! I'm sure the show would show it's seams now, but back then it was just great! It would be fun to see it again.

I, too, remember this television series and I was a devoted fan. I never missed one single episode, I remember how much fun it was to watch and how I looked forward to each segment from week to week, and I was furious when the final episode was NEVER AIRED!!! It was astonishing, the whole point of the show was that you didn't know what was going to happen until the following week, and there was never any resolution to two of the stories. Fortunately the Dracula story, which was my favorite one, did get an ending, and it turned up several times later on cable networks edited together into a full-length movie, but I never saw the "Susan Williams" story or the "Secret Empire" story resolved, nor have I seen them on cable.

I was dedicated fan of this TV series and was greatly disappointed when it was canceled. I could hardly wait for the next show to come on again and looked forward to it every week. My favorite cliffhanger was Dracula but I had gotten caught up in the other two before it was taken off the air. I don't remember a lot about Stop Susan Williams or the Empire, but if given the chance I'd like to see them again just to see what I think of them today.

Whenever I see Michael Nouri in a movie or TV show I think back to Cliffhangers. He did a great job as the Dracula character and he is great in whatever role he chooses to play.

I wish I could get copies of this show on DVD.