Two episodes of Angel Falls (CBS, 1993) are on YouTube, though they were uploaded three years ago I've never seen them:

1.5 Lost Souls:

1.6 The Fall From Grace:

 

 

Thanks @te. I know little about this show.

On 6/7/2025 at 10:59 AM, Forever8 said:

Some kind soul has uploaded all three seasons of Once and Again (1999-2002) starring Sela Ward and Billy Campbell. 

Season One 

 

Season Two 

 

Season Three 

 

Since only the first two seasons were ever released on DVD, I never saw the last year. I was heartbroken, but eventually gave up waiting for the series to ever turn up streaming anywhere. Thank you for this news; I never would have known, otherwise!

 

Edited August 6Aug 6 by vetsoapfan

Angel Falls only had 6 episodes and it ended with multiple cliffhangers.  The least CBS could have done was pick up one additional episode and/or two hour made for tv movie to tie up the loose ends.

 

On 8/6/2025 at 10:11 PM, Soaplovers said:

Angel Falls only had 6 episodes and it ended with multiple cliffhangers.  The least CBS could have done was pick up one additional episode and/or two hour made for tv movie to tie up the loose ends.

CBS had a period in the early 90s where they seemed to do short test runs of shows in the summer - 2000 Malibu Road, Freshman Dorm, Angel Falls and of course Northern Exposure, which actually did get a successful long run. To be honest, I would've ordered another batch of episodes of 2000 Malibu Road to air in the Knots Landing spot since it had an extended break in March / April. 

Angel Falls also didn't do too badly and could've easily had another batch of episodes ordered. But I suspect they were all in on Second Chances being their soapy Knots replacement. 

I found 3 short-lived primetime soaps with full runs on YouTube. Party of Five spin-off Time of Your Life, The Street and Hyperion Bay. I remember loving The Street but I never bothered with the other two.

I decided to start with Hyperion Bay since I found it interesting that there is a retool mid-season led by Frank South. Something interesting about this show is that it's one of the few projects Bernie Lechowick did without his wife Lynn Marie Latham. So far, it's incredibly dull. It's the typical story of a guy going back to his small town and reunites with his distant family and friends. 

If anybody is interested in watching any of them, here are the links:

 

 

I just started episode 8 of Hyperion Bay and they finally had a good episode! Episode 7 was written by Bernie Lechowick and felt very much like the Lechowick/Latham era of Knots Landing. The dated tech business stories took a back seat and they focused more on the relationships with the various characters. It was centered around a high school reunion which allowed you to understand why everybody feels the way they do. 

Episode 9 is the last episode before the reboot and they finally seem to be heading in a nice direction. I wonder if this could've worked had the network been more patient. The cast is strong, it's really the writing that has let them down. This is one of Sydney Penny's strongest roles.

On 8/22/2025 at 1:55 AM, Chris B said:

I remember loving The Street but I never bothered with the other two.

I remember watching the first few episodes back in ~ 2010, when someone first uploaded the whole series to YouTube. I think I made it to episode six before I lost interest. During the pandemic I thought, "Alright, let’s give this another try," but honestly, it still felt like a slog to get through.

I can’t even pinpoint the main issue. The cast wasn’t that bad, and a few of the characters were actually pretty entertaining to watch. But the central couples were dull and completely lacked chemistry, most of the backstories were weak or barely developed, and bringing in Jennie Garth as a "vixen" didn’t work either, since she only interacted with two characters: her love interest and her brother. On top of that, they’d already thrown another blonde troublemaker (Bridget?) into the mix right after the pilot, and by then it felt like the writers had painted themselves into a corner with too many storylines before the show even had a chance to take off.

Jennie Garth looked stunning, though, and it was good seeing her step into a role so different from Kelly Taylor (The $treet only aired a couple of months after 90210's cancellation).

On 9/2/2025 at 12:24 PM, Huntress said:

I can’t even pinpoint the main issue.

I can. There just wasn't much happening overall. It was like Darren Star had gotten so burnt by the Central Park West fiasco that he decided to write something incredibly bland with a bit of sex thrown in due to the Sex and the City success. You could tell that Fox seriously struggled to market the show too as there just wasn't material to really create anything exciting from.

