Primetime Soaps

[Paul Raven]

1. Mansfield News-Journal Nov 9 1976

Women Given Break In 'Executive Suite' By John N. Goudas NEW YORK (KFS)

 "Executive Suite," 'CBS' glossy prime-time soap opera, hasn't really caught on with the viewers as yet, but it is building. It's the type of show that might sneak Into the hit status if it gets the chance to stay on the air.

The women's movement should be pleased that "Executive Suite" has more parts for actresses than any other TV series of recent memory, and one of the most beautiful and talented members of the fine cast is Sharon Acker, who plays the harried Helen Walling, wife and mother. Ms. Acker's lovely face should immediately conjure up one of TV's prestigious series from the recent past, "The Senator," in which she co-starred (again as a wife) with Hal Holbrook. She describes her association with the short-lived but still-remember "Senator" as a happy and unhappy time. Happy because it was her first starring part in a TV series and unhappy because she was let go in an attempt to refurbish the series which won awards but didn't rack up the high ratings.

"I wasn't informed that they were considering minimizing my part, It just began to happen and finally I approached the powers behind the show about it, and they left me no choice but to leave before I was reduced to a voice over the phone," the actress said. The whole thing is academic now since that was some years back, but you could still catch a fleeting flash of pain in Ms. Acker's eyes when she recalls the affair.

Of course, there's no chance of that happening to Sharon In "Executive Suite" since she figures Importantly In the plot lines.. However, there are so many plot lines running simultaneously in the series, based on the popular 1945 movie, that Sharon and the rest of the company have to make their moments on screen count.

Just before the series was scheduled to go into production, Sharon got together with her TV family, husband Mitchell Ryan), son (Leigh McCloskey), and daughter (Wendy Phillips) and the quartet of conscientious and caring actors worked to create the feeling of being a family. The obvious immersion and real joy she displays when she talks about acting keeps the subject fascinating even to the most inexperienced layman. Even though Sharon Acker could pass for 30 years old, she's the mother of four teen-age daughters in private life.

[Contessa Donatella]

Grand is an American sitcom and soap opera parody that aired on NBC from January 18 to December 27, 1990. It was created by Michael Leeson and executive produced by Leeson, Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner. 2 seasons, 26 episodes where the last one was never aired.

Grand revolved around three interrelated families from different social classes – the wealthy Weldons, the impoverished Pasettis, and the middle class Smithsons – who lived in the fictional rural town of Grand, Pennsylvania. The show was a satire that featured story arcs which carried through several episodes, and mocked soap opera conventions in the vein of Soap.

Pamela Reed starred as Janice Pasetti, a former homecoming queen living in a trailer with her daughter Edda (Sara Rue), while working as a housekeeper for the Weldons, the wealthiest family in town. Harris Weldon (John Randolph) is the family's patriarch and owner of Grand Piano Works, a piano factory starting to fall on hard times due to foreign keyboard imports. Also living in the Weldon mansion were Harris' dimwitted son, Norris (Joel Murray) and his acerbic butler, Desmond (John Neville), whom Harris kept despite his acid tongue as he had once been responsible for saving his life.

Janice also worked for Harris' niece Carol Ann Smithson (Bonnie Hunt), who lived a middle class life with her ambitious husband Tom (Michael McKean), who was always attempting to get an executive position at the factory. Janice also spent her time fending off the advances of Wayne Kazmurski (Andrew Lauer), a motorcycle cop.

Grand ran for two shortened seasons in 1990, with thirteen episodes from January to April, and twelve more from October to December, with one left unaired. The first season follows Harris' attempts to secure a date to a ceremony honoring him at Carnegie Hall, Tom's attempts to hide from Carol Ann his teenaged son from a previous marriage, and Harris allowing Desmond to believe that he was actually Norris' father, although Harris knew it was not true. By the time production began on the first season finale, NBC had still not committed to another season. Believing the show would be cancelled, the finale was entitled "Blow Off," an apparent stab at NBC's indecision regarding the show. The episode concluded with the town of Grand being devastated by a tornado and the disappearance of the entire cast, save for Wayne.

However, the show's ratings, finishing 15th among mid-season shows, proved high enough for NBC to renew the show and given the prized Thursday 9:30pm slot. But by the time executives made their decision, at least two cast members (Michael McKean and Andrew Lauer) and several members of the production had already committed to other projects. This took the show in a dramatically different direction, with the first episode dealing with what became of Janice's trailer rather than answering questions about the characters who had disappeared. The second episode wrote out Michael McKean's character offscreen, making him an illegal alien who had stolen $50,000 from a Texas Savings and Loan and used the tornado as a means to disappear when the FBI began to close in on him. Andrew Lauer's characters, along with all recurring cast members and their storylines (with the exception of Pamela's ex-husband Eddie, played by Ed Marinaro) were dropped with no explanation.

The pseudo-soap opera format was then abandoned, followed by standard, stand-alone situation comedy episodes, and ratings steadily declined. The soap opera aspect was revived in the final four episodes, but instead of relatable storylines about class relations, the arcs were more outrageous and improbable, involving witchcraft, gangsters, a possible corporate takeover of the piano factory and Carol Ann's decision to adopt a teenager who was raised by wolves. The show was then cancelled, with its final episode left unaired.

