Primetime Soaps

[All My Shadows]

Ann Marcus wrote for a slew of daytime shows (off the top of my head...Search, GH, LIAMST) and also did some soapy primetime/syndication fare. She was one of the main forces behind Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, credited as a creator. I read that Norman Lear wanted her specifically because he wanted at least one actual daytime writer on staff. She worked on his other Fernwood-based shows as well and wrote scripts for Flamingo Road, Knots Landing, and Falcon Crest.

ETA: Her late husband Ellis was also a writer, but he stuck to primetime. He did work with her on Flamingo, Knots, and Falcon, though.

Edited February 11, 2010 by All My Shadows

[EricMontreal22]

A couple of Time Magazine articles on primetime soaps.

The long August 1980 cover story on Dallas; Who Shot JR (I knew that Jacobs created Knots Landing first but couldn't sell it so created Dalas, but didn't realize he only supervised Dallas for five episodes before going full on to his baby, Knots--there's also some great stuff about the story team) HERE

Season of the Night Soaps has brief bits on Dallas, Knots, Dynasty, Midland Heights and a hated miniseries version of East of Eden (by Dynasty's Robert Shapiro) that they say owes more to the soaps than Steinbeck. from 1981 HERE

A piece on the glamour bitches of these shows, from 1985 HERE

[EricMontreal22]

A NY Times article by David Jacobs on creating Dallas and Knots (which he does compare, after my comments lol, to thirtysomething) from 1990:

TV VIEW; When the Rich And the Powerful Were Riding High

By DAVID JACOBS; David Jacobs is a writer/producer, whose series ''Paradise,'' a western, is on CBS.

Published: April 15, 1990

I am trying to create television for the 1990's. I'm not sure I'll be as good at it as I was 13 years ago, when I didn't know anything. Tapping into the pulse of the times is easier to explain in hindsight than to plan.

When I created ''Dallas'' and its spinoff, ''Knots Landing,'' in the late 1970's, I did not anticipate that they would still be on the air in the 1990's, the second and fourth longest-running entertainment series in TV history. Nor could I have imagined the scale of ''Dallas's'' success. A hit and a curiosity on every continent, ''Dallas'' at its peak seemingly transcended entertainment and became a worldwide sociological phenomenon. Even as the phenomenon was occurring, I was hard put to explain what made the show, if not a symbol of the 80's, at least a singular expression of it.

The centerpiece of ''Dallas'' was the character of J. R. Ewing. Dramatically he was neither hero nor villain but a combination, the villain-as-protagonist. He wasn't created that way. In the first draft of the pilot script, J. R. was a more conventional bad guy. It was the hero, Bobby, whom I thought was more freshly conceived: player and playboy, the apple of his father's eye, likable but immature. The way I saw it, we would watch Bobby become more responsible and mature after his marriage to Pamela Barnes.

The development executives at CBS, however, wanted Bobby to be more conventionally heroic from the onset. I found the reconceived, less-flawed Bobby dull. Ordinarily having a dull hero at the center would prove fatal for a TV series. In the case of ''Dallas'' it probably ensured the show's success, for it created a void for the talented Larry Hagman to fill. Hagman played J. R. with the righteousness, charm and confidence of a hero. From the beginning, the character was so seductive, so watchable, that the producers and writers responded by making J. R. the one who made things happen. J. R. might not have been ethical or even decent, but dramatically he functioned as protagonist rather than antagonist - the hero.

J. R. Ewing's appearance on the global TV screen coincided with the beginning of the Reagan Presidency, and J. R. was a man of his times. Like his 70's counterpart, Archie Bunker, who gave voice to prejudices and attitudes that were no longer socially acceptable but still widely felt, J. R. proved unexpectedly appealing. His unapologetic commitment to self-interest, his unabashed belief in the corruptibility of others linked him to a generation that would soon be told that greed was O.K. and read on bumper stickers that Jesus wanted people to get rich.

