Sam Elliott And Noah Wyle Crossed Paths In This Eerie 2000s TV Play With An A-List Cast

Both Sam Elliott and Noah Wyle are enjoying a late career resurgence thanks to their roles in two of the most popular shows on TV. Elliott was cast in Season 2 of Taylor Sheridan's oil drama "Landman," in which he plays the father of Billy Bob Thornton's Tommy Norris. Meanwhile, following his 2005 departure from "ER," Wyle has been catapulted back into the spotlight via his portrayal of Dr. Michael Robinavitch on HBO Max's "The Pitt." 

Prior to all of that, Wyle and Elliott actually crossed paths when they appeared in the live TV play "Fail Safe." The chilling tale of a Cold War crisis debuted on CBS in 2000 and was notable for being the first feature-length production to be broadcast live in 39 years (per Variety). It also had an incredible cast.

There's an whole sub-genre of films and TV shows designed to remind audiences of the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons. With the Cold War making Mutually Assured Destruction an ever-present feature of mid-20th Century life, the real danger of nuclear war became a sort of ambient threat with which people learned to live. Projects such as the horrific BBC mockumentary "The War Game," "Threads," "When the Wind Blows," "The Day After," and "War Games" were designed to snap them out of it.

While it might not be mentioned as often, "Fail Safe" belongs to this same oeuvre, and shares a lot in common with Kathryn Bigelow's nuclear war thriller "A House of Dynamite," which told an anxiety-inducing tale of a mystery missile being launched at the United States. The 2000 CBS play tells a similar story of a U.S. bomber accidentally ordered to drop a nuclear bomb on Moscow while authorities on the ground scramble to avoid all-out nuclear devastation.

"Fail Safe" didn't start life as a live CBS play. The story is based on Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler's 1962 novel "Fail-Safe," which was adapted for a 1964 film of the same name. That feature (which was sunk by a lawsuit from Stanley Kubrick) saw Sidney Lumet direct an all-star cast composed of such luminaries as Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, and Walter Matthau. The 2000 version, similarly produced in black and white, boasted its own stacked cast.

It saw former "ER" stars Noah Wyle and George Clooney re-team, with Clooney playing Colonel Jack Grady, the pilot in charge of a bomber who receives an order to drop his nuclear payload on Moscow. As Grady and his squadron of six bombers push ahead with the erroneous order, the U.S. President (Richard Dreyfuss) does all he can to reverse course, but is thwarted by Soviet radio jammers.

Soon, the U.S. attempts communications with Moscow to coordinate an attack on Grady's crew and prevent the bombing. Wyle's translator, Buck, assists the President in the negotiations. Sam Elliott plays Congressman Raskob, who meets with other political figures to discuss a course of action. As things progress, the U.S. is forced to consider dropping a nuclear weapon on New York to pre-empt a Soviet counter-strike and avoid World War III. The play closes with a chilling title card that lists countries with nuclear capability in 2000.

"Fail Safe" was shot with 18 cameras on two soundstages, and was hosted Walter Cronkite. It also featured such greats as Don Cheadle, Harvey Keitel, Brian Dennehy, and even Hank Azaria. Despite its all-star cast and shocking story, however, it has been mostly forgotten.

Many of the films in the "don't forget how close we are to destroying ourselves" category have struck a major chord even if they didn't cause quiet as big a stir as their makers intended. "War Games" terrified Ronald Reagan and "Threads" remains burned into the collective cortex of anyone who was watching BBC 2 at 9.30pm on September 23, 1984. But in those instances the Cold War was ongoing. "Fail Safe" was a Cold War story told eleven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As such, part of the reason why you might find CBS's TV play popping up on, say, r/Forgotten TV is because it aired when the world had ostensibly moved on from MAD.

Still, "Fail Safe" managed to earn some plaudits before it faded in the blast wind of culture's exponential evolution. Variety's Laura Fries found it to be "superbly acted" and "flawlessly produced" even if she did question the relevancy of the Cold War in 2000. Fried also praised Noah Wyle for taking "what could have been a wooden role" and giving it "poignancy, with subtle facial expressions and mixed emotions." Elsewhere, in his New York Times review, Ron Wertheimer relayed how the live TV event had "proved that this medium's intimate immediacy is an underused asset waiting to be exploited in the service of compelling storytelling." "Fail Safe" also earned four stars from Empire, with writer Kim Newman dubbing it "an impressive and disturbing brink-of-doom thriller."

You can rent "Fail Safe" on the usual platforms, and considering the state of the world today, it should be a lot more relevant than it was to Fries in 2000.