Cliffhangers: "Stop Susan Williams"

Originally Published February 15th, 2005

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"Stop Susan Williams" | "The Secret Empire" | "The Curse of Dracula"

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During the 1979 midseason NBC premiered an unusual hour-long series consisting of a trio of twenty-minute serials. Each serial, broadcast in "chapters," ended in a cliffhanger that was resolved in the following week's episode. NBC had high hopes for the series, which was heavily promoted by the network. Stop Susan Williams starred Susan Anton as an investigative photographer on the trail of her brother's killers.

On November 29th, 1978, only two months into the new fall season, NBC canceled more than half of its primetime schedule, including every single new series it had premiered in September [1]. Nine new midseason programs would be introduced during the first two months of 1979; Cliffhangers was one of those nine shows. It would compete with ABC's powerhouse duo of Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley on Tuesdays at 8PM.

View the Opening Credits to Cliffhangers

Introduced on February 28th, 1979, Cliffhangers was composed of three separate "serials," each twenty minutes in length, each with different characters and storylines. To make things really interesting, the premiere episode of Cliffhangers saw each of the serials start off in various stages of completion: Stop Susan Williams began on Chapter II, The Secret Empire began on Chapter III, and The Curse of Dracula far into the story, on Chapter VI.

NOTE: The following summary of Stop Susan Williams is taken from the compilation telefilm The Girl Who Saved The World and may omit scenes from the serialized television version.

Stop Susan Williams starred Susan Anton as the title character, Susan Williams, a photographer for The Dispatch, a small paper, trying to unravel the mysterious murder of her brother Alan. He had been killed when his car rolled over and dropped down the side of the cliff. Each installment was a brush with death. The police called it an accident. Susan, however, just couldn't let go of the idea that her brother had been murdered!

For the first three weeks Cliffhangers was on the air, Stop Susan William was broadcast first and The Curse of Dracula aired last, while The Secret Empire was stuck in the middle. Beginning with the March 20th episode, Stop Susan Williams and The Curse of Dracula were swapped, leaving The Secret Empire still in the middle. The ten aired segments of Stop Susan Williams, along with footage from the unaired chapter, were edited into The Girl Who Saved The World, a telefilm. For the fortunate few who were able to see it, the movie finally wrapped up the storyline and saw Susan Williams save the world.

View the Opening Credits to Stop Susan Williams

All Susan had to work with was her brother's address book, which she took from his apartment during the first chapter. Getting the address book nearly killed her. An intruder entered the darkened apartment moments after Susan had. She evaded the intruder by going out on a window ledge -- and then fell. She survived the fall but the near-death experience would be just the first brush with death Susan would encounter during her quest.

The address book would become incredibly useful, giving Susan names and places to track down. Before she could start flying around the world attempting to locate those mentioned in the address book, Susan had to convince her editor to pick up the tab. But Bob Richards (Ray Walston) was skeptical about the conspiracy. He eventually caved once he had Susan's promise that The Dispatch would get an exclusive.

So, Susan was on her way to Morocco, looking for a man named Jack Schoengarth (Michael Swan). Jack had known Susan's brother in Algiers, where Alan had covered the fighting and Jack was fighting - for both sides. He was a mercenary. He told Susan they would talk, but it would have to be somewhere private.

It was during this first phase of the investigation that the serial's most famous moments came to pass. Susan had returned to her hotel room to take a bath and, while relaxing in the tub, someone snuck into her room and released a snake. While Susan luxuriated oblivious in the tub, the snake edged ever closer to her neck, resulting in -- you guessed it -- a cliffhanger! Take a look at the "snake scene" cliffhanger from Stop Susan Williams and then the full "snake scene" from the telefilm The Girl Who Saved the World:

View the Snake Scene Cliffhanger from Stop Susan Williams

View the Full Snake Scene from The Girl Who Saved the World

If not for the intervention of Jack, the snake most certainly would have killed Susan. Jack took off, telling Susan to go home and leave things alone. But Susan couldn't do that. Instead, she boarded a plane for Narobi, Kenya. While there, she met a man (the same fellow who had released the snake, but she didn't know that) who told her he knew who killed her brother.

Following the man was a mistake and led to several additional brushes with death: she was nearly eaten by a lion, almost fell into a river filled with piranha, and came perilously close to being covered in molten lead. Shortly thereafter, Susan ran into a young woman named Olga who had been kidnapped. Susan learned that Olga's father, Nikoli, was a Russian nuclear engineer who had been forced by the international conspiracy to build a bomb.

In Zurich, Jack and Susan reunited Olga with her father, but not before Goldtooth (a henchman) nearly killed Susan - again. And then, the international conspiracy began to take shape. The leader was a man named Anthony Korf (Albert Paulsen) and the plan involved diamonds, a nuclear bomb, and a peace summit.

Using his daughter as a bargaining chip, they forced the Nikoli to steal enough plutonium to build a nuclear bomb. The plutonium was hidden in lead bars and sent to Maryland, where the bomb would be put together and planted at Camp David.

On May 15th, at 2:30PM, the nuclear bomb would go off. The United States government had been told to deliver a large sum of money in order to avert disaster. But the conspiracy was planning to detonate the bomb regardless of whether or not they got the money. Their real plan was to wrest control of as many nations as possible in the chaos following the explosion.

Susan, Jack and Nikoli made their way to the mine below Camp David and met up with Bobby. However, when the group entered the mine, Bobby pulled a gun, and Susan learned that her editor and friend was part of the conspiracy. He also turned out to be Alan's killer. He forced them deeper into the mine before being joined by Goldtooth and Accomplice (another henchman). Susan, Jack and Nikoli were trapped in the mine, with less than two hours to find and disarm the bomb.

After Nikoli accidentally set off a booby-trap and was wounded, Susan and Jack finally found the bomb, but it was behind an electric fence. Using Susan's rubber shoes, Jack charged through the fence, badly burning his hands in the process.

Susan was the only one left to disarm the bomb. With Jack communicating with Nikoli and relaying his instructions to Susan, they were able to disarm the bomb before it exploded. A smaller explosion, the result of disarming the device, left the mine unstable. Jack went back for Nikoli while Susan escaped to the surface.

With the bomb disarmed, the United States military was free to go after the plane carrying Bobby, Gold Tooth, Ti, and the rest of the conspirators. Surrounded by several Air Force jets, the plane was forced to turn back, but not before the Anthony Korf devised another plan.

When Cliffhangers ended in May of 1979, it left Stop Susan Williams with the ultimate cliffhanger - an unaired episode. The final broadcast revealed that Bobby had killed Alan, but it left off with one final cliffhanger. Could Susan and Jack disarm the bomb and stop the conspiracy? The final chapter would have revealed this, but it was never aired.

It wasn't until The Girl Who Saved The World was edited together that viewers ever learned what happened -- at least in the United States. Had Stop Susan Williams aired to completion on NBC, the story would have concluded with Jack and Susan walking down a muddy path, arm in arm, discussing their future plans.

Following the cancellation of Cliffhangers, Susan Anton went on to star in her own comedy/variety series (it too was quickly canceled, after only five or six episodes).

"Stop Susan Williams" | "The Secret Empire" | "The Curse of Dracula"

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Last Updated June 26th, 2008