In the mid-80's, a ''Dallas'' clone briefly replaced ''Dallas'' as the world's most-watched TV drama. ''Dynasty'' was a better expression of second Reagan Administration values than ''Dallas'' because, while ''Dallas'' was about the quest for money, ''Dynasty'' was about the things that money could buy. In ''Dallas'' money was a tool, a way of keeping score. In ''Dynasty'' money was an end, the grail that was the goal of every quest.

''Dallas'' was fairly modestly mounted: Southfork was big but no mansion, and now and then the characters wore jeans to breakfast. ''Dynasty'' was perhaps the most extravagantly produced series in the history of episodic television: the sets were more opulent, the wardrobe more expensive, the life styles more ostentatious - the characters dressed for breakfast and wore jewelry with lingerie. During almost any other period, ''Dynasty'' would have been regarded as more vulgar than ''Dallas.'' In the mid-80's, however, ''Dynasty'' was widely viewed as the classier of the two shows.

As it happened, both ''Dallas'' and ''Dynasty'' faded as the Reagan Presidency faded. Indeed, ''Dynasty'' could not survive the changing of the guard. It was gone by the end of George Bush's first hundred days.

Among these pioneer serials, only ''Knots Landing'' remains healthy in kinder, gentler America. Its continuing popularity is due in part to dramatic factors: ''Knots Landing'' has always been the least formulaic of the prime-time soaps. When the series started, the characters all lived on an aggressively middle-class cul-de-sac and had manifestly middle-class problems as commonplace - and overblown - as any on ''Thirtysomething.'' As the decade progressed, they became richer, their environment glitzier, the stories more melodramatic. But through it all, its characters retained their fundamentally middle-class underpinnings. Though Valene published a book and came into money, she remained a country girl. Karen became a TV personality but by projecting her real, off-screen personality: she remained the nice, smart, cause-oriented lady next door. Even the reigning villain, Greg Sumner, is not exactly a villain - he's a good man gone bad, a one-time idealist who took an expedient shortcut.

This, finally, is the difference between ''Knots Landing'' and its genre-mates. The other prime-time serials offered a peek into a world that was rich and corrupt and populated by an unhappy bunch; I suspect that viewers found some satisfaction in their misery. ''Knots Landing'' ushered viewers through that same world, but because its characters remained down-scaled and multidimensional, viewers felt that they were along for the ride. The pleasure of watching ''Dynasty'' and ''Dallas'' and ''Falcon Crest'' was voyeuristic; the pleasure of watching ''Knots Landing'' was vicarious. ''Dynasty'' and ''Dallas'' and ''Falcon Crest'' were about Them. ''Knots Landing'' is about us.

The continuing strength of ''Knots Landing'' and the success of two other dramas, ''L. A. Law'' and ''Thirtysomething,'' suggest that viewers these days are less interested in the rarified regions populated by the rich and powerful than in drama with some basis in their own reality. Still, I'm not sure that these shows are as expressive of their time as ''Dallas'' and ''Dynasty'' were once of theirs. The characters and format of ''Knots Landing,'' ''Thirtysomething'' and ''L.A. Law'' are modern, but it's easy to imagine the same shows existing, updated, in other times. I don't think that ''Dallas'' and ''Dynasty'' would have had a prayer of succeeding in any other era, save perhaps the Harding or Coolidge Administrations.

[Sylph]

Has anyone here watched The Secret Life of the American Teenager, an ABC Family TV series? Is it a soap? The title sure implies so.

[All My Shadows]

Absolutely. It is Brenda Hampton, after all.

I enjoy it for what it is when I sit down to watch it (which is rare), but I have a lotta problems with that show. Lots of problems. It's hard to explain...it's an odd, odd show. It's like Ms. Hampton created this bizarro world where a 15-year-old boy will want to be with a girl who is pregnant for another guy, and that's only part of it.

[EricMontreal22]

It's being massively hyped here in Canada now that MuchMusic has picked it up. I assumed it was an American attempt at Degrassi but with a more specific focus.

[Sylph]

Hm... Should I watch then? I guess I could try.

[All My Shadows]

I guess that kinda makes sense. A much, much more specific focus (Degrassi has that large cast and has always utilized it so well) that gives it a structure centralized around the Amy character. If you want a show where almost all of the storylines are strongly connected to all of the other storylines, then Secret Life is for you.

