Another Life

[Sedrick]

ANOTHER LIFE was arguably the most successful non-broadcast network soap opera in American television. It ran from 1981-1984 on cable's Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), which today is ABC Family Channel, as well as being syndicated on about two dozen or so broadcast stations. The show was billed by CBN as "the soap with hope", with the religion and spirituality of the characters being an integral theme running throughout all the storylines.

I got hooked on the show back in the early 90's when it was rerun on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) weekdays at 3:00PM CST.

Any other fans out there? Here's the excellent opening credits...

ANOTHER LIFE opening

[EricMontreal22]

Isn't this the one where someone's cancer was cured by a holy light? :S

[Sedrick]

Yes, that was the story of Bob Cummings, a cheating, hard-drinking louse of a husband who was stricken with what doctors told him was terminal cancer. Bob then turned his life over to the Lord and became a Born-Again Christian, and just as he was about to kick the bucket, a beam of light entered his hospital room and cured him. That plot twist led to the angry resignation of series co-creator/producer Bob Aaron (formerly a NBC Daytime exec), who quit in disgust.

The Cummings tale happened during the show's rocky first year or so. At that time it was obvious that TPTB didn't quite have a handle on how to incorporate the religious/spiritual aspects of the program's theme into the actual drama, and the results were...uneven, weird, and basically very dull. The storylines moved at a snail's pace and were often silly and boring (innocent young heroine Lori Davidson and her family spend WEEKS ringing their hands about nasty gossip being spread around town that Lori was sleeping with a married man).

However, in its second season, the show brought in more seasoned actors and backstage personnel from the NYC soap scene (ANOTHER LIFE was taped in the CBN studios in Virginia Beach, VA) and eventually the series began to jell. While the show was never the best soap ever, it was quite entertaining, and the drama flowed from well defined, memorable characters like Babs Farley, a wacky reformed hooker who was the show's answer to AMC's Opal; Nancy Lawson, an unapologetic venomous bitch; handsome Dr. Ben Martin, a good man who struggled to do the right thing and maintain patience with his fragile, whining wife Lori; sisters Amber and Stacey Phillips, one a bitchy glamorous model and the other a mousy bookworm who ended up stealing her sister's sexy hunk of a boyfriend; and Miriam Carpenter Mason, the town's rich bitch villain who was kidnapped and held for ransom, and when she was rescued she too became a Born-Again...but then discovered that she wasn't quite up to being good all the time.

The show often was very good, especially during the extended Kate Phillips Carothers murder mystery, a tale with so much suspense, red herrings, and surprising twists that it seemed to have been lifted right out of EDGE OF NIGHT. The show also featured one of the most diverse casts in soaps during the 80's, and the African-American characters weren't just window-dressing...they had substantial storylines of their own and were fully integrated into the program.

[JackPeyton]

there is actually a lot of this up on youtube.

Maybe you should write into hulu.com and ask them to pick it up? ya never know...

[SarahJoyBrownFF]

Me! I just posted a question about this wonderful show. Do you know where I can find the entire 3 years? I would LOVE to buy them.

[DRW50]

I'm surprised there haven't been any more religious soaps in recent years. Christopher Schmering's soap encyclopedia mentioned the original press release for Another Life, which said the show would involved drug addiction, homosexuality, and (I can't remember now) maybe pornography. I'm not surprised they decided not to tackle these issues in 1981, but it does make me wonder what their original plans were.

Is this the show where the main villainess became born again? That idea also interests me, because on most soaps, a villainess becomes good through love, or through rape, or some type aof horrible trauma.

[David V]

I recall a possession sort of storyline on the show, in fact the gimmick and effects may have even inspired Days' Possession storyline.

[DRW50]

LOLFanme has put up more episodes. They're all very interesting. They include the 1983 Christmas show, which is a mixture of family, friendship, some spiritual talk (they even mention Hanukkah, which tends to be ignored on soaps more often than not), and singing. Some of the songs are that cheesy stuff where someone's voice suddenly starts booming in their living room (like what used to happen with Karen on Knots Landing when she sang at Christmas), but others are more stripped down and fun to listen to.

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[SFK]

L!O!L! That Michele is a warbler, I heard her sing live once.

Regardless of one's beliefs, I'm just impressed by the fact that Pat Robertson and whoever threw together a soap down in VA that looked just as good as (in some cases, better than) what was going on up in NY or over in CA. I feel like anybody could do it if they really tried, we were talking about this months ago, the idea of soaps relocating to less expensive cities, but now I'm totally threadjacking. At any rate, this is interesting material, I'm glad somebody out there pressed "Record"!

Edited October 8, 2009 by SFK

[SFK]

Okay, I just had to come back and say that I am in stitches over those clips. Those musical numbers are a trip, it's like that one time Natalie sang to baby Tommy on OLTL x 4 in ONE episode, like watching a Broadway musical. Especially the older black lady's number, with the other characters it could kinda pass off as just singing, but she basically breaks out in a sung monologue standing up in the kitchen no less while that boy with the parted blow-dried '80s hair just stares up at her for what feels like five minutes. Good times, good times...

[DRW50]

An advertisement for the show, from a 9/29/81 SOD. Sorry for the slant.

[DRW50]

From the October 13, 1981 SOD. There's also a small photo of the Davidson family. If you want to see that let me know and I will scan the photo!

[edgeofnik]

I actually followed this show for some time during original run. What I liked about the show was that it had characters/people who seemed a little more 'real'.

[MontyB]

I saw every Another Life episode during it's original run. It ran here in NYC on WPIX channel 11, but then they took it off and I caught it on CBN, which was great because they repeated the days episode at 11 PM. I have old VCR tapes with episodes on them and I keep saying I'm going to go through them because that opening on YouTube is not original opening from when the series first started. It was much shorter and it didn't have the actors in it.

One