ABC-TV Plans 9 New Series for Fall Season : Lucille Ball to Return; ‘Love Boat’ Is Canceled

ABC-TV, trying to rebound from two successive last-place seasons in the prime-time ratings, said Monday that its new fall schedule will have nine new series, including one that brings Lucille Ball back to TV on a regular basis and “Our World,” an ABC News program offering “a nostalgic look” at special moments in American history.

To make room for the new series, ABC axed several long-running programs--”Love Boat,” a nine-season veteran; “Benson,” a regular for eight years, and “Diff’rent Strokes,” which joined ABC’s schedule last year after 6 1/2 years on NBC.

Despite the cancellation of “Love Boat,” several “Love Boat” specials will air next season, ABC said.

Other cancelled ABC series are “Hardcastle & McCormick” after three years and “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” and “The Fall Guy” after four seasons each. Among mid-season replacements canceled were “Mr. Sunshine,” “The Redd Foxx Show,” “He’s the Mayor,” “Joe Bash” and “Fortune Dane.”

First for Stoddard

“Hollywood Beat” and “Family Honor,” which premiered last season on ABC, were among series that the network canceled before Monday’s announcement.

ABC’s new program schedule, made public a day earlier than planned, is the first fall schedule drawn up by Brandon Stoddard, named president of ABC Entertainment last November as part of an effort to halt the network’s ratings slump.

Stoddard, a respected ABC executive who helped develop such hits as “Roots,” “Winds of War” and the controversial “The Day After,” has been given considerable leeway by ABC’s new owner, Capital Cities Communications, to make the network more competitive.

Although he put a weekly total of seven new hours on ABC’s schedule, Stoddard shifted only three returning series to new evenings, with “MacGyver” moving from Wednesdays to Mondays, “Perfect Strangers” from Tuesdays to Wednesdays and “Spenser: For Hire” from Tuesdays to Saturdays.

In addition to ABC News’ “Our World,” to join the network’s “20/20” news magazine on Thursday nights, the entertainment shows on ABC’s fall roster of new series consists of three hourlong dramas, a half-hour drama and four half-hour situation comedies.

Most attention doubtless will be given to Ball’s new comedy, if only to see if she enjoys the kind of success that made her “I Love Lucy” series a mainstay of CBS’ prime-time schedule from 1951 through June, 1957.

In her new series, “Life With Lucy,” Ball, 74, plays a businesswoman who decides to join her late husband’s partner (played by actor Gale Gordon) in running a hardware store.

Another new comedy, “The Ellen Burstyn Show,” stars the Oscar-winning actress in her first TV series. She plays an iconoclastic college professor in a domestic setting.

The two other comedies are “Sledge Hammer,” starring David Rasche in a send-up of detective shows, and “Head of the Class,” with Howard Hesseman, formerly of CBS’ “WKRP in Cincinnati,” playing a high school teacher.

ABC’s new hourlong series are:

- “Our Kind of Town,” about a young couple on the rise in Chicago. The couple is played by Shelley Hack and Tom Mason.

- “Starman,” starring Robert Hays in a version of the movie hit about a visitor from outer space.

- “Cold Steel and Neon,” starring Robert D. Esiderio as a widowed police detective with two young children.

The ninth newcomer to ABC’s schedule, “The Last Electric Knight,” is described by the network as a half-hour drama. It pairs a crusty cop (Gil Gerard) and a young karate expert (Ernie Reyes Jr.) in fighting crime.