It's a shame really, because I do think it had the potential to be a good soap if they had gone all in on it. Of course, there was also the car crash that was Titans on NBC that season, which seemed to go in the other direction and just be full-out trash to the point of caricature but none of the things that makes prime time soaps compelling.

The Primetime soap I wish I could see that is little talked about is a show called W.E.B that briefly aired in the fall of 1978 for a few episodes that starred Pamela Bellwood (Claudia from Dynasty) playing a ball busting female executive at a television network (I think their inspiration was the movie Network from 1976).

An interview with Ms. Bellwood about the show.

https://texasarchive.org/2010_01470

54 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

The Primetime soap I wish I could see that is little talked about is a show called W.E.B that briefly aired in the fall of 1978 for a few episodes that starred Pamela Bellwood (Claudia from Dynasty) playing a ball busting female executive at a television network (I think their inspiration was the movie Network from 1976).

An interview with Ms. Bellwood about the show.

https://texasarchive.org/2010_01470

There's this tidbit for the Washington Post about the first time Network was shown on TV:

"Even before CBS could schedule its showing of "Network," NBC began airing its answer to the film, a perfectly terrible series about a mythical fourth network. Trans Atlantic Broadcasting, called "W.E.B." The tidy irony here is that the program was created by producer Lin Bolen, who was said to have been (and who has said she thinks she was) the model for the Diana Christenson character played by Faye Dunaway in "Network." Bolen was formerly a programming executive at NBC.

Chayefsky has denied repeatedly that he based the character on Bolen or that, as was reported, he followed her around taking notes he did follow around such network news luminaries as John Chancellor(NBC). "I wouldn't know Lin Bolen if she were sitting here right now." Dunaway did meet Bolen, Chayefsky says, but that was after the script was written."

And she continued to deny the connection right up until her obituary in 2018

"Bolen worked for NBC in the 1970s and was responsible for commissioning the long-running game show Wheel of Fortune. She also is credited with bringing long-form narrative to soap operas, expanding them to hour-long formats.

It was long rumored that the ruthless Faye Dunaway character of Diana Christiansen in the 1976 satirical film Network was based on Bolen, something Bolen denied.

She was appointed VP of daytime programming at NBC in 1972, rising to become the VP of programming in Sept. 1975. NBC thrived under her leadership, becoming the No. 1 network in ratings."

Edited September 4Sep 4 by j swift

TV Guide March 9-15 1985

There Could Have Been Plastic Surgery forJ.R.—and a Coffin for Bobby

On Dallas and other prime-time soaps, writers keep many plots ready for emergency use

By Jason Bonderoff

Was Jock Ewing supposed to return to Dallas almost three years after his death—just as Miss Ellie and Clayton Farlow were saying “I do’? Or how about plastic surgery for J.R.? Or Dynasty's Alexis Carrington with an Italian accent? Or Chase Gioberti’s champagne going down the drain on Falcon Crést? Those tantalizing tidbits are just some of the story ideas that were dreamed up for prime-time serials but never made it from the conference table to the typewriter. Other plot lines that made it all the way to the TV screen have been quietly laid to rest—and new characters have faded into the woodwork—after a brief, unsuccessful episode or two. Established characters sentenced to death by the scriptwriters sometimes get a stay of execution—for reasons having nothing to do with the plot.

Take Saturday, Sept. 23, 1978. On that night, Dallas became a weekly series and Bobby Ewing was scheduled to become a corpse. In the five-part miniseries that preceded it, Pamela Barnes, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, had married Bobby Ewing, the only salvageable sibling in a family of greedy vipers. Now, in episode’ six, the handsome prince was supposed to die, while his young widow stayed on at Southfork to  fight for her rightful share of the power and profits. What saved Bobby from premature extinction? According to executive producer Philip Capice, “Once we saw the chemistry between Victoria Principal [Pam] and Patrick Duffy [Bobby], we realized that it would be a terrible waste to abort that relationship.

