The Final Season
For the third season, the setting and production of the show moved to Hollywood. Dick and his family move there after he lands a role in a soap opera called Those Who Care in which he played Dr. Brad Fairmont. New cast members included Dick Van Patten as the show's producer, Barry Gordon as the show's writer, Henry Darrow as the stage manager, Barbara Rush as the show's star, and Richard Dawson and Chita Rivera as the Prestons' neighbors. In the fall of 1973, the beginning of its third year, CBS gave the series another time slot, this time on Monday nights at 9:30 P.M. immediately following Here's Lucy starring Lucille Ball. The network felt that Ball's series would provide a strong lead-in for The New Dick Van Dyke Show.
An episode produced for the third season, "Lt. Preston of the 4th Cavalry," included an off-camera scene in which Dick and Jenny's daughter walked in on them while they were having sex. CBS refused to air the episode, claiming it was incompatible with Van Dyke's family-friendly image. This so incensed Carl Reiner that he refused to continue on the show beyond the third season, citing the network's hypocrisy. Notably, CBS at this time was allowing a number of other shows, such as All in the Family, which featured Reiner's son, Rob, to deal openly with much more controversial topics. Reiner promised never to work in television, particularly CBS, again.
Some sources have inaccurately reported that the controversial unaired episode was produced during the second season, and that Carl Reiner quit the series before the start of the third season. In fact, the episode was produced during the third season and Carl Reiner remained as producer of the series until the final episode, which he also wrote and directed.
Although the show's ratings improved, Van Dyke did not enjoy working away from his home and did not want to continue the show without Reiner. After the third season, he chose not to renew his contract and moved back to Arizona.
Read more about this topic: The New Dick Van Dyke Show
Famous quotes containing the words final and/or season:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)
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