American Playhouse - Season 3

First aired: 1/17/1984 17 episodes
← Back to American Playhouse

Episodes

1. The Ghost Writer

Aired: 1/17/1984

Aspiring writer Nathan Zuckerman visits the secluded home of his literary idol, E.I. Lonoff. While there, Zuckerman becomes entangled in the author's complex domestic life and becomes captivated by a mysterious young woman.

2. Pudd'nhead Wilson

Aired: 1/24/1984

A slave switches her light-skinned baby with her master's baby. The child grows up raised by whites.

Episode 3

3. True West

Aired: 1/31/1984

Estranged brothers, screenwriter Austin and drifter Lee, clash while staying at their mother's house in suburban Southern California, leading to a chaotic role reversal that explores themes of identity, family, and the American Dream.

4. Nothing But a Man

Aired: 2/7/1984

Railroad laborer Duff Anderson struggles to maintain his dignity and marriage to a preacher's daughter in the racially segregated South.

Episode 5

5. Popular Neurotics

Aired: 2/14/1984

Two young urban professionals, Lynne and Murray, meet by happenstance and begin an on-again, off-again relationship in which they struggle to transcend modern-day neuroses concerning courtship.

6. The Cafeteria

Aired: 2/21/1984

Esther Mirkin, a traumatized Holocaust survivor, frequents a Manhattan cafeteria where she meets Aaron, a Jewish writer, who tries to uncover the ghosts of her past.

7. Refuge

Aired: 2/28/1984

On a remote island off the coast of Maine, four people attempt to relax but the isolated refuge fails to protect them from their own insecurities and jealousies.

8. The Gin Game

Aired: 3/6/1984

Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey reside at a nursing home, and they strike up an acquaintance. Neither seems to have any other friends, and they start to enjoy each other's company. Weller offers to teach Fonsia how to play gin rummy, and engage in lengthy conversations about their families and their lives in the outside world.

9. Haunted (aka Vengeance Is Mine)

Aired: 3/20/1984

A recently divorced woman returns to her dysfunctional Rhode Island family home and gets involved in drama with her neighbors.

10. The Killing Floor

Aired: 4/10/1984

During World War I, a poor black Southerner travels north to Chicago to get work in the city's slaughterhouses, where he becomes embroiled in the organized labor movement.

11. Heartland

Aired: 4/17/1984

Miraculous occurrences happen to people throughout the world every day. God's Miracles presents personal experiences as well as unvarnished scientific and factual evidence, allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions as to whether it is possible for God to grant miracles.

12. City News

Aired: 4/24/1984

The struggles of Tom Domino, publisher and editor of a seemingly doomed, underground newspaper in New York City's East Village are chronicled in this dark comedy.

13. Hughie

Aired: 5/1/1984

In the lobby of a small hotel in midtown New York, small-time hustler Erie Smith talks to the hotel's new night clerk Charlie Hughes, lamenting how Smith's luck has worsened since the death of Hughie, Hughes' predecessor.

14. Concealed Enemies, Part I: Suspicion

Aired: 5/7/1984

A dramatized account of the actual events that led to the 1950 conviction of former U. S. State Department official Alger Hiss of perjury before a federal grand jury and his resulting imprisonment.

15. Concealed Enemies, Part II: Accusation

Aired: 5/8/1984

A dramatized account of the actual events that led to the 1950 conviction of former U. S. State Department official Alger Hiss of perjury before a federal grand jury and his resulting imprisonment.

16. Concealed Enemies, Part III: Investigation

Aired: 5/9/1984

A dramatized account of the actual events that led to the 1950 conviction of former U. S. State Department official Alger Hiss of perjury before a federal grand jury and his resulting imprisonment.

17. Concealed Enemies, Part IV: Verdict

Aired: 5/9/1984

A dramatized account of the actual events that led to the 1950 conviction of former U. S. State Department official Alger Hiss of perjury before a federal grand jury and his resulting imprisonment.