So instead of killing Bobby off, we slowly began to adjust his character. In the beginning, when Pam married him, Bobby was really the company Lothario. Over the years, he evolved into a caring husband and a sharp businessman, a formidable opponent for J.R.”

Bobby's brother Gary (who now resides on Knots Landing) got off to an even iffier start on Dallas. At first, the writers couldn't decide what to call him. In one early script, Pam referred to him as “Greg”; later Miss Ellie called her son “Carl” and finally everyone settled on “Gary.” Miss Ellie once praised Gary’s artistic talent while bemoaning his weakness for cards and alcohol. Today, Gary's sketches are probably stashed in a bedroom closet at Southfork; but his battle with the bottle persists. However, the Knots Landing writers have forgotten all about his self-destructive, habitual gambling. Ted Shackelford, who plays the role, recalls, “A few seasons ago, we did  a show where Laura Avery's father was visiting and we all sat down to a friendly game of poker at Karen's house. When I saw the script, I said, ‘Listen, guys, Gary’s a compulsive gambler—that's the same as being a recovering alcoholic. He just wouldn't sit down to a friendly game of poker with Laura's dad or anybody.’ But they said, ‘Forget about it,’ and I was overruled.”

All the prime-time soaps suffer from selective amnesia. There's little loyalty to a storyline that's run out of steam or a character who's left town. On Falcon Crest, Chase and Maggie's daughter, Vickie, fled the Tuscany Valley after her honeymoon because she found her husband in bed with his ex-wife. Vickie divorced him and is now in New York pursuing a dance career, but apparently unable to afford an apartment with a telephone. She didn't even bother to call—let alone send a get-well card—when her mother underwent brain surgery last season.

Some shows try harder than others for storyline vérité. According to.Mark Harmon, who plays Dr. Bobby Caldwell on St, Elsewhere, ‘At least on our show, when they want to get rid of someone, they build towards it over a few episodes. They don't just send you off a cliff in an exploding car.” When the powers that be at St Elsewhere decided to drop Dr. Wendy Armstrong (Kim Miyori) from the cast, her character came front and center for several episodes of the show. Wendy, the perfectionist, was revealed as a secret bulimia sufferer whose emotional balance was, at best, precarious. When her hasty misdiagnosis led to a patient's baby being stillborn, Wendy went home and quietly committed suicide. Miyori remains philosophical about her departure. “If I had to leave, at least Iwent out with a big bang.”

Some characters go out not with a bang, but with hardly a whimper. Last season, a mystery man named Calvin Kleeger appeared on Falcon Crest. According to Richard Herd, who played the role, Calvin—a wine distributor of dubious distinction—was slated to “share a dark past with Angela Channing” and become her partner in crime in preventing her nephew Chase from bottling his brand-new line of champagne. But that plot was barely uncorked when it started fizzing out. Kleeger made a hasty exit and a new storyline was devised in which Angela married her attorney, Phillip Erikson.

With 10 to 15 regulars on every primetime soap, peripheral characters like Kleeger are usually doomed from the start. “Much as we like them, it's even difficult involving Ray and Donna, who are Ewings, in mainstream stories," says Dallas's Phil Capice. “Most of our key characters—J.R., Sue Ellen, Bobby, Miss Ellie—all live under the same roof. Ray and Donna live in their own little house, a car drive away. They're not privy to all the intrigue and goings-on at Southfork.”

Dallas has another tried-and-tested rule for ratings success: never keep J.R. an underdog for too long. “On one occasion,” says Capice, “when Miss Ellie removed J.R. as head of Ewing Oil, our mail increased fivefold. The bottom line from viewers was: ‘Why are you giving J.R. such a hard time? Put him back in control where he belongs'—and we did."

Dallas faced an especially critical juncture in the summer of 1980. The previous season had ended with a phenomenal cliffhanger: the shooting of J.R. Right after that, Larry Hagman decided to renegotiate his contract; and when filming resumed, Larry and the show still hadn't come to terms. “We could have opened the new season by pronouncing J.R. dead," says Capice, “but that didn't make sense because the character was too pivotal." To buy the writers time, a double was hired to play the critically wounded J.R. “He was only shown being taken from his office on a stretcher and whisked away in an ambulance. Viewers had no inkling that it wasn't Larry Hagman under all those tubes and bandages.”

