1 hour ago, soapfan770 said:

The idea alone sounds interesting and with the right talent both on-screen and behind the screen maybe one of them could have pulled it off.

Problem was all four of the big primetime soaps often didn’t develop a good secondary cast in addition to the core.

I agree.

What if, instead of taking off part or all of the summer, the primetime soaps had run year-round with just a 1-2 week break here and there?

8 hours ago, Khan said:

I wish I could have enjoyed it more, but the level of acting on that show has fallen so low. Cast members are literally reading their lines off the cue cards or teleprompters and not even looking at each other anymore, and that just annoys me.

That was even worse than usual, maybe due to the special effect for the stairs that they were using.

I did enjoy the sketch more than some of their soap parodies (I can't sit through Californians).

5 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

That was even worse than usual, maybe due to the special effect for the stairs that they were using.

Oh, that was some of the clumsiest special effects I'd seen on SNL in a long, long time. Elements like those make me miss Dave Wilson all the more.

3 hours ago, DRW50 said:

That was even worse than usual, maybe due to the special effect for the stairs that they were using.

I did enjoy the sketch more than some of their soap parodies (I can't sit through Californians).

3 hours ago, Khan said:

Oh, that was some of the clumsiest special effects I'd seen on SNL in a long, long time. Elements like those make me miss Dave Wilson all the more.

I keep wondering if that sketch would have worked better as a pretape, or if they should have gone with an SCTV approach and had the joke be that it's obvious dummies going down the stairs. Still, kudos to Olivia for throwing in a somersault when it was her turn.

9 minutes ago, Franko said:

I keep wondering if that sketch would have worked better as a pretape, or if they should have gone with an SCTV approach and had the joke be that it's obvious dummies going down the stairs. Still, kudos to Olivia for throwing in a somersault when it was her turn.

I can see why they did it live as it's not as fun seeing people go down the stairs in a pre-tape. The show is just very rusty and Lorne Michaels is an old man who has said he's more interested in the UK version these days. Still I liked that they tried something different. I just hope eventually they can find competence again.

22 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I can see why they did it live as it's not as fun seeing people go down the stairs in a pre-tape. The show is just very rusty and Lorne Michaels is an old man who has said he's more interested in the UK version these days. Still I liked that they tried something different. I just hope eventually they can find competence again.

Yeah, at least there was some effort there, as opposed to other soap parodies.

5 hours ago, Khan said:

I agree.

What if, instead of taking off part or all of the summer, the primetime soaps had run year-round with just a 1-2 week break here and there?

Would that be economically feasible? It would cost a mint. Advertising rates over Summer would be much lower.

As Tartikoff stated the only way it would work would be to do it on tape and have a small cast.

Wonder how they made money from Peyton Place running all year back in the 60's? Maybe a different financial model back then?

Too bad we will probably never see complete episodes of the short lived series " The Survivors"

On 5/4/2026 at 4:25 AM, Chris B said:

This was a nice treat!

All I get here in Canada is that the video isn't available in my country--so I have no idea what it is... so, what is it??

So I binged the whole Pasadena series on Tubi (it's on there in the states), and it's a shame that it didn't last because it was a very well written prime time soap that could have revived the genre had it aired in a better time slot in a different year (not right after 9/11 happened).

Watching it, you could tell when TPTB realized that they weren't going to get an additional pick up beyond 13 episodes because by episode 11, it seemed like the show decided to drop/resolve new threads that were just introduced in episode 9. Two new characters were introduced in episode 9 that seemed to be kick-starting new threads (i.e. Nathan Fillion as a minister and Austin Nichols as a classmate with a crush on Lily). By episode 12, those two characters are no longer featured and whatever arcs they were going to have are quickly resolved.

The final episode revealed the details of the mystery that kick-started the series, but it didn't resolve anything. The ending was kind of sad, and I have a feeling that had the show gotten additional episodes that more would have been done with the mystery and the other characters.