"The Survivors" was the first mini-series on network television - created as a finite set of episodes that told the tale beginning to end, instead of being created as an open-ended series.
In many ways, this tale of an incredibly rich family suffering for their sins was a precursor to those highly successful night-time soaps of the 1980s, Dallas and Dynasty. In that sense, it was arguably ahead of its time, but it is barely even remembered today (check out the tiny number of ratings at the top of the listing).
The Survivors was one of the most lavishly-budgeted and heavily promoted shows in the history of ABC. But despite the participation of glamorous screen queen Lana Turner and best-selling novelist Harold Robbins' name in the title, the American television audience simply wasn't interested, and it was regularly bested in the Nielsen ratings by The Doris Day Show on CBS and Monday Night at the Movies on NBC. In fact, it was canceled even before all its 15 filmed episodes had aired. In hopes of recouping some of their losses, ABC and Universal Studios (which produced the it) decided to rerun the entire series in the summer of 1970.
One of the costume designers (whose budget for this series set a record at the time) was Nolan Miller, who would later serve in the same capacity on the hit 1980s prime-time soap Dynasty.