NBC miniseries about two feuding families on a Caribbean island, bound together by a Romeo & Juliet romance. 77 Sunset Strip’s Efrem Zimbalist Jr. led a cast that was stacked with former daytime and 80’s soap stars including a trio of ex-Dallas actors - Barbara Stock, Andrew Stevens and John Beck. It aired under the “NBC Great Escapes” banner that also gave us the similarly soapy The Secrets of Lake Success.
Dallas-esque primetime soap starring Jimmy Smits as the head of a Florida based Cuban-American rum dynasty. Oscar winner Rita Moreno co-starred alongside Hector Elizondo (Chicago Hope), Nestor Carbonell (The Morning Show) and Polly Walker(Bridgerton).
Focusing on business, romance and crime, the soap ran for 13 episodes on CBS before being cancelled due to a mix of low ratings and the effects of the writer’s strike. Series creator Cynthia Cidre went on to be the showrunner on the Dallas revival in 2012.
Paradise Beach was an attempt to produce an Australian soap specifically for the US audience. Set on the sunny Gold Coast, it followed the lives of teenagers living in the eponymous beachside town. To make the show more appealing to the US viewers, scripts were written to sound more American, Australian actors were directed to deliver their lines slowly in order for American audiences to understand the accent and an American character was included in the cast.
Described as a cross between Australian soap Neighbours, Beverly Hills 90210 and Baywatch, the show was sold to 150 stations (85% of the US market) where it aired in timeslots varying between early evening 7pm/7.30pm or afternoons at 3pm (where it was up against Oprah in some markets). The experiment ultimately failed in the US, and producers soon dropped all Americanisms, to try and salvage the show in its native Australia (this also failed). Probably most notable for featuring the acting debuts of Hollywood actress Isla Fisher, Manu Bennett (Spartacus) and Ingo Rademacher (General Hospital). Olivia Newton-John (whose then husband was among the regular cast) made a brief cameo.
CBS daytime soap about romantic and political entanglements in Washington. Commissioned to fill the gap left by Search for Tomorrow (which had moved to NBC), the show initially centred on the rivalries between the Clegg and the McCandless clans, led by warring matriarchs Myrna (The Addams Family’s Carolyn Jones) and Clarissa (Constance Towers).
Storylines got a bit more fanciful as the series progressed, focusing on spies and Arab princes. It was cancelled in 1987, ending on an infamous cliffhanger that saw long running heroine Sloane Denning facing a firing squad after ascending to the throne in the fictional Arab kingdom of Baracq. It was replaced by The Bold and the Beautiful, which has remained on the air since. Notable names to pass through Capitol included Teri Hatcher, Tammy Wynette and Lola Falana.
San Francisco based medical drama from John Wells (ER, Third Watch, The Pitt) starring Dana Delany, Blythe Danner and Julianne Nicholson. With the tagline “Hope. Heart. Healing”, it was a more gentle approach to medical drama compared to Wells’ other shows. Scheduled against ratings powerhouse Law & Order, it didn’t last the full season.
Has anyone watched this ITV period soap from the mid-70’s? It was created by Alfred Shaughnessy, a script editor on Upstairs Downstairs, and followed the lives of the Bourne family, who lived in their country house Larkfield Manor, during the 1930’s. It started out as a twice weekly daytime drama, before being moved to a once a week primetime slot for the final series.
I’ve watched about half of the first series and I really enjoy it. It’s very low budget, with much of the drama taking place in the Bourne’s living room set but it has a charm to it. The dramas can often be quite quaint at times, but then at other times they address current affairs such as the rise of fascism in the UK and the Nazi party in Germany. The complete series was released on DVD a few years back.
Legal drama about Kathleen Maguire (Kim Delaney), a defence attorney at a Philadelphia law firm, who juggles her career with her life as a single mother. Rick Hoffman (Suits), James Denton (Desperate Housewives) and Veronica Hamel (Hill Street Blues) were among the supporting cast.
The show was ABC’s attempt at replicating the success of the “single mother legal drama” shows that CBS was having at the time with Judging Amy and Family Law. It had a decent pedigree with Steven Bochco as creator and Kim Delaney fresh off her stint on NYPD Blue but poor reviews and the unwise decision to schedule it directly against Judging Amy, meant it only lasted one season.
Daytime talk show from the producers of Oprah. Hosted by former Inside Edition correspondent Rolonda Watts, the show ran for over 1000 episodes between 1994 and 1997. Patterned closely on the Oprah format, it featured a mix of real life stories and celebrity chat including the first TV interview with Tonya Harding.
Rather than the show being axed due to ratings, Rolonda herself pulled the plug in 1997, as she could see that the show was being steered towards the tabloid talk sensationalism of the day and didn’t want to be a part of that.
Love of Life was a daytime soap created by Roy Winsor (Search for Tomorrow, The Secret Storm), that ran for 29 years on CBS. It initially followed the lives of two sisters, good girl Vanessa and bad girl Meg, and their various dramatic entanglements in the fictional town of Barrowsville. After Meg was written out in 1959 and the action was relocated to the fictional town of Rosehill, a recast Vanessa (now played by Audrey Peters) took centre stage for the next 21 years.
Notable cast members included Christopher Reeve, Bonnie Bedelia and Ray Wise. A famous fan was Sammy Davis Jr. who guest starred on the show and was upset enough about its 1980 cancellation, that he did an interview about it on the evening news. The show’s writers included Esther and Richard Shapiro, who go on to create Dynasty, and Claire Labine, who’d later create Ryan’s Hope.