LOL I don't see you enjoying it. It's the cheesiest of cheesy teen soaps and is very much written for a pre-teen audience.

[EricMontreal22]

HAHA if this promo they show in Canada doesn't turn you off Sylph then you're a stronger man than I am That guy looks like he was auditioning for the Conan O'Brien character of his intern brooding Twilight-esque vampire (Do guys like this actually exist in anyone's REAL high school? They didn't in mine...)

Edited February 13, 2010 by EricMontreal22

[SFK]

Not pure soap, but soapy... when I was in high school back in '96 there were two heavily hyped FOX series you may or may not remember, Profit and Kindred: The Embraced. They were yanked pretty quickly, and honestly, I have very vague recollections of them. I caught maybe one ep of Profit and a couple of Kindred (a sexy vampire show), but I looked them up and saw that they're available on dvd (there are clips of both on YouTube if you're interested). I'm thinking of checking them out. I also found the first season of thirtysomething on Amazon Video On-Demand, so I'll be starting that soon.

[DRW50]

I remember those somewhat. I mostly remember Kindred because the lead actor in it, Mark Frankel, was very good on Sisters as the handsome, suave British mysterious type who romanced Sela Ward. Sadly he was killed in a wreck not long after Kindred was off the air. That show also had Stacy Haiduk.

Profit was very critically acclaimed and seen as ahead of its time and so on. I usually dislike anything critics tell me is ahead of its time or, worst of all, "too good for TV," but I know a lot of people did think it was underrated. That was the one where Adrian Pasdar slept naked on the floor of his apartment or his office, wasn't it?

[All My Shadows]

Kindred is definitely one of Aaron's shows.

[SFK]

I read about Profit now and I see comparisons to Dexter for example, I'd add American Psycho. What I seem to remember most is that it was acted, presented really, quite *quirkily* which is something that the viewers were perhaps unaccustomed to and not ready for, but now we're like completely saturated with that style.

I never caught the new, primetime Dark Shadows but my mom got SOD and they'd do weekly synopses for it. Judging from the pictures that looked like romance novel covers, I'd say that Kindred kicked the horror up a few notches for TV vampires and was doing some of the things we'd soon see on Buffy. Kindred probably would have done a lot better on The WB/UPN at the height of Buffy mania.

[Chris B]

If you look at a lot of failed shows, being on the wrong network or bad timing or scheduling can definitely hurt a show. Look at Dark Shadows, it started off hot, but kept being pre-empted and moved around due to the Gulf War so it lost momentum and was canceled. Pasadena on FOX was Desperate Housewives, but darker, better acted and better written. I think that's a show that came a couple years too soon and was on the wrong network. Speaking of, has anyone mentioned Pasadena in this thread?? It was pretty brilliant. As much as I hate Dana Delany on DH, she killed it on this show. Balthazar Getty was also much better here than on Brothers and Sisters.

Another great, amazingly brilliant short lived soap is The Monroes. I don't know who wrote or produced it or what network it was on, but it was brilliant. William Devane and Susan Sullivan, two of TVs greats, just killed it as the matriarch and patriarch of this uber rich political family. I don't know how or why this show failed or how it was recieved. All I know it that it was brilliant. Hate that it didn't even last 13 episodes.

[Chris B]

I was curious about the writers of The Monroes and I found out a little bit. Chip Johannessen and David Alan Johnson were both producers and writers for the series. I'm guessing one or both were the creator. Nancy Miller was a writer.

Chip wrote for 90210 from 92-94, then produced the 94-95 season. He's a producer at 24 this season and has been writing episodes for the show since 2001. Also a producer on Dark Angel and Moonlight. David Alan wrote and produced robbish like The Pretender and Sue Thomas FB Eye. Nancy Miller is the EP of Saving Grace and Any Day Now for both series entire runs. She also was EP of CSI: Miami for one season. Their credits weren't as soapy as I expected. Wonder what let them all to their primetime soap detour.