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@Paul Raven CBS Thursday lineup of The Twilight Zone, Simon & Simon, Designing Women lasted only a month. January 1987, new drama Shell Game became the Thursday 8 pm occupant and Simon & Simon moved back to 9 pm. Designing Women was moved to Sunday 9 pm then Monday 9:30 pm. The Twilight Zone returned to Saturday, then pulled from the schedule, and burned off in the summer. Shell Game lasted 6 episodes then CBS used Thursday 8 pm to burn off the final three episodes of The Wizard and the final four episodes of Scarecrow and Mrs. King. It was pretty clear that Thursday 8 pm was a dead zone and CBS just gave up on that slot. Simon & Simon went from Top 10 for three consecutive seasons (1982/83 to 1984/85), to clobbered by Cheers in 1985/86, and DOA when it moved up to 8 pm in Fall 1986 where it would be head-to-head w/ The Cosby Show. It really should have ended in Spring 1987 instead of limping along in its final two seasons, relegated to shortened season with a late start in 1987/88 and another short season in 1988/89 but moved to Saturday 9 pm head-to-head w/ The Golden Girls.

Maybe international money. I know Another World had a sizeable following in Canada until the end, and it was also exported to Australia and Italy.

Didn't all the P&G soaps tank around that same era?

John Wesley Shipp, Lisa Brown, Gregory Beecroft, Ellen Dolan on Guiding Light and As the World Turns when Douglas Marland wrote for both shows.

First week of 1986/87 and we can already see that NBC made a mistake moving Miami Vice up 1 hour and CBS made a mistake moving Simon & Simon and Knots Landing up 1 hour. I don't know why NBC didn't move Miami Vice back to Friday 10 pm when they moved L.A. Law to Thursday 10 pm. At least CBS saw the error of their ways and moved Simon & Simon and Knots Landing back to Thursday 9 pm and 10 pm but the damage was already done.

I wonder if People will have a special issue for Y&R's 50th anniversary. They didn't have one for the 40th.

@divinemotion Then again, Bill Bell basically replaced Caroline with Taylor.

1986/87 sitcoms going strong, primetime soaps still tanking, action shows all but done. The Cosby Show second consecutive season at #1 and it is still a killer show destroying everything in its path (time slot wise and overall). 22 out of 25 episodes finished #1 in the week of their original broadcast, 2 episodes finished 2nd, and 1 episode finished 3rd. This season The Cosby Show's had its highest-rated episode ever. The Cosby Show once again pulled up the rest of the NBC Thursday comedy block: Family Ties remained 2nd and it also had its highest-rated episode ever this season, Cheers moved up from 5th to 3rd and this season it had its highest-rated episode until the series finale, Night Court moved up from 11th to 7th. Murder, She Wrote once again continued to defy expectations and had its second consecutive Top 5 finish. This season Murder, She Wrote had an episode finish #1 and it also had its highest-rated episode ever. The Golden Girls had their first Top 5 finish and with Amen being the highest-rated new scripted series of the season, NBC Saturday is cemented. ABC Tuesday dominance starts again with Who's the Boss, Growing Pains, Moonlighting all in the Top 10. 1986/87 saw no change to the previous rankings: NBC #1, CBS 2nd, ABC 3rd. With the Top 10 fallout of Dallas, the CBS primetime mess era was about to start. With the exception of Murder, She Wrote, the drama lineup was either aging (Cagney & Lacey, Dallas, Falcon Crest, Knots Landing; Magnum, P.I.; Simon & Simon) or not showing any growth (The Equalizer). CBS really should have ended one of the aging dramas this season. Sitcoms were showing some signs of life, with Newhart and Kate & Allie still going and the renewals of My Sister Sam and Designing Women, but not enough to compete with the NBC and ABC comedies.

The Tortellis was one season and done. During the final five seasons of Cheers, NBC used Thursday 9:30 pm as a testing ground. Several shows passed through that time slot in that era: Dear John, Grand, Wings, Seinfeld.

Week of May 11-17, 1987. Family Ties, The Cosby Show; Murder, She Wrote; Cheers, Moonlighting were all repeats as their season finales were the week before. Growing Pains was a repeat but it's season finale was the following week.

@Soapsuds January 22, 1987 was the night The Cosby Show and Family Ties had their highest-rated episodes ever, and Cheers had it's highest-rated episode until the finale.

@Soapsuds Based on NFC Championship coverage being in the Top 11, this is the week January 5-11, 1987. NBC sitcoms taking up five of the Top 11. They really did have the sitcom game on lock in the second half of the 1980s. Two weeks away from the historical night January 22, 1987.

@AMCOLTLLover The first half of 1986 was when all the big storylines of the H. Wesley Kenney era culminated. The second half of 1986 was the start of Cricket eating the show.

I loved those big 1980s mini series based on best-selling novels. Agree that by the 1990s mini series were mostly a sad state. One memorable 1990s mini series you didn't mention, Alex Haley's Queen. You are killing me 🤣

AFAIK Fresno is the only comedy mini series ever attempted. 🤣

Was Another World the most affected ratings-wise by the huge rise of the ABC big three in the late 1970s/early 1980s? It seems like every show that wasn't the ABC big three was a mess back then but a good number of them recovered but somehow Another World didn't yet NBC/P&G kept it.

The Jabot/Newman corporate battles are getting stale?

I don't know anything about contracts, but with Y&R being in budget mode I can see this happening.

Friends of Jill from Santa Barbara to Guiding Light: Vincent Irizarry, Justin Deas, Marcy Walker, Marj Dusay.

Agree. That was Y&R's second worst nepotism. I don't know if any big soap names were considered for Ashley in 1988, but if a big soap name was cast as Ashley in 1988 it might have taken attention away from Bill Bell's pets Cricket and Cassandra. Remember 1989 was all about Cricket and Cassandra and the rest of the main females got second/third tier storylines.

Bill Bell recast Y&R Ashley twice (1988 and 1996) and in hindsight, neither worked. Can we think of anyone who would have worked in either 1988 or 1996?

Dorothy McGuire's arc was two months, May-July 1984. I think it was mentioned here that it was a big deal back then for Y&R to get a Golden Age Hollywood actress in a short arc.

Tom Langan cast several 1980s Y&R actors on Reilly's Days: Deborah Adair, Eileen Davidson, Nick Benedict, Jaime Lyn Bauer, Lauren Koslow.

@dragonflies The chris evans you linked to is the same Twitter user that got EB trending in Summer 2021. I really hope these lack of appearances are due to EB's recovery from knee surgery, and not his role being reduced.

Also add CBS Master of the Game: February 19-21, 1984; 9 hours Mistral's Daughter: September 24-26, 1984; 8 hours Robert Kennedy and His Times: January 27-29, 1985; 7 hours Fresno: November 16-20, 1986; 6 hours I'll Take Manhattan: March 1-4, 1987; 8 hours Lonesome Dove: February 5-8, 1989; 8 hours NBC Marco Polo: May 16-19, 1982; 10 hours A.D.: March 31-April 4, 1985; 12 hours Peter the Great: February 2-5, 1986; 8 hours Noble House: February 21-24, 1988; 8 hours