When Lucille Ball signed on for yet another season of The Lucy Show, she also agreed to star in two solo specials during the 1966-67 season for CBS.  She planned her first two specials to be Lucy in Paris and Lucy in Arabia.  She also wanted to get Mitzi Gaynor as her co-star in the Parisian outing.  However, as executive producer Cleo Smith later recalled, "France didn't want us."  Therefore, the locale was move to more friendly ground in London.  Laurence Olivier and Anthony Newley were signed, but Olivier bowed out soon after his signing.  Smith: "The London special was a first for Desilu -- we had never done any foreign filming.  We really paved the way for other shows that followed from other companies.  We were innovative."  Lucy even toned down her extremely heavy Lucy Show stage makeup for the special.  The "mod" special featured Newley giving Lucy "an unorthodox -- but colorful -- introduction to the British capitol" (Loving Lucy).  When the hour-long special, which also featured British rock group the Dave Clark Five, aired on October 24, 1966, it garnered huge ratings, but poor reviews.  "What had promised to be one of the season's major specials," whined Variety, "turned out to be a major disappointment."  The poor critical response allowed Lucy to go back to her tried and true methods and predictable formulas on The Lucy Show.