Paul Raven

The Season finale for 79-80 - JR is shot - was #1 for the week ending March 23 1 .Dallas 32.7/52 2. Dukes of Hazzard 28.6/45

Dallas hit #1 for the first time in the week ending Feb 10 1980 31.1/49 Lead in Dukes of Hazzard was #2

Donald Buka The Sparrow and the Hawk (afternoon adventure serial) Barney Mallory 'The Sparrow' Perry Mason 1950 The Doctor's Wife Fred Conrad 1955 Joseph Curtin Young Widder Brown Harry Howard

Well there were a few season premieres. How many exactly? Were the 2 hr finales? The only other 2 hr episode I recall was the Mastectomy episode which got Dallas it's highest ratings to that point

WK 1 76-77 season. ABC had it's best premiere week ever. 1. Happy Days ABC 34.7/53 2.Sunday Movie 'Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid ABC 31.9/51 3. Movie Airport 75 NBC 31.6/46 4. Bionic Woman ABC 28.1/46 5. Movie 'Earthquake Pt. 1 ' NBC 27.8/41 6. All in the Family CBS 27.3/41 7. Rich Man Poor Man Book 2 ABC 26.7/42 8. Charlie's Angels ABC 26.4/45 9. MASH CBS 23.5/43 10. Six Million Dollar Man ABC 23.2/34

Karl Weber Light of The World 1943

Haila Stoddard Stella Dallas 1947 Helen Shields Five Star Matinee 'The Bribe' 3/15/57

Reading some comments about Jason Thompson in the Y&R thread and how he is miscast as Billy, made me think about how some actors who are NQR as their character may be better suited to another role on the show, either on canvas or not. I could see JT as Adam.The whole angsty/introspective shtick seems better suited to the Adam character. Of course he might be too old but as this is just wishful, why not/ Gina Tognoni would have rocked as Victoria, whereas her Phyllis, while fine, had the shadow of MS over her. And Phyllis is a horrible character anyway. Connor Floyd as Daniel Romalotti? Anyway, looking forward to your suggestions!

Dallas went through a lot of story with the self contained episodes. What were some of the stories in those eps that you felt could have been multi episode arcs in the serial format? When did the show officially stop the self contained stories? Was it the beginning of the second full season or sooner?

Everything was wrong about Lucy's return. A dated concept, bland supporting cast and watching a 75 yr old doing physical comedy that had the audience scared she'd hurt herself. How about Lucy in a Murder She Wrote type light comedy mystery? She could be the nosy mom/grandmon of a private eye who stumbles into mysteries. Something a bit different with strong elements of the Lucy character w/o being an inferior version of what went before.

Susan Douglas Aunt Jenny Best Sellers 'The Ballad and the Source' 1945

Paper Dolls got a good sampling for it's first episode, finishing in the Top 10 - #7 But that was a week before the official start of the season against reruns. In Wk 1 things were different. NBC had a 2hr A Team which ranked 5th and CBS the Mistral's Daughter miniseries which was 12th (and appealed to the same audience as PD) Paper Dolls fell to 44th and never recovered.

Sat March 9 1985 10 pm ABC Finder of Lost Loves #45 13.2/25 CBS Cover Up #49 12,2/23 NBC Berrengers #67 5.6/11 (lowest rated show of the week)

I actually meant shows in general, not just those two. Off the top of my head FOL started Fri @ 8.30, then Wed @9.30, Wed @ 9, Sat @8.30 then Sat @ 8.

Big Twist Kristen and Felicia return and both get ongoing storylines.

Eric discovers he's adopted and his twin brother is Lance Prentiss. John McCook plays dual roles and Jaime Lyn Bauer and Janice Lynde appear as Lorie and Leslie.

Diff'rent Strokes served NBC well. It started off at Fri @8 but got moved to Wed @9 which seemed a wrong footed move but managed to damage Charlie's Angels. Then it got moved to Thurs @9 where it didn't fare as well before settling into the Sat @8 slot till NBC dropped it. Facts of Life had a rocky start on Fridays but took off on Wed after DS. Then it had a solid run Wed @9 before moving to Saturdays. I wonder which show moved timeslots the most? Any guesses? i think I will have to do some sleuthing...

