 This episode drew a 23.5 rating and 37 share (about one rating point  behind "Columbo," the networks number one hit), astonishingly high  for a series that had been written off as dead the previous season  and had been delayed until after the November sweeps so it wouldnt  drag down the Sunday Mystery Movies average rating. NBC quickly  scheduled three more episodes to run in January. The bottom fell out  of the ratings (it didnt help that the Janaury 23 and 30 episodes  went up against "Roots"), and the show was shelved again until  March. The series had an average rating of 17.5 for the season,  which taken as a whole was acceptable (and ran ahead of "McCloud" by  two rating points), but there was no saving it, "McCloud" or the  unfortunate "Lanigans Rabbi" (brought in as a midseason replacement  for "Quincy," which was going it alone as a weekly series).