Paul Raven

Beacon Hill was a tremendous gamble at the time. Remember this was 1975 and the likes of Starsky & Hutch and Police Woman was considered standard drama fare. I'm sure there were a lot of people at CBS that hated the whole concept and thought it was doomed to fail. Reading b/w the lines it seems they wanted more plot and less character stuff. Maybe they should have started it over Summer to iron out the bugs instead of a splashy Fall debut. Hill St Blues 5 years later was seen as daring and was low rated but NBC stuck by it. And compared to BH it was way more accessible to network viewers. The Saturday timeslot was a problem also. A lot of viewers are not home every week so following a serial can be tricky. Had NBC already decided it was a loser and burned it off in a low rated slot? Bottom line -was Berrengers any good?

Looks like Claire is going to be short term? Unless she joins the long list of criminals walking the streets Of GC free as abird. Are we leading up to aRoberta Leighton return? And what set is Nikki in when syringed?

Who's to blame for `Beacon Hill'? Bob Wood doesn't know what went wrong with the season's most ballyhooed new show; the creator blames the producer and vice -versa. Robert D. Wood, the president of CBS -TV, is the man who had to make the decision to cancel Beacon Hill, and "I'm sick about it," he says. "With the departure of Beacon Hill, a little bit of me went with it." "I couldn't fault the intention of the series or the production, which was superbly mounted," Mr. Wood goes on. "There was some lint- picking about the writing on the part of some critics, but as far as I'm concerned it was the Tiffany of TV series. And in all my years in the business, I don't remember a series getting as much promotion or as much advance notice in the consumer press. "But the public simply rejected it. Watching the audience decline each week was like watching the rungs of a stepladder going down" Mr. Wood says he doesn't want to play Monday morning quarterback on the reasons why Beacon Hill didn't attract a mass audience. "Maybe we were too ambitious," he says. But the creator of Beacon Hill, Sidney Carroll, says it could have survived if the producers had only followed his original plan. As Mr. Carroll explains it, he scripted the two -hour pilot and then wrote out plot outlines for the first 13 episodes of Beacon Hill. He got involved in the production of the pilot and says he was quite satisfied with how it turned out. He cites the episode's 23.1 rating and 42 share (on Monday, Aug. 25, 9 -11 p.m., NYT) as one of the indicators that "the general public liked the people in the pilot." But between the completion of the pilot and the start of production on the first episode, according to Mr. Carroll, the producer, Jacqueline Babbin, changed the plot outlines he had written. "When I saw how the first two finished scripts differed from the way I outlined them," he says, "I walked off the series." In Mr. Carroll's eyes, the likeable characters he had created in the pilot were turned into "a lot of stinkers. They became nasty and sad and stupid." Ms. Babbin sees things a little differently. "Sidney's plots were charming little stories that could've filled 20 minutes out of each hour," she says. "But CBS wanted stronger material, stories with more bite, more guts to them." Both Ms. Babbin and Alan Wagner, the CBS vice president closest to the series, disagree with Mr. Carroll about the quality of the two hour pilot. "With 19 characters to be introduced, it was like a French farce situation," she says. "The characters ended up being unsympathetic because the viewer wasn't given enough time to understand any of them. And CBS over promoted and ballyhooed the pilot to the point of stupidity." "It was really an error on our part to open up with an episode populated with with so many characters," adds Mr. Wagner. "Everything became complicated, the public got confused and you couldn't follow the characters without a scorecard" Mr. Wagner points to a second "major error." "The series didn't find its direction early enough," he says. "The first batch of episodes were placed in too small a frame and were on too small a scale to interest an audience in 1975." Ms. Babbin adds that the public didn't know what to make of Beacon Hill's characters because "they were too real - they weren't like the cardboard cut -outs you usually see in TV series, who seem to spend all their time in fast cars."

I guess originally Blake was painted as the villianous character who I assumed a la JR we were going to be fascinated to watch. But unlike JR and later Alexis, there was no mischief in his portrayal so he just came across as unsympathetic. John Forsythe had played light comedy way back to Bachelor Father, but there was nothing in the writing or direction for him to lean into that talent. Nightime soaps were restricted by having to focus on the same characters season after season and not stray too far from the formula. There was no way Blake was going backburner for a season.

They just want to recycle the whole Victor is omnipotent trope from years gone by. To accomplish that everybody else has to look like an idiot and pretend they haven't been screwed over a million times and not learned a thing. At least they finally retired Victor v Jack. Same with Phyllis. Nobody should trust her to take out the garbage let alone work/scheme or simply be around her.

Yes that's why I included 'adventure' in the description. Jack/Jennifer weren't battling spies, travelling to exotic locations or encountering super villians.

One trend that accelerated in the 80's was the decimation of core families/long running characters. Part of that was inevitable as actors aged and characters seemed played out, but there was also a wilfull determination to rid shows of the older tentpole characters. Y&R dumped the Fosters and Brooks bar Jill. Days said goodbye to a heap of Hortons The Bauers disappeared from GL as dd the Matthews from AW Steve Audrey and Jessie were virtually extras at GH. SFT had only a few characters from the decade before.

