What is Masterpiece Theatre?
In the beginning… Sunday evening, January 10, 1971, was the end of a typical winter weekend all across America. Television viewers who were tuned to The First Churchills did not know that they were watching television history in the making: the beginning of a westward flow of British dramatic entertainment unmatched in quality and diversity in this country. That night PBS viewers witnessed the premiere offering of a new series called Masterpiece Theatre without realizing they were taking their seats in an imaginary playhouse that would scan the shelves of classic and contemporary literature to deliver a series of unforgettable and eminently entertaining television dramas. Masterpiece Theatre came at a point in time when the quality of American commercial television entertainment was deteriorating and when programming was increasingly being directed at youngsters, often at the expense of their elders. Viewers who weren’t interested in bimbos in peril or teenagers in heat were forced t
