Les héritiers

Really stolid potboiler, scene chewing sessions abound. The ONLY thing that set with apart from other 70's dross in the final episodes was the interaction between Nolte and Bill Smith's Falconetti, one of the great TV villains ever.

I saw the DVD at my local library, and recalling how I liked the show when I saw it years ago, I checked it out. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing again the first part of the series. The characters were well played, believable and interesting, as was the plot. However, the second part was a disappointment. The writing seemed stilted, focusing on prurient and unlikely sexual encounters to the detriment of continuation of the story. It seemed that the supposedly upright and principled male characters lost all self control when it came to dealing with women. They had to have 'it'. I don't watch the Soaps, but I think this segment was pretty much written with that venue in mind. Too bad.

I enjoyed book II because it showed how the family after many year's of fighting and being bitter towards each they finally realized by sticking together they could accomplish so many more things in life. I also liked how Rudy became some what of a father figure for Wesley and Billy. He tried to show them just how important family really is and being bitter about things in their life does not have to continue you have to except the past and learn from it.Once the boy's saw how Rudy was alway's there for them trying to help them learn from their mistakes overcome them with out using their fist help make them better men.He wanted them to overcome their past so they could have a better life.Abuse tore his family apart and knew it had to stop.He also taught them that a good education was very important.I would love to purchase book II to complete the story.

This was not meant to be a mini-series, but a series.

The original RMPM was groundbreaking television and the reason why so many restaurants are closed on Mondays even today. Monday nights were "Rich Man Poor Man night", and people stayed home to watch the mini-series since very few people had VCRs back then, and recording shows was not a common option.

After the mini-series, the producers saw an opportunity for a steady stream of cash from an open-ended series. They offered Peter Strauss more money than he thought he would ever be able to make in his life, which he of course accepted. They made the same offer to Susie Blakely, but she declined because she believed she was destined for movie stardom. She did accept to appear in the two-hour pilot on the condition that her character be killed off in the first hour!

The ratings of Book II were consistently good but not great. Production costs were very high since they had hired the very best writing talent and had them working around the clock. By the middle of the first season, it was becoming obvious that the ratings were simply not strong enough to justify the costs. The audience missed Julie Prescott / Susie Blakely and just couldn't get used to Maggie Porter / Susan Sullivan. Bringing back Kay Lenz as Kate Jordache and making her part of a love traingle with Rudy didn't lift the ratings. So they wrapped up the story toward the end of the season 1 and repackaged the whole thing as a second mini-series.

The legacy of Book II, though, was that it became a template for prime time soap operas. Dallas premiered a year later, and they were off to the races.

Interestingly, there was a plan for a Book III with major production redesign. This one would be more of a police drama vs. Soap opera. Rudy will have survived the gunfight with Falconetti, but he leaves the senate to become the Director of the CIA. The show was supposed to be about him leading an agency to battle terrorism. All networks hated the concept and refused to pick it up. But the creators hung on to the idea and made it into a TV movie called Under Siege a decade later. Peter Strauss returns but legally they were not allowed to make any references to RMPM since ABC owned the rights and the TV movie was produced by NBC. That said, the character that Strauss plays is clearly Rudy Jordache, by another name. That TV movie was meant as a pilot for a new show which was never made.

Hi there fans of Rich Man Poor Man.I managed to purchase Book 2 and I must admit that watching it, I became increasingly sadder and sadder.I felt so sorry for Rudy and his family as nothing goes their way and Estep, Falconetti and co triumph.I just couldn't watch the episodes from 17 onwards.Blows after blows, I felt so involved, it was like I took all these blows.I generally like reality to transpire in films and can't say that I am a big fan of happy endings,but what's happening here is too much.It's even darker than book 1 by comparison.I mean, Rudy is such a nice guy and despite the love of 3 special women, career and money he cuts such a lonely, dramatic figure.There seems to be So I must admit that I have only one curiosity ( I know what happens between Rudy-Falconetti at the end)does Rudy manage to get back at Estep even in a small way.Please let me know.Thanks. PS It would be such a relief to know that Estep gets some punishment that would probably give me enough courage to go thru the episodes which I couldn't previously watch thru sheer frustration. . .I was also thinking that maybe if Roots wasn't running at the same time this show would have continued.Who will ever know?