WHAT’S IT ABOUT

Otis Williams tells the story of the Temptations, from street-corner harmonies in Detroit to Motown stardom, and the fame, drugs, and fights that broke the group apart again and again.

WHY IT’S GONE

NBC aired this miniseries over two nights in 1998, and it became one of the most loved music biopics of its time. Charles Malik Whitfield plays Otis Williams, with Leon as David Ruffin, D.B. Woodside as Melvin Franklin, Terron Brooks as Eddie Kendricks, and Christian Payton as Paul Williams. Jenifer Lewis, Obba Babatundé, and Vanessa Bell Calloway fill out the cast. Allan Arkush won the Emmy for directing, and it took home the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Television Movie or Mini-Series.

It has lived on through reruns, VHS, and DVD, but never Blu-ray. Even the old VHS left out scenes that aired on TV, including one showing David Ruffin out of control on drugs. The most recent DVD listing is a single-disc release from 2011. For something this popular, that is a thin history. The likely reason is the same one that haunts most music projects: the songs. Every Temptations hit in this story belongs to Motown’s catalog, and any new release could mean new paperwork and new payments. But this miniseries is a family tradition in a lot of Black homes. People quote it, sing along with it, and rewatch it every time it airs. It came out of Detroit’s musical history, one of the Midwest’s proudest stories, and it deserves better than a single disc and a VH1 rerun.