| Genre: | Drama |
| Creator: | Kenneth Johnson |
| Composer: | Joe Harnell |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Num Seasons: | 1 |
| Num Episodes: | 11 (1 unaired) |
| Executive Producer: | Kenneth Johnson |
| Producer: | Richard Milton |
| Runtime: | 60 min. |
| Company: | Universal Television |
| Network: | NBC |
Cliffhangers is an American drama television series that aired on NBC from February 27 to May 1, 1979. It attempted to revive the genre of movie serials in a television format. Each hour-long episode was divided into three 20-minute segments: a mystery, Stop Susan Williams; a science fiction/Western hybrid, The Secret Empire; and a horror story, The Curse of Dracula.[1]
To add to the "in-progress" feeling of the proceedings, all three series started with different chapter numbers (although this was the first broadcast for all of them). "Stop Susan Williams" began at Chapter II, "The Secret Empire" started with Chapter III, and "The Curse of Dracula" with Chapter VI.
Cliffhangers was an expensive production due to three simultaneous production units being required. The hope was that if one of the serials caught on, it could be spun off into its own series, however the show aired opposite Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, the #1 and #2 most popular shows in television at the time. The show was cancelled after only 10 episodes had aired, by which point only The Curse of Dracula had reached its conclusion. However, one unaired episode (which did air overseas) featured the two concluding chapters of The Secret Empire as well as the final part of Stop Susan Williams. American viewers later got a chance to see the concluding part of Stop Susan Williams when its eleven installments were re-edited into a single two-hour television movie The Girl Who Saved the World. Curse of Dracula was also re-edited as two television movies, Dracula '79 and World of Dracula.
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