Roots (1977) [3 of 12]

Episode 3 (9 April 1977) - Despite a violent rebellion, the slave ship Lord Ligonier completes its voyage in 1767, and Kunta Kinte endures the indignity of an Annapolis slave auction.

Roots is an American television miniseries based on Alex Haley's 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, set during and after the era of slavery in the United States. Roots received 37 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and won nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings for the finale, which holds the record as the third-highest-rated episode for any type of television series, and the second-most-watched overall series finale in U.S. television history. It was produced on a budget of $6.6 million.

The miniseries was directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, John Erman, David Greene and Gilbert Moses. It was produced by Stan Margulies. David L. Wolper was executive producer. The score was composed by Gerald Fried, and Quincy Jones for only the first episode. Many familiar white TV actors, such as Ed Asner (from The Mary Tyler Moore Show), Chuck Connors (The Rifleman), Lorne Greene (Bonanza and later Battlestar Galactica), Robert Reed (The Brady Bunch), and Ralph Waite (The Waltons), were cast against type as slave holders and traders. Television executives "got cold feet" after seeing the brutality depicted in the series and attempted to cut the network's predicted losses by airing the series over eight consecutive nights in January in one fell swoop. It was hugely successful.