What if Hagman hadn't re-signed? “We would have gone with a somewhat different scenario," says Capice. “J.R.'s ambulance, traveling at breakneck speed, would have been hit by another vehicle en route to the hospital. As a result of the accident, J.R. would have needed plastic surgery. We could have kept his face in bandages for several more shows, then unveiled a new actor in the role when the time was right. Would it have worked? Fortunately, we never had to find out.”

Dynasty faced a similar problem with the casting of Alexis Carrington. Several actresses, including Sophia Loren, were under consideration, but no one had been hired. So, in her first appearance, Alexis was seen on screen for only a few seconds, simply as a mystery woman hidden under a black veil. An anonymous extra played the part. Later, the veil was lifted and—voila—Joan Collins.

Other real-life events can dictate some pretty sharp turns, too. When Dallas star Jim Davis died in 1981, Jock's off-screen demise had to be postponed for several, months because the show was in the middle of dealing with another tragedy— Kristin Shepard's corpse had just turned up in the Ewing swimming pool. “How could we sensibly compound the murder of a woman with the death of the head of the family within moments of each other?" explains Capice. “So we sent Jock off to South America, but kept him alive with phone calls until we found an appropriate time in the story to give Jock's  passing the dignity it deserved.”

For a time, the writers and producers seriously considered recasting Jock (remember, his body was never found after his helicopter collided with that plane). But ultimately, says Capice, “We felt it would be wrong to do so out of respect for Jim, whom we all loved very much. Moreover, we still had Miss Ellie, the mother figure, to hold the clan together.”

That's why Miss Ellie didn't bite the dust when Barbara Bel Geddes retired at the end of last season. Instead, Donna Reed was immediately hired to replace her. “With Jock gone, we couldn't afford to lose Miss Ellie, too,” explains Capice. “We need someone to represent parental authority at Southfork.”

It's easier, of course, to write out secondary roles. But Dallas's Fern Fitzgerald found an ingenious way to keep her character, Marilee Stone, from fading into the shadows. In fact, all it took was a gradual lightening—of her hair, that is. When Fitzgerald started on the show in 1979, Marilee was a total nonentity—just one of Sue Ellen’s gossipy pals on the Daughters of the Alamo luncheon circuit. Today, she’s a bona fide oil tycoon and a bikini-clad sexpot who's wheeled, dealed and bedded both Cliff and J.R. What made the writers jump up and take notice? “I owe it all to my manicurist,” says Fitzgerald. "She's a devout Dallas fan and one day she pointed out that Linda Gray and I are both the same height and, at that time, were brunettes with matching hairdos. ‘Fern,’ she said, ‘you'd better change your look or nobody's going to notice you when Linda Gray's on screen.’ So, a shade at a time, I went from brunette to blonde and it worked. The next thing I knew, when J.R. was shot, I was a prime suspect and there I was, little Marilee Stone, running my own oil company, suing the Ewings and trying to seduce Bobby!”

It's a good thing Fern Fitzgerald doesn't bite her nails, or Marilee might be somewhere in New York with Vickie Gioberti in an apartment with no phone!

 

On 9/17/2022 at 8:50 PM, te. said:

Someone should reboot Peyton Place if there's any show.

Should a Peyton Place reboot feature a new version of the Kim Schuster character that Kimberly Beck played on the original TV series?

5 hours ago, FlyRightOrchestraGuy said:

Should a Peyton Place reboot feature a new version of the Kim Schuster character that Kimberly Beck played on the original TV series?

That's probably one of the last stories I'd think of recreating if they rebooted Peyton Place.

16 hours ago, Chris B said:

That's probably one of the last stories I'd think of recreating if they rebooted Peyton Place.

@Chris B Why?  Remember that scene where Kim Schuster secretly witnessed Joe Chernak (Don Quine) getting fatally injured in a fall?