Cast and characters

Pamela Reed as Janice Pasetti

Michael McKean as Tom Smithson (s. 1)

Bonnie Hunt as Carol Ann Weldon Smithson

Andrew Lauer as Wayne Kazmurski (s. 1)

John Neville as Desmond

Joel Murray as Norris Weldon

Sara Rue as Edda Pasetti

and John Randolph as Harris Weldon

The whole show is on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@Grand1990NBCSitcom

"If you're gonna play, play it grand!"

[Contessa Donatella]

Ran into a fan this weekend who is on a Falcon Crest site & he's doing comparisons of Lorimar Productions. Apparently there was a lot of movement of personnel between & among the different shows. Specifically what he was looking for right now is video that shows footage that was used in Falcon Crest that was also used either in Secrets of Midland Heights or King's Crossing. And he was finding common footage like that. So many feature movies. So many movies of the week. So many sitcoms & family dramas. And, then, it looks like about 10 primetime soaps including Dallas, Falcon Crest & Knots! Flamingo Road & Secrets of Midland Heights & King's Crossing not successful. But, maybe King's Crossing was a forerunner of Dawson's Creek. Homefront & Sisters & Lace all successful. 

[te.]

Promo for Aaron Spelling's little heard of The Round Table, which debuted on NBC in the same season as Melrose Place:

 

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Theme songs: 

 

[DRW50]

Thanks. I don't remember hearing of this show. Or if I did I've forgotten it. The early '90s is such a clear identity crisis for primetime soaps as they try to move into what was seen as a more scaled-back, "intelligent" era. It would take Melrose Place blowing up (in more ways than one) for that to stop. 

[te.]

Well, Freshman Dorm is on archive.org at the moment - it aired together with 2000 Malibu Road during the summer of 1992 as counter-programming against 90210 and Melrose Place. It stars among others Robin Lively, Matthew Fox and Casper Van Dien. I will say it's sort of a basic soap set up - three girls from different backgrounds sharing a dorm room and it's definitively soapy. You have the naive midwestern girl (Lively), the hispanic girl from a blue collar home having to work to make it through college and the rich tart who loves all the guys (but has especially taken an eye for the lone black guy at the dorm). 

I'll say it's very soapy from the start and would've made a fun night along with 2000 Malibu Road - shame they threw it away on programming it against THOSE 90210 summer episodes as it stood no chance against manwhore Dylan cheating with that snake Kelly against poor innocent and sweet Brenda! If CBS had actually programmed the shows another night and been able to order more episodes they might've gotten something going with that elusive 18-49 demographic.

Edited February 18, 2024 by te.

[teplin]

I never heard of it either, or I surely would have watched it (at least once) to see AW alums David Ackroyd and Alexandra Wilson. 

Did they actually get David Bowie to license "Young Americans" to them, or is this some fan edit?

[te.]

It did apparently serve as the theme song, yes. I doubt the show had any fans to make fan edits either way...

[Jagger1966]

I remember when this show was on but it was cancelled after just 4 or 5 episodes.

[te.]

If anybody was wondering, Freshman Dorm quickly killed this off post-pilot and had Justin Lazard join as the Rebel Without A Cause (aka the Dylan McKay for college) character. In the third episode we get to know more about he-of-the-leather-jacket in the California heat - he can not only recite Shakespeare from memory (in a particularly awkward moment when a teacher got confrontational, something which I've never experienced irl) and had an abusive marine father who didn't appreciate how his son totally had his head in the books at the library.

[Paul Raven]

Some info on The Round Table

NBC Fri @9 Opposition  CBS Designing Women/Bob

                                         ABC Dinosaurs/Camp Wilder

                                         FOX sightings/Likely Suspects

Good counter programming and none of the opposition looked particularly strong.

But it never took off and by November NBC put movies in its place.

NBC s warren Littlefield commented:

As I looked at some of the shows that we had out there on Friday night, they weren't the right shows. Do I think, strategically, that a Friday night soap opera could be successful with a broad based television audience to try and skew it down a little bit from the kind of 50 plus skew that Dallas ended up having? Yes. I think that's a smart strategy. We had to look very closely at The Round Table and say: "Will that be that show ?" The feeling was no. That doesn't mean strategically I still don't think we have an opportunity on Friday night to offer that kind of programing.

Maybe they went too young with Round Table.

Cast -some past and future daytime names there

• David Ackroyd as Senator Jack Reed
• Roxann Biggs as Jennifer Clemente
• Tom Bresnahan as Mitchell Clark
• David Gail as Danny Burke
• Stacy Haiduk as Rhea McPherson
• Erik King as Wade Carter
• Pepper Sweeney as Deveraux Jones
• Jessica Walter as Anne McPherson
• Alexandra Wilson as Kaitlin Cavanaugh (episode 3+)

[Khan]

Perhaps, they did, but I also think that Friday night just was the wrong night for that kind of show.  I mean, I get the counter-programming strategy, but I also think NBC needed to take into account the typical viewing habits of most young adults during that period.  True, ABC's younger-skewing TGIF lineup had been successful in the past, but I think that was because the majority of their audience were families and pre-teens who were allowed to stay up later on Fridays because it wasn't a "school night."  The kind of audience that a show like RT needed - teenagers, college-aged kids, young adults in their 20's and 30's - aren't gonna be home as often on Friday nights as families and little ones.

[Liberty City]

Finally beginning Melrose Place for the first time. Exciting.

[te.]

Have fun! Even if people keeps dragging up Amanda as the moment the show changed, I'd argue they started having their first serialized moments (beyond the lame 90210 cross-over) earlier than that - around episode 11 if I remember correctly.

[Liberty City]

So far so good for a '90s primetime soap. I'm on episode three, I think?