This show was initially planned as a two-hour movie (going up against the two-hour season premieres of "Hawaii Five-O" and "Captains and the Kings"), but was split into two parts at the last minute because ABC programming chief Fred Silverman wanted to use the second part as counter-programming to "Barnaby Jones" (another Quinn Martin production which Silverman had developed four years earlier at CBS). Quinn Martin himself thought "Streets" would outperform "Barnaby" by a huge margin - but he was wrong. "Streets" and "Baranby" ran virtually even during the fall and winter before "Streets" declined and fell off the schedule.