Editing 3-2-1 Contact (section)

===Seasons production===
The first season of 65 programs began airing January 14, 1980, on selected [[List of PBS member stations|PBS member stations]]; it featured a cast of three college students who socialized and discussed science in an on-campus room known as "the workshop". The show also used brief segments at the beginning of the show featuring a celebrity and/or famous character making a brief scientific statement. Some of the celebrities and/or characters who appeared were [[Robert Guillaume]] for "Food/Fuel" week; [[Sarah Jessica Parker]], then performing in the Broadway musical ''[[Annie (musical)|Annie]]'' for "Hot/Cold" week; cast members of ''[[Eight is Enough]]'' for "Crowded/Uncrowded" week; [[Donny Most]] and [[Ron Palillo]] for "Fast/Slow" week; [[Billy Barty]] and [[Carl Weathers]] for "Big/Small" week; [[Tim O'Connor (actor)|Tim O'Connor]] and [[Felix Silla]] (and the voice of by [[Mel Blanc]]) from ''[[Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (TV series)|Buck Rogers in the 25th Century]]'' for "Near/Far" week; [[Gene Wilder]] for "Communication" week, [[Arte Johnson]], reprising a character from ''[[Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In]]'' for "Growth/Decay" week; [[Sha Na Na]] members [[Jon Bauman|Jon 'Bowzer' Bauman]] and Screamin' Scott Simon for "Noisy/Quiet" week; [[Rita Moreno]] (who was part of ''[[The Electric Company]]'' cast for its entire run) for "Forces" week; the [[Harlem Globetrotters]]' [[Meadowlark Lemon]] and the cast of ''[[The White Shadow (TV series)|The White Shadow]]'' for "Order/Disorder" week; and [[Larry Wilcox]] of ''[[CHiPs]]'' for "Surfaces" week. The segment ended with a brief visual film similar to the Scanimate animations used on ''The Electric Company'' showcasing the big words of the week and their role in science. This season came to an end on April 11, 1980, and continued in reruns (or removed entirely from scheduling on some stations) for the following three years, as funding for additional episodes was not yet sufficient.

When production finally resumed for the second season, which premiered on October 17, 1983, the show presented a more realistic appearance, as the new cast convened in a suburban basement (these segments were shot at [[Teletape Studios|Reeves Teletape]], which also housed ''[[Sesame Street]]'' at the time). The celebrity segments were discontinued and the science topic was introduced by a computer cursor which typed out the week's topic and subtopic of the day, replacing the visual films used in the first season. This cast continued until October 18, 1985. [[Ozzie Alfonso]] was ''Contact''{{'}}s new director and Al Hyslop its executive producer.

When the fifth season began on September 22, 1986, a third cast was introduced. However, unlike the previous casts, they did not meet in any specific setting; instead, they appeared in various taped and filmed segments. The show ended after seven seasons and 225 episodes on November 18, 1988, with reruns airing until September 27, 1992. Reruns resumed the next year on commercial television, with [[All American Television]] handling syndication.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Kolbert|first=Elizabeth|date=1993-08-16|title=THE MEDIA BUSINESS: Television; For some public TV programs, syndication to commercial stations may mean survival.|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/16/business/media-business-television-for-some-public-tv-programs-syndication-commercial.html|access-date=2022-02-12|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

A frequent segment of the show was ''The Bloodhound Gang'', a series about a group of young detectives who used science to solve crimes. Episodes of the series needed to be run in regular sequence for understandable viewing, as many ''Bloodhound Gang'' mysteries were cut among two or three ''Contact'' episodes.