One of the first daytime soap operas, Search for Tomorrow followed the life of Jo Gardner (Mary Stuart, the show’s leading lady for its entire 35 year run) and the various residents of the fictional town of Henderson. One of the few long running soaps to stay relatively grounded in reality for the duration of its run,stories tended to revolve around romance, friendship and family dramas.
Following its cancellation in 1986, it did a stint in syndication in the 80’s/90’s and was one of the Procter & Gamble soaps available on the AOL service in the 00’s, so quite a few of the show’s final years are out there online. Despite this, it is mostly forgotten these days. Notable alumni include Kevin Bacon, Angela Bassett and Morgan Fairchild.
Bo Derek played the widowed matriarch of a Hawaiian cattle ranching clan, whose sons participated in extreme sports events to earn money to keep the family business afloat. Lee Horsley (Matt Houston) played the standard soap bad guy who was trying to take over the family’s ranch.
Rather optimistically described as “Dallas meets Baywatch”, the family soap only aired three episodes at 8pm on Saturday nights, before NBC pulled it off the air.
During the “every minor celeb gets a talk show” fad of the 1995 TV season, George Hamilton and ex-wife Alana Stewart entered the fray with this Regis & Kathy Lee clone. Guests included the usual parade of soap stars of the day (Morgan Fairchild plugging her new soap The City, Ricky Martin during his General Hospital stint) and TV stars from times past (Barbara Eden, Lynda Carter).
Like every other new talk show that premiered that season, it didn’t last, as (a) it was too much of a knockoff of an existing show and (b) there were just too many talk shows cluttering the daytime schedules at the time.
George Hamilton and ex-wife Alana Stewart tried to ride the Kardashian / Real Housewives “reality” wave with this E! series about their blended family. Their son, former actor Ashley, appeared alongside his half siblings from Alana’s marriage to Rod Stewart, socialites Kimberly and Sean, as well as George’s youngest son George Jr.
The show’s various dramas included Ashley dealing with sobriety and Alana’s reaction to George Sr starting a new relationship. From the bits I’ve seen, it was all rather contrived, even by the usual reality TV standards. E! cancelled the show after 8 episodes.
Hot off her ratings grabbing run as Laura in General Hospital, Genie Francis moved to primetime to headline the 1982 miniseries Bare Essence, alongside Linda Evans, Donna Mills, Lee Grant and Bruce Boxleitner. Set in the perfume industry, it followed Tyger Hayes (Francis) as she tried to claw her way to the top, despite opposition for various in-laws including the wonderfully catty Ava (Grant). It was a huge ratings winner for CBS, so much so that a spinoff weekly soap was developed. CBS passed on the series (their soap stable already full with Dallas, Knots Landing and Falcon Crest), so it was left to NBC to bring it to air.
The weekly series premiered on NBC in early 1983, again following Tyger (still played by Francis) as she battled to maintain her position and solve the mystery of her husband’s untimely death. The bulk of the miniseries’ main cast didn’t return, mainly due to commitments on their own weekly series. Evans, Mills, Grant and Boxleitner were recast with Jennifer O’Neill, Jamie Lyn Bauer, Jessica Walter and Al Corley, while future Deadwood star Ian McShane was added to the mix as an Onassis type shipping tycoon.
The series failed to gain an audience and was cancelled after only eleven episodes. Genie Francis later surmised that the series failed because her character had achieved everything she’d hoped to in the miniseries, so to have Tyger as the focus of the weekly series and have her fighting for position again, was just repetitive. Having seen some episodes, I think it just wasn’t a very good series. Jessica Walter did sterling work in her scenery chewing turn as Ava but the show was very much style over substance, with wafer thin plot lines, even by 80’s soap standards.
NBC rolled out the big guns for Berrenger’s, as the network made one final attempt to jump on the 80’s primetime soap bandwagon. Produced by Lorimar (the company behind Dallas, Knots Landing and Falcon Crest) Berrenger’s shared a number of behind the scenes staff with the aforementioned shows (Dallas creator David Jacobs was a producer).
Set in the titular New York department store, the show followed the intertwined lives of the super wealthy Berrenger dynasty and their various staff and business rivals. Taxi’s Jeff Conaway and future Dr. Quinn star Jonelle Allen were among the more notable names in the cast.
Despite the show’s high calibre production team, the show flopped and was taken off the air after 12 episodes (David Jacob’s later described it as a “fiasco”). Too many characters and a Saturday night timeslot didn’t help the show’s cause, in addition to the ongoing decline in interest in new primetime soaps in general.
Long running daytime soap, set in the fictional city of Monticello, that mixed personal dramas with crime and mystery storylines. The show’s protagonist was Mike Karr, who progressed from police officer to DA over the course of the show’s run (the character was played by three different actors across 28 years). He was surrounded by a motley crew of police officers, lawyers, journalists and criminals, with storylines focusing on murder, cults, terrorist organisations and randomly, a killer puppet.
Many stars did a stint on the show when they were starting out, including John Travolta, Julianne Moore, Lori Loughlin, Marcia Cross and Frances Fisher. Its late afternoon timeslot and focus on crime stories, made the show popular with male viewers, something of an anomaly among daytime soap audiences of the time. There’s quite a lot of the show’s latter years out there and having watched an arc from 1979-80, I have to say that while very low budget, it’s really good. Rarely gets a mention these days as it was last seen in syndication back in the 80’s/90’s.