The Return of Haley's Comet

ABC gears up Roots: The Next Generations

Special, miniseries, big event: these are the most overused terms in television's absurd lexicon of hype. But in the 1978-79 season, when almost every prime-time show is labeled spectacular by the networks, one mini-series surely justifies the advance billing. That show is Roots: The Next Generations, ABC's sequel to the most popular TV entertainment of all time. When this 14-hour production airs over seven nights in early February, upwards of 100 million viewers may tune in to see if it is a worthy successor to the original Roots. ABC expects a huge audience but a tough one. Explains Network Senior Vice President Brandon Stoddard: "The real apprehension is not whether we're going to get a 66 share in the Nielsens again. Based on the original run and this fall's rerun, we know there is still a great deal of interest in the story. The real question for us is: Have we kept up the standards we set last time?"

At first, none of Roots' creators wanted to risk such comparisons. "We had at least six lengthy discussions about whether or not to do a sequel," recalls Alex Haley, the man whose genealogical search launched the whole Roots phenomenon. "Our initial feelings were negative. We felt the other did so well that we should just let it hang up there. Then, very gradually, it began to come together. Someone would ask me about stories I had, so I told them about Sister Carrie or Aunt Liz, and then some more."

Eventually Haley started carrying a tape recorder around with him at all times to dictate his family tales. Within six weeks he piled up more than 800 pages of transcript. From this raw material, Writer Ernest Kinoy and Producer Stan Margulies constructed a plot that chronicles Haley's family from 1882 to 1965. Roots 2 opens in Henning, Tenn., where Chicken George settled the family at the end of Roots 1. The show's climax will dramatize Haley's arrival in Gambia to search for traces of his African forebear, Kunta Kinte. Along the way, Roots 2 will encompass the Reconstruction, two world wars, the growth of urban black ghettos and the birth of the modern civil rights movement.

Unlike the first Roots, a then risky venture produced on a bare-bones budget, the new show is going first class. (Estimated budget: $18 million, three times the cost of the original.) "This time," says Margulies, "the network said, 'Name it --you guys are king of the mountain.' " Over $1 million was spent just to rebuild Henning near Los Angeles: during Roots 2, viewers will see the town grow from a dusty rural outpost into an industrialized modern city. Says Margulies: "Finally I had the money to shoot in an honest-to-God cotton field."

The expanded budget may actually be most visible in the show's casting. Besides such strong young actors as Richard Thomas, Fay Hauser, Dorian Harewood, Stan Shaw and Irene Cara, Roots 2 features Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Brock Peters and Paul Winfield. James Earl Jones will play Haley, a close friend. Perhaps the biggest coup is the casting of Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland as the wealthiest white couple in late 19th century Henning. Both movie stars are fans of the original Roots and jumped at the chance to appear in the sequel. "From what I see," says Fonda, "The New Generations is even better than Roots. The scripts sent to me were the best I'd ever read in any medium, full of beautiful ideas and writing." He particularly liked playing a man whose racial views are contrary to his own. "I don't always play good guys," he explains. "Once in a part, I massacred a whole Western farm family." Another Roots 2 bad guy may be Marlon Brando, who is negotiating to make a rare TV appearance as American Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell in the final episode.

Audiences may not find Roots 2 quite as powerful as Fonda does, but the first and only complete episode looks promising. Much in the manner of the original series, soap opera and history are blended to potent effect. A moving death scene for Chicken George (now played by Avon Long, succeeding Ben Vereen) is skillfully set against a nuts-and-bolts account of the advent of Jim Crow laws. With the help of subtle performances by Fonda, De Havilland and Thomas, the white characters seem less abjectly evil than those of Roots 1.

Still, some of Roots 2's creators worry that the more recent historical material may lack the shocking impact of the first show's depiction of slavery. Says ABC Vice President Esther Shapiro: "It's easy to do whips and chains. Roots 2 is about feelings. It is about blacks throwing off the emotional bonds of slavery that a proclamation cannot take away." But Alex Haley is satisfied that the new show will do its proper job: to present black families who "love each other, struggle together and overcome obstacles to achieve goals." And this time around, the author's family will be literally as well as figuratively onscreen: Haley's niece Ann, 16, has an acting role in the fourth episode.

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