“The Interns”

This medical drama was savaged by critics and unable to make much of an impression with viewers during the 1970-1971 season when relevance was the word of the day and television was filled with young, eager characters striving to make a difference. Broderick Crawford starred Dr. Peter Goldstone, the surly supervisor of five fresh-faced interns played by Stephen Brooks, Christopher Stone, Hal Frederick, Mike Farrell and Sandra Smith. Every week they faced medical crises and personal problems, sometimes at the same time.

When Broadcasting published a list of the various dramas and comedies the networks were looking at for their 1970-1971 schedules, “The Interns” was one of ten CBS pilots under consideration (among the others were “Crisis Clinic,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Pursuer,” “Lady Broker” and “The Storefront Lawyers”) [1]. Screen Gems would produce the hour-long pilot, created by Bill Blinn and Bob Claver. According to some sources, the pilot was based either on Richard Frede’s novel, The Interns, published in 1960 or the 1962 film adaptation of the same name (a sequel, The New Interns, was released in 1964) [2].

That the name of the hospital involved — New North Hospital — was the same in the novel, the movie and the series does suggest a connection of some sort. But aside from the general theme series had little in common with the earlier incarnations. None of the characters in the series had the same names as those in the novel or movie, for example. In any event, when CBS announced its 1970-1971 fall schedule on February 19th, 1970 The Interns had been given the 7:30-8:30PM time slot on Fridays, replacing Get Smart and The Good Guys [3].

Of the CBS schedule, Cecil Smith wrote in The Los Angeles Times that “the emphasis at CBS seemed to be on contemporary urban drama to counteract the network’s rube-tube image of recent years” [4]. He thought it odd that the network planned to air the series (and The Storefront Lawyers) during the 7:30-8:30PM hour, noting that “traditionally, drama, if it had any guts at all, was slotted late at night, usually at 10 p.m. But CBS in dispensing with [Red] Skelton and Jackie Gleason scheduled two of its strongest dramatic efforts, The Storefront Lawyer [sic] and The Interns, for 7:30 p.m.” [5].

(In a February 20th article Smith gave the name of the series as The Young Interns; it could have been a working title or a mistake on his part given the youthful look of the season as a whole. He referred to the series as The Interns in another article published four days later. Interestingly, in a September 19th, 1968 article about television programs based on movies, Joyce Haber reported that Screen Gems was adapting two movies: Under the Yum-Yum Tree and The Young Interns [6].)

In early March, CBS held a press conference for television critics in which producers behind several of its new fall shows spoke about how “reality and social awareness” would be addressed. Regarding The Interns, executive producer Bob Claver explained that the characters would be part of “the establishment but trying to change it from within” while at the same time living their own lives [7]. “They’ll all be self-centered people like everyone else” who “just happen to be interns” and, he stressed, “there will be no scene in which the old doctor tells the young doctor what’s wrong with the world” [8].

Stephen Brooks and Christopher Stone as Doctors Pettit and Hardin

Three months later, the network invited critics to Los Angeles for press interviews and then screened episodes of Arnie, The Storefront Lawyers and The Interns instead. Clarence Petersen revealed that CBS had asked the critics not to review any specifics about the episodes because they were rough cuts. And then, in broad strokes, he reviewed the episode of The Interns he had been shown:

[The Interns] is pretty much like all the other doctor shows except maybe a bit more relevant because the doctors are a bit more hip. They are dedicated after the fashion of Ben Casey, of course, but unlike Ben, they also smile and laugh. In one scene, moreover, they all run down the street, as if they were doing a Pepsi commercial or auditioning for Mod Squad, but they aren’t. They are trying to catch a bearded orderly who has slipped poison to a dying patient who wanted to end it quickly. [9]

A second plot, he said, involved Broderick Crawford’s character “giving lots of tough and wise and terse, mainly terse, advice to the younger doctors” [10]. The problem with the episode, Petersen felt, was that it “could have been written by a computer” and was “conceived as glib, fashionable, and predictable TV drama, which is not real drama at all, but inadvertent comedy” [11]. For the record, he also wrote negatively about The Storefront Lawyers while praising Arnie.

Broderick Crawford as Dr. Peter Goldstone

When it came time for critics to review the premiere episode, broadcast on Friday, September 16th, they were not kind. Jack Gould of The New York Times called it “one more hospital drama of scant distinction” [12]. The Boston Globe‘s Percy Shain wrote that it” limped into view with an untidy mess about stolen drugs, a false accusation, a black-monk confrontation, a go-go dancer’s disruption of routine and various other heroics woven into a pattern that leaked at every point.” And Morton Moss of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner stated that “we felt no temptation to think we hadn’t seen it all before.”

