Primetime Soaps

[Forever8]

Throwback Thursday courtesy of Robyn Lively (Lane) - Savannah 

 

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[te.]

That's very cool actually! I knew that there was supposed to be a fourth friend who was still living in New York (which eventually became became Cassie), but was dropped since they didn't want to do dual action in Savannah / New York. I had no idea she was cast and even shot scenes.

[Forever8]

Savannah is on my list of shows to watch. Was Cassie mentioned in the first season or not? 

[Taoboi]

Did I hear SAVANNAH? 

 

I never knew there was a FOURTH character, but I could see it. Cool!!!

 

And Forever, you should watch. Peyton was one of the best primetime vixens. 

[te.]

I don't think so, but it's been a while since I watched.

 

Well, Cassie was added in the second season so I guess they sort of retroactively added her back in.

[Forever8]

OK, Thanks!!! 

[Taoboi]

So much potential. 

[j swift]

One wonders if Savannah suffered from the same logistical problem as Twin Peaks, after the mystery of the first season was resolved there was less interest in the second season.  Unlike Dallas or Knots, the show was initially so focused on a single plot that it did not allow for viewers to engage in long term stories.  As I recall, the first season finale was great, but the second season was unable to sustain the hype (much like Dynasty after the Moldavian Massacre).

[te.]

The move + less tight writing (the stupid jewel plot comes to mind, plus I recall someone pointing out that Peyton went from actively plotting to overhearing plot points) + the fact that soaps repeated lousy and unlike Fox, the WB didn't have the money to order more than 22 episodes of their shows killed it.

[Taoboi]

Yeah, after that great first season cliffhanger...and the road to getting there...perhaps. 

[DRW50]

Sela Ward talking about Sisters.

 

Sela Ward "Sisters" 1992 - Bobbie Wygant Archive - YouTube

[DRW50]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/romy-walthall-actress-in-face-off-and-camp-nowhere-dies-at-57-1234961646/

 

[DRW50]

She wrote for Dawson's Creek and Wasteland.

 

https://people.com/tv/dawsons-creek-writer-dies-by-suicide-after-year-long-covid-battle/

[Paul Raven]

Oct 1981

David Jacobs Comes Up With Two Soaps

By JERRY BLACK LOS ANGELES AAP)

 David Jacobs, the man who created "Dallas" and "Knots Landing." has come up with two soap operas for the price of one. "Behind the Screen." a new CBS latenight series that premieres Friday night, follows the on and off-camera lives of the people who work in a daytime serial called "Generations."

The premiere episode is an hour long. tut thereafter the story will unfold in half hour chapters. CBS has ordered 12 episodes. The show began to take shape about a year and a half ago when Bob Daly, then president of CBS Entertainment, asked Jacobs and Lee Rich, president of Lorimar Productions, to come up with a late-night strip show. (In TV-ese. a strip show is one that runs every night at the same time.  "Then we bogged down in negotiations." said Jacobs, a cheerful, baldheaded man who was writing books for children until he came up with "Dallas." "We couldn't agree on a budget. Then Bob Daly left CBS and it seemed to die. I didn't want to do it. I felt I'd done enough serialized drama. And this was out-and-out serialized drama. But it was on taperather than film and I felt I ought to learn tape "

His pilot script sat on the shelf for more than a year. Then CBS called and they had two weeks to get it done. The original plan was to present the show three times a week, but it's now down to one night. If it catches on. however, it could be increased to two nights a week. "I didn't study the soaps." Jacobs said "I didn't want to have the long scenes or the pace of a soap "

"Behind the Scenes" isn't the only soap within a soap. ABC's "Ryan's Hope" also is employing the dramatic device once used by Shakespeare. Their inner soap is called "The Proud and the Passionate." The new direction for the daytime serial, led by ABC's "General Hospital," is toward sex the steamier, the higher the ratings. "I like sexy stuff." said Jacobs, "but I think the emphasis will be on the story. It'll be more provocative than titillating I've been burned in a way by doing sexy material."When I did Secrets of Midland Heights. the programming people said to put in sex, saying they would take care of the censors. 'Secrets' was always designed to be an 8 o'clock show, and it wasn't meant to be sexy.

'Dallas' is about power, which is based on money and sex. '"Behind the Scenes' deals with Hollywood," he said, "which has plenty of sex. But it still doesn't need the sexiness that Dallas' had in the first six months." Jacobs said he is going to have fun with the soap within the soap.

"For one thing," he said, "it is going to make absolutely no sense. No one will be able to figure out what's going on." The serial stars Mel Ferrer, Joanne Linville, Joshua Bryant, Loyita Chapel, Bruce Fairbairn, Debbi Morgan, Lew Palter, Catherine Parks, Michael Sahatino and Janine Turner.

