His TV work began in earnest in 1976 when Bottoms played King David, the Israelite warrior-psalmist in the miniseries "David" (ABC). That same year, he was a white-collar Wall Street type who goes to prison and becomes the "companion" of a lifer in order to survive in "The Moneychangers", an ABC miniseries. Bottoms portrayed a dying track star who spends his last days coaching a girls' track team in "A Shining Season" (CBS, 1979), and had the role of Adam Trask in the 1980 ABC miniseries of "East of Eden". In 1987, he made "Island Sons", an ABC movie-pilot that co-starred his actor brothers Joseph Bottoms, Sam Bottoms, and Benjamin Bottoms. He turned filmmaker in the 90s, making the documentary "Picture This: The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City, Texas," which aired on Showtime in 1991. By then, Bottoms was starring on the ABC Saturday morning series "Land of the Lost" (1991-93), playing a single father stuck in a prehistoric world. He has since played a private investigator in futuristic L.A. in the 1996 Showtime "Roger Corman Presents" movie "Death Game".