CBS Series First Victims of Strike

Two CBS mid-season series, “The Dictator” and “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” on Tuesday became the first casualties of the Writers Guild of America strike.

The programs, scheduled to debut this month, will be delayed indefinitely by the strike, which began Monday, the network said.

“The Dictator,” a comedy starring Christopher Lloyd, was in its third week of production in New York but didn’t have enough additional scripts completed to warrant going ahead with next week’s premiere, a network spokesman said. No scripts had been finished for the Smothers Brothers’series, which was to have started March 23.

“My Sister Sam,” starring Pam Dawber, which had been removed from the schedule earlier in the season, will return Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. in place of “The Dictator.” CBS will use special programming to fill in for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.”

Three other CBS comedies slated to debut next week--”Eisenhower and Lutz,” “Trial and Error” and “Coming of Age”--were not affected by the writers strike and will be broadcast as scheduled.

Meanwhile, “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson may be the first NBC program affected by the strike. The network said that it will decide today whether the show will go into repeats beginning tonight or whether some other arrangement will be made.

An NBC spokeswoman said two mid-season shows--”Aaron’s Way,” premiering tonight, and “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,” returning March 24--will not be affected by the strike.