The opening episode focuses on Jainie Claire Willow, played by Miss Turner, a beautiful soap opera star who has no control over her life. She is manipulated by her cousin (Ferrer), who also is her manager, and by her crippled mother (Miss Linville). Sabatino plays the part of another actor who resents being in a soap. There. are many other relationships too entangled to unravel here. Every story about Hollywood has its inside jokes, and "Behind the Scenes" has its own. The studio head played by Lew Palter is a deadringer for Lee Rich of Lorimar. "When we did the pilot," Jacobs said, "it was on tape and people all over CBS could see it on their monitors. The lines lit up with people calling to see if it was Lee. To this day everybody's gotten it but Lee Rich."

[Paul Raven]

Jan 1985

Rich get better ratings, says creator of "Dallas''

By BOB WISEHART McClatchy News Service

Just what you've all been waiting for, the differences between "Dallas," "Dynasty," "Knots Landing" and "Falcon Crest". If the "Dallas" characters went to Paris they'd be bumpkins; If the folks on "Knots Landing" characters went to Paris, they'd be tourists; If the well-heeled denizens of "Dynasty" went to Paris ... well, actually, they probably go to Paris a lot and have apartments there. As for "Falcon Crest," its characters TRIED to go to Europe, but the jet crashed just in time for the season-ending cliffhanger.

If this seems like a ridiculous thing to think about, meet the source of those observations, David Jacobs, who thinks about little else. Jacobs is a study in contrasts. By appearance he is squat, pudgy and so benign he could pass as the owner of the corner drugstore in the town where Andy Hardy grew up. But if we could peer into his fevered mind, the sight would be horrible indeed. Jacobs, the author of 10 non-fiction books about the arts, many for young readers, is the man we can hold responsible for the prime-time soap opera, a phenomenon that clogs the airwaves the way gunk stops the plumbing. And there is no plunger in sight. Jacobs created "Dallas," the show that launched this trend, along with its spinoff, "Knots Landing." He also created "Secrets of Midland Heights" a few years back, a notable bomb hardly anyone remembers. His current project is "Berrenger's," a bubbly extravanganza now playing on NBC and based in an upscale big-city department store. Interviewed recently in Los Angeles, Jacobs is a jolly little fellow, quick to smile and fast with a quip. The large sums of money that have come his way no doubt make life vastly amusing. Jacobs admits that he's frankly sick of the whole genre. "I've been trying to get out of the serial business for two years' now," he says, but the networks keep making offers he can't refuse.

Besides "Berrenger's," and "Knots" Jacobs has little daily contact with "Dallas" he's working on a "Dallas" prequel, a movie about the early wildcatting days of Jock Ewing and Digger Barnes. He says no one in the series would appear in the movie.

To the untrained eye, the formula for a successful prime-time soap seems simple; just make everybody wealthy. The rich may be rotten and the poor may be pure, but the rich get better ratings. If that's true, why have such shows been impossible to launch successfully in recent years? This season brought two duds, "Paper Dolls," an upscale look at the modeling business; and "Glitter," built around a People-esque magazine. The last success was "Falcon Crest" four years ago.

The problem with "Paper Dolls" and "Glitter," says Jacobs, is that they spent more on lip gloss than on scripts. "Beautiful," he says, "but too much emphasis on what they looked like." Besides, it isn't true that rich characters in an opulent setting guarantee success. "Knots Landing" has its roots in the middle class, although Jacobs cracks "they're getting richer all the time." Jacobs is convinced that the real problem has to do with expectations by the networks and the audience, which have grown so heated it resembles an arms race. "Dallas" was a rush job, which meant there wasn't much time for detail and gloss. Jacobs finished the first draft of the first script Dec. 10, 1978. Shooting of the first episode began Feb. 1, 1979. As such things are measured, that's faster than the speed of light. "At first, 'Dallas' had seven characters and a couple of little stories," he says. "Now everybody wants everything in place right from the first."

"Dynasty" had a sparse beginning, too, and did not at all resemble today's show. Does anybody remember that Dale Robertson played as important a role as John Forsythe (plutocrat Blake Carrington)? By contrast, "Berrenger's" was stuffed with a dozen plots and subplots in its first 90-minute episode, which even Jacobs admits is "probably excessive." The poor viewer, who, after all, had only just met these people, needed a scorecard to keep everybody straight. "If I had my druthers I'd go with two people or four people, and develop from there," Jacobs says. "But I'm not sure the audience would buy it. You're expected to have a complicated mosaic right away." But television always is risky business at best. As he says, "You try for something different, but what everybody wants is what they're used to, which we have a lot of already. I mean, I'm sure there's not room for another 'Dynasty' or 'Dallas.' For all I know, there's not room for 'Berrenger's' either."