Week 17 Dynasty 18.5/27 Magnum PI 14.8/22 Gimme A Break 14.6/22/Spitting Image 13.2/20 That season each of the 3 principals had outside projects airing. Linda's CBS Last Frontier mini-series was a hit but Joan's CBS Monte Carlo mini series and John's ABC TV Movie On Fire were ratings flops.

Anne Howard Baily had a difficult task -Patch/Kayla and Shane/Kim the last 2 big supercouples had been married off, so she had to come up with some stories that kept them frontburner. She chose the old presumed dead/amnesia trope for Shane and Kim. and Gideon/Emily for the Johnsons. In addition Roman/Diana had ended and Roman needed a new supercoupling. And there were no new Bradys or Hortons to be the next adventure based supercouple.

Week 14 Dynasty not shown-Xmas Day Week 15 Dynasty 13.7/26 Magnum PI (Rpt) 12.4/23 Gimme A Break (Rpt)11.1/20/ You Again 9.4/18 NBC's comedy counterprogramming, after some initial success is now mired in 3rd place. CBS move of Magnum paid off. Week 16 Dynasty 18.4/27 Magnum PI (Rpt) 16.3/24 Gimme A Break 13.2/20/You Again 12.6/19 You Again was cancelled. Dynasty showing renewed strength thanks to Magnum repeats. Will it triumph when Magnum goes to new eps? Stay tuned.

Be nice for them to be interviewed and give us an insight into all those years. And not just a puff piece. We want juice!

So odd to have the first 2 8 eps ahead of #3 How are they even telling story with most characters averaging less than 2 eps a week?

Maybe Woman's World could incorporate a soap section? Years ago I was subscribing to Metropolitan Home which ceased publication and for the next year or so I was lumbered with Woman's Day.

Agree -surely there was some story to be mined with Krystal suffering some trauma and lashing out at Sammy Jo-maybe giving in to some (justified) feelings of revenge and launching some plot against her niece. Maybe being Krystal, she ultimately can't follow through but it would allow for some suspense and the chance for Linda Evans to give Krystal a little more range.

Looking at those ratings would have been enough for ABC and producers to panic and make changes. At the very least, the massacre should have had a character paralyzed and in a wheelchair for several eps. Mmmm....maybe a temp paralysis that they secretly recover from but keep up the pretence-until another character uncovers the truth and indulges in a little blackmail...

When Susan unleases that lesbian energy WATCH OUT!

With that amount of filter, anyone would look great! We should start a list of ex soap actors now in real estate.

Week 11 Magnum 18.3/28 Dynasty 16.7/26 Gimme A Break 12.1/19 /You Again?11.0/17 Week 12 Dynasty 17.2/27 Magnum PI 16.9/26 Gimme A Break 13.6/21/ You Again? 13.0/20 Week 13 Magnum PI 19.7/29 A Year in the Life Pt3 17.1/27 Dynasty 16.7/25 *Dynasty 3rd in timeslot for the first time this season

Week 10 86/87 season Magnum PI 16.1/26 Dynasty 15.9/25 Gimme A Break 12.8/21/You Again? 12.0/19 Meanhile Fri @ 9 Dallas 21.1/35 Miami Vice (rpt) 15.7/26 Starman 8.5/14

Wk 7 of 86/87 season. World Series was out of the way so regular programming in place. Wed @9 Magnum 17.0/26 Dynasty 16.7/25 Gimme A Break 15.9/24/You Again 13.6/21 So CBS' decision to move Magnum away from Cosby was working. ABC was on a huge cost cutting drive following Cap Cities takeover. The Spelling exclusive contract was seen as wasteful and not producing the results it had throughout the 70's/early 80's.

Was the Stewarts' cabin around in the story at that time? It seemed reasonable enough that at some point the Hughes and Stewarts would invest in some land outside of Oakdale, w/o it being mentioned onscreen. Perhaps the whole idea was that they knew at some point the value would increase and they could sell for a good profit, so when Brad came along they were interested. Otherwise, unless you planned to build on it, what is the point of having land just sitting there not earning any income?

The start of the 86 season was not good for Dynasty. Now up against Magnum PI and Gimme A Break , the first 2 eps of the season failed to make the Top 10. Meanwhile Dallas, facing Miami Vice had a big boost from Bobby's return and ranked Top 5.

Wedding Day was a trial series. Bill and Susan Hayes were involved in some way. I can't recall the details but they wrote about in their SOD column. I think it aired in the morning 10am? They followed a couple through wedding preparations culminating with an onscreen wedding. Does anyone know more?

Hugh Franklin's obit in Variety Oct 1 1986 makes no mention of his role of Charles Tyler on AMC. It talks about various stage roles and only mentions numerous tv appearances. Quite an oversight(deliberate?) Don't know who was responsible but it seems strange not to mention an acting role he had for over a decade.

The initial story was that the Stewarts and Hughes owned adjoining land out of town. Brad discovered that there was silver there and through his new friendship with Lisa, got the Hughes to sell them the land. He also needed the Stewart property and approached David and Ellen. David found out there was silver and decided to lease out his property to another company. Brad began mining the Hughes land and Joyce,Melinda and Jay got involved along with Brad having interactions with Annie, Dee, James and Don. So they were really setting him up as a central character. Don't quite understand from synopses why Brad and the Stewarts had separate mining interests underway.