And Clarence Petersen? If anything, he was even more brutal this time around:

If you can stomach another medical melodrama with a disease and/or a personality conflict for everyone and if you can stand another cast of hip young people who hold hands and drive too fast, and if you can stand another hard-boiled, growling, top-sergeant housemother of a chief of staff, then you’ll love The Interns at 6:30 Friday nights. I will be torn between avoiding it and The Brady Bunch. [13]

One kind review came courtesy of Don Page in The Los Angeles Times who wrote “everything about The Interns looks favorable. Young people, good production, heavy scripts. Lots of grief” (he also explained the formula behind the series: “the best of Dr. Kildare, a dose of Ben Casey and an injection of Peyton Place”) [14].

The first episode of The Interns ranked 45th out of 80 programs; other new shows fared little better, leading Clarence Petersen to declare that “it does not look like a very good year” for relevance [15]. Its first eight episodes averaged a 15.4/30 Nielsen rating, the second-lowest of the new CBS programs (only The Tim Conway Comedy Hour performed worse, and it was canceled in November, going of the air in mid-December) [16]. The series did well enough for CBS to pick it up for the remainder of the 1970-1971 season, however, but that was it.

Broderick Crawford starred in The Interns as Dr. Peter Goldstone, chief of staff at New North Hospital, a large metropolitan medical complex. In the premiere episode, he considers quitting but eventually decides to stay on. Crawford explained that he took the role because he “liked the script and there were six kids knocking their browns out in the show, so I thought it couldn’t be too tough” [17]. But it was. “It’s more work now. You’ve got to keep too many people happy–CBS, the sponsor, and the people. You get a script now and you wait for the changes. After the censor get it, it’s five days before you shoot. In the old days, no one drove you out of your mind. But still, I love to act. I like the series and I hope I entertain a few people. I have fun–life’s been a ball for me” [18].

The titular interns were Greg Pettit (played by Stephen Brooks), Pooch Hardin (played by Christopher Stone), Cal Barrin (played by Hal Frederick), Sam Marsh (played by Mike Farrell) and Lydia Thorpe (played by Sandra Smith). Both Barrin and Thorpe faced unique problems as doctors; Barrin was African-American and Thorpe was a woman. Elaine Giftos co-starred as Bobbe Marsh, Sam’s wife, and Skip Homeier had a recurring role as Dr. Hugh Jacoby.

Each episode featured several story lines. In the premiere, for example, in addition to the plot point concerning Dr. Goldstone thinking about quitting, there were also two medical stories: Dr. Barrin worked with a Southern monk who hasn’t had much interaction with African-Americans while a friend of Dr. Pettit’s, upon learning that he had only months to live, convinced an orderly to let him overdose. Furthermore, Dr. Hardin’s girlfriend, a go-go dancer played by Sherry Jackson, had a painful bone spur.

Mike Farrell as Dr. Sam Marsh

The series attempted to tackle serious issues, including abortion, drugs, rioting, mental illness and doping. Several episodes involved story lines focusing on Dr. Marsh’s marriage. In one, a jealous husband files for divorce after assuming his wife is having an affair with Marsh. In another, Marsh must set his personal life aside and treat the man who attacked Bobbe. Basically, Marsh had rotten luck. He saves a life and a murderer nearly kills him and Bobbe. He comes down with the bubonic plague. He goes on a walkabout after a teenage girl dies of an overdose. A librarian with two personalities falls in love with Marsh and he is suspected of fathering her child.

To be fair, Marsh wasn’t the only doctor with problems. Dr. Pettit is in an car accident and must both fight to keep the injured alive and somehow get help; Dr. Thorpe must contend with a sexist surgeon; Dr. Hardin is accused of murder after drinking spiked punch at a party (he can’t remember anything); Dr. Barrin is injured in a bombing; Dr. Pettit is forced to amputate a man’s hand only to discover he’s a champion billiards player; Dr. Thorpe has to chose between her career and her fiance; Dr. Pettit finds himself in the midst of a riot at a a prison; Dr. Goldstone is attacked by a man in need of dialysis; Dr. Hardin won’t believe a sick girl is a heroin addict (until she runs away).

Hal Frederick as Dr. Cal Barrin

Additionally, there were several lawsuits filed against the doctors (one from the aforementioned billiards player, another from a clown who hurts herself on hospital property and later believes her injury was made worse by one of the doctors). Guest stars who appeared in various episodes included Billy Dee Williams, Lew Ayres, Lois Nettleton, Martin Sheen, Albert Salmi, Pete Duel, Georg Stanford Brown and Robert Lansing. CBS cancelled the series on March 16th, 1971 (it was one of fourteen shows the network dropped) [19]. The last first-run episode aired on March 26th; the final repeat on September 3rd.

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Last Updated June 20th, 2010