The quality wasn't that bad, the recording you're watching is. On the one hand, a friend of mine who's wife is apparently enjoying Columbo reruns, commented on the pancake makeup being quite noticable. Which I suppose it would be if pulling from the original tapes or whatever. On the other hand, my wife and I watched a few reruns of Taxi (late 70s) and I know if it looked that bad back in the day, I wouldn't have watched it.

There might not have been a lot of lines of resolution, but SD TV looked better than many recordings would have you believe. And remember that you're probably watching on a TV three or four times larger than what was used to originally view it.