The complete Top 20 of that week posted above 1. Dallas CBS 31.3/56 2. MASH CBS 25.5/38 3. Dukes of Hazzard CBS 25.2/43 4. 60 Minutes CBS 24.9/49 5. Three's Company ABC 22.2/34 8. Private Benjamin CBS 22.0/35 7. Difrrent Strokes NBC 21.5/35 8. House Calls CBS 21.1/33 9. "Ten Commandments" (movie) ABC 20.8/40 10. Too Close for Comfort ABC 20.7/32 11. Two of Us CBS 20.5/31 12. Magnum, P.I. CBS 20.4/34 13. Facts of Life NBC 20.1/33 14. Lou Grant CBS 19.0/33 15. Alice CBS 18.8/31 16. Love Boat ABC 18.7/34 17. Hart To Hart ABC 18.4/32 18. Greatest American Hero ABC 18.4/30 19. The Jeffersons CBS 18.3/31 20. Happy Days ABC 18.2/29 And the bottom five 66. "Family Plot" (movie) NBC 10.0/17 67. Disney's Wonderful WorldNBC 9.1/18 68. "The Filth Musketeer (movie) ABC 8.8/15 69. NBC Magazine with David Brinkley NBC 5.6/12 70. Omnibus (special) ABC 6.4/13

ABC were desperate that season. In addition to Finder of Lost Loves, they launched Paper Dolls and Glitter. Way too many similar shows. And Aaron Spelling's 'International Airport' was piloted around that time too.

Yes ,if it was placed at 10pm with a stronger lead in there might have been more time to work out the kinks. Sat at 10 was a bad slot. Too many viewers were not available each week to build afollowing. Yellow Rose suffered the same fate. Both shows should have been slotted Tues at 10.

From the get go ABC knew Dynasty would need a new timeslot as the 9 o'clock Monday timeslot was reserved for Monday Night Football.

Primetime soaps did not work at 9pm but the newtworks never seemed to learn that lesson Bare Essence, The Monroes, Central Park West, The Colbys, Paper Dolls and the original season of Dynasty all flopped at 9 o'clock. Both Knots Landing and Flamingo Road both had stints at 9 and fared worse than they had at 10 and moved back there. The exceptions were Dallas and Dynasty and that was because they had built a following at 10 and moved forward to a timeslot that was already housing a hit show for the network -Fall Guy on ABC and Dukes of Hazzard on CBS. Those shows moved up to 8pm so the viewing pattern was the same. Of course a 10 pm timeslot was no guarantee of success either - Berrengers, Secrets of Midland Heights, Emerald Point etc

Just came across some info about an NBC pilot for the 73/74 season. Hernandez was a police drama from Universal starring Henry Darrow, Ronny Cox, Dana Elcar and our beloved Jess Walton . Wonder if things would have been different if Jess had landed aprimetime hit?

Some more info on spelling and ABC. Thought I'd post it here, although not really Colby's related. Aaron Spelling Productions agreed last week to extend its contract with ABC -TV for three more years, but for first time since 1969, pact will be on nonexclusive basis. Under new agreement, which took effect immediately, parties were apparently able to resolve conflict over programing commitments that surfaced about time CapCities took over ABC. Former contract called for ABC to pay penalty unless it ordered total of 10 pilots, seven new series and 16 made - for- television movies by March 1988 (except for two pilots and two series which could be ordered by March 1989). Spelling last year contended ABC had ordered two pilots and two series toward commitment, while ABC claimed number amounted to four pilots and two series. Since then, however, network cancelled The Colbys, Life With Lucy, Finder of Lost Loves and Glitter, and failed to pick up two of Spelling's pilots, Divided We Stand and Free Spirit. Two remaining ASP series on network are Dynasty and Hotel. Commenting on end of exclusivity, Spelling said he is "pleased that for the first time in our history, the company will be able to sell its product to all three networks." Spelling's program: were credited with pushing ABC into first place in mid- 1970s. Hit successful affiliation with network began with The Mod Squad in 1968 and continued following his 1972 pairing with partner Leonard Goldberg with such series as The Rookies, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels and Fantasy Island. Spelling also produced 11 TV movies for ABC for total of 1,935 hours of programming.

Webster - Another Ballgame Hardcastle & McCormick - Rolling Thunder