THE COLBYS

[Paul Raven]

Considering that The Colby's never established it's own identity, coming off as Dynasty lite, what do you posters think they should have done with a spin off to overcome those issues?

At the time, with Dynasty riding high,ABC obviously wanted to replicate the mother show's success and thought more of the same was the way to go. But the casting, writing and timeslot didn't help.

Should Jeff have been the character to move over? If not who? Or if it was Jeff should his family have been structured differently?

You guys always have great ideas, so put your talents towards your take on a Dynasty spin off!

[yrfan1983]

Woo back Pamela Sue Martin to lead the spinoff! ( no offense to Emma Samms but it wasn’t the same)

[j swift]

I think The Colby's lacked the foresight that Dynasty's popularity was waning and they needed a fresh approach; rather than leaning into more glamour and old bitches.

I would have played off of the idea of the pipeline deal that introduced the crossover with Dynasty and made ColbyCo West control the method of oil production thus creating conflict with Alexis and Dex down the road; if needed.  Then, I would've shifted the focus from Sable, Connie, and Jason to Bliss, Monica, and Miles by casting stronger actors and giving them more LA-based stories like Melrose Place. 

The pilot would end with an amnesiac Fallon standing next to a dead Jason, setting up a "Who Killed Jason?" mystery. The competition for the inheritance would now have more gravitas.  Bliss is an eco-warrior whose friends oppose Jason's pipeline, and she wants to shift ColbyCo to be more eco-friendly.  Monica is a talented executive with an eating disorder who is mad about all of the attention Miles gets from her parents, especially because she is better at negotiation.  And, Miles is a get-rich-quick kid investing his inheritance in hip-hop fashion and vitamin supplement pyramid schemes.  Jeff would still be an executive at Colby-Colorado, setting up a competition between the two companies.  Sable is pulling the strings, adapting to being single, and aging in LA while fighting with Connie for control.  And there's no need to focus on the nauseating aspects of Jason's love life.

Get rid of the Nolan Miller designs and give them a more youth-oriented look.  Get rid of the orchestral theme and give them more synth in the score.  Loosen up the hair and makeup, and make the lighting more natural.  And make it respond more to the times.  So the marketing focuses on the fact that this is Dynasty for the younger audience.  Which, to be fair, was the idea for the Dynasty re-boot.

Edited May 14, 2023 by j swift

[Soaplovers]

I would have looked at David Jacob's playbook on how to make a spinoff (Dallas was about oil and a rancher family in Texas while Knots Landing was about several upper middle class people in suburban California). and made the spin off somewhat different from Dynasty.

Instead of setting it in Calfornia.. I would have chosen a setting less used like the south.  A southern gothic prime time soap where you would encounter lots of corruption and a wealth that differed from the wealth of Denver.   Maybe set it in New Orleans.

If were to have spun off a character, I probably would have spun off Dominique or Fallon (played by Pamela Sue Martin) to be the lead.

 

[Sapounopera]

The spin off should not be about another rich family like the Carringtons. The original idea about a group of young people working in a hotel sounds more interesting.

Since they couldn't get Pamela Sue, a recast for the new series was a horrible idea. Jeff's new life in California, getting to know a woman who reminds him of Fallon, or falling with a woman who had to compete with his dead wife would be better. 

[kalbir]

The Colbys came along Fall 1985 when Dynasty was the reigning #1 show so I guess the thought process was two Dynasties were better than one. Little did we know at the time that primetime soaps were about to enter the tanking era so the timing ended up being off. Perhaps if a spinoff was done a season or two earlier it might have worked.

[Khan]

Believe it or not, I would have spun off Alexis.

The setup: through a series of moves and counter moves, Blake, Jeff and others finally succeed in getting Alexis ousted from ColbyCo.  Alexis is about to leave Denver in disgrace for a second time, when she gets word that a U.S. Senator from Colorado is set to retire (before the end of his current term) due to failing health (possibly dementia).  Alexis maneuvers her way into getting appointed to fill his seat, thereby prompting her big move to the REAL center of power in our country: Washington, D.C.

The new series would revolve around Alexis' navigation of the halls of power within our nation's capital, aided by a staff (largely inherited) of younger folks, whose cutthroat antics as they jockey for power and influence would make the Carrington and Colby's shenanigans look amateurish by comparison. 

There would be the requisite clashes with other politicians from both houses of government, the different lobbyists (mostly from the oil and gas industries), visiting dignitaries, the Washington elite, the notorious Beltway press, even the current administration at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (although, it's probably a given that we would see the president, lol).  Alliances would be built and torn down, as Alexis would go to any lengths necessary to carry out her various agendas.

There would also be an attorney from one of Virginia's founding families, who shares a past with Alexis that stretches all the way back to the 1960's, when she first arrived in the U.S. as a young model, before she met Blake Carrington.  Married to a mentally unstable woman who has been in and out of several institutions, he has been left to raise his now-adult daughter, who would function as the show's resident young bitch.  She would hate Alexis almost instantly, as she sees Alexis as a threat to her closeness with her father.  (As a matter of fact, the first-season cliffhanger could be the introduction of her mother, whom she has sprung from yet another asylum, just as her father is ready to propose Alexis.)

And there would be opportunities for humor, something that DYNASTY lacked, with the addition of Alexis' two servants (one female, one male) in her new D.C. townhouse; as well as the introduction, in the first episode, of young Nicole Morell, whose grandfather is Alexis' younger brother.  (Remember, this is occurring before Caress' arrival in Denver.). Nicole, or Nikki, is a teenager from London, whose parents were recently killed in an automobile crash, and whose grandparents are incapable of looking after her due to Jeremy Morell's high-pressure job as head of the one of the Hong Kong trading houses.  Therefore, it falls upon "Aunt Alexis" to be Nikki's guardian.  At first, Alexis isn't quite sure about this arrangement; however, the longer she's with her, the more she sees herself in her.  Plus, it's a second chance to be a mother to someone, something she had been denied with her own children with Blake.

