Classic Television - Prime Time

The New People

Original channel

ABC

Original run

September 22, 1969 – January 12, 1970

Starring

Tiffany Bolling

Zooey Hall

Jill Jaress

David Moses

Dennis Olivieri

Peter Ratray

The New People is a short-lived 1969 American television series on ABC that focused on a group of young college students who were returning from a trip in Southeast Asia when their plane crashed on an island in the south Pacific Ocean. The crash killed several of the college students, and all but one of the adults, who was badly injured and later died. The surviving students were the only human life remaining on the island. The island was unusual in that it had been built up as a site for a potential above-ground nuclear test which never took place, leaving all of the buildings and (improbably) supplies untouched and ready for use by the survivors.

The New People reflected the youth-oriented, counterculture of the 1960's. All people over 30 were now dead, and it was up to the young people to start a new society on the island. The pilot episode was written by Rod Serling.

This program is an extremely rare example of a regularly scheduled network television series with 45-minute long episodes; it aired immediately after The Music Scene, another 45-minute program.