Shaft (TV series)

Shaft is a television series that aired along with Hawkins during 1973–74 television season on The New CBS Tuesday Night Movies. Broadcast every third week, the series is a follow-up continuation of the three feature films that preceded its release. Starring Richard Roundtree as private detective John Shaft, it serves as the fourth installment overall in the Shaft franchise. Ed Barth costars as Al Rossi.

Production
Because it was to be aired on over-the-air television, CBS felt that the narrative of Shaft needed to be toned down as compared to the original three films. Now instead of opposing the police, Shaft worked with them, creating conflicts with Hawkins starring cinema legend James Stewart, another police series with a starkly different viewership. Contemporary analysts suggested that since Shaft and Hawkins appealed to vastly different audience bases, alternating them only served to confuse fans of both series, giving neither one the time to build up a large viewership. A further contributor to its ratings failure was competition from other crime drama series starring African-American private investigators, NBC's Tenafly and ABC's Get Christie Love!. Richard Roundtree himself publicly expressed his disdain for the small-screen version of Shaft.

Cast and characters

 * Richard Roundtree as Det. John Shaft:
 * A private detective working with the New York Police Department (NYPD). Roundtree reprises his role from the theatrical Shaft film series.


 * Ed Barth as Lt. Al Rossi:
 * An NYPD police lieutenant working with Shaft. Barth replaces Angelo Gnazzo, who portrayed the character in Shaft's Big Score! (1972).

Overview
 List indicator(s)
 * This table only shows characters that have appeared in three or more films in the series.
 * A dark grey cell indicates that the character was not in the film or that the character's presence in the film has yet to be announced.