Like I said, there would be more humor - not physical humor, but verbal wit.  I'd want it to rival the smartest sitcom of its' time in that respect.  For the first season, at least, episodes would be more self-contained, with running narrative threads, rather than a full-blown soap, as we would get to know the characters and the world they operate in.  There would be requisite crossovers with characters from the mother show (but only characters and stories that would make sense in this environment - we're not gonna just throw Krystle in D.C. just to have her and Alexis catfight in from of the Lincoln Memorial).  And we would get to see more dimensions to Alexis' character than that of just rich bitch/vengeful ex-wife particularly in her relationships with the attorney I've mentioned before, her servant/sidekicks and her grand-niece.  (In her Television Archive interview, Donna Mills said that Joan Collins told her she'd wished her writers would have written for her the way KNOTS LANDING's writers wrote for Abby.  Well, Dame Joan, ask and ye shall receive, lol.)

Bottom line, though: whether she's running an oil company in Denver, or rubbing shoulders with the prime movers and shakers in Washington, D.C., Alexis is, at her core, Alexis: a savvy, beautiful, fashionable woman "of a certain age," who is determined to play with the big boys, and win.

[DRW50]

Reading in an old TV Guide, I see a mention that Aaron Spelling wanted Barbara Stanwyck on Hotel (rather than Anne Baxter, presumably), but she was not likely to say yes as she was thinking of retiring. 

After The Colbys I guess she wished she had just retired.

[Contessa Donatella]

Today is Nov. 20, 2023 & it is an important day in soap opera history because The Colbys premiered on Nov. 20, 1985, on ABC primetime & ran until they were canceled on Mar. 26, 1987. It was a spin-off from Dynasty & its working title reflected that, Dynasty II: The Colbys. The creators were two husband-wife teams, the Shapiros & the Pollocks with Aaron Spelling as its producer. Its regular night was Thursday night at 9, before 20/20 and after The Fall Guy. But, its first outing was on Wednesday night at 10 right after the regular broadcast of Dynasty. For its first season, '85-'86 it averaged a 16.0 rating & was the 34th show overall but it was ABC's #7 ranked show. People who were talked about for the cast included Faye Dunaway, James Coburn, Doris Day & Ricardo Montelban and more some of whom did show up in the core cast who were: Charlton Heston, Barbara Stanwyck, Stephanie Beacham, Katherine Ross & Tracy Scoggins. It was set in LA & in the story some extended family members from DYNASTY were in CA. Jeff relocated & he ran into Fallon who was married to his cousin Miles. A fierce rivalry grew up between the cousins. Ricardo Montelban was in the cast. 

BREAKING NEWS! There is a YouTube channel THE COLBYS: THE COMPLETE SET. I'm sure it is named that because that is the name of the DVD set. Here is the opening link. Please if this turns out not to be everything post that info. 

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Edited November 24, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges

[Paul Raven]

Came across this list of possibilities for the role of Hutch played by Joseph Campanella. Looks like an initial wish list.

Chuck Connors

Ben Johnson

James Whitmore

Cameron Mitchell

Leif Erickson

Cameron Mitchell

George Kennedy

Glenn Ford

James Arness note said he was very tall

Stewart Granger 

Rod Taylor note stated he was younger

Rip Torn note stated that he was younger

Richard Widmark

Joel McCrea (A note said he was absolutely not interested)

Randolph Scott

Edited December 31, 2023 by Paul Raven

[Khan]

I can't say that I blame Joel McCrea for not being interested.

I always get Stewart Granger mixed up with Farley Granger, lol.

Richard Widmark is an out-of-left-field choice, unless the plan was for Hutch to be very menacing.

I swear I heard my mom tell me when I was younger that Glenn Ford was racist.

I always wish William Holden had lived long enough to reunite with Barbara Stanwyck on THE COLBYS.  (Another "dream casting": Fred MacMurray).

[Paul Raven]

My memory is that GF refused to sit next to Gail Fisher (Mannix) at an Australian TV awards ceremony where they were special guests. There may have been other instances.

[Paul Raven]

An initial wishlist for the role of Zack Powers played by Ricardo Montalban. Quite an eclectic mix here.

Keith Baxter

Edward Fox

Keith Michel

Daniel Massey

Terence Stamp

James Fox

Anthony Higgins

Anthony Andrews 

Timothy Dalton

Omar Sharif

Franco Nero

Yul Brynner

Louis Jordan

Jean le Clerc

Patrick Bachau

Chris Cazenove

Len Cariou

Richard Jordan

Frank Langella

Robert loggia

Monte markham

Aharon Ipale

Richard Harris

Chris Plummer

Seems they wanted English/European as a priority and then moved down to the likes of Monte Markham!

Strange to see Jean LeClerc in the midst of all these much bigger names.

I transcribed this from what looks like an offical document and I wonder how serious they were about some of these names. Maybe just an initial brainstorm. I'm sure some of these actors were never truly considered but who knows?

[Franko]

Now I'm curious about the men who were considered for Garrett before Ken Howard.

[SFK]

Very interesting! TFS

I'd still like to know the exact story behind Kate O'Mara and Stephanie Beacham. It's unclear if they were both up for Sable and Kate took herself out of the running, or if Kate was set for Frankie. Kate did say in an interview that Caress ended up being the better choice which makes me think she was in line for Frankie, but I'm not sure. At any rate, it's hard (reluctant!) for me to imagine Kate wasted on Frankie, which may be exactly Kate's point. 

I think Lesley-Anne Down would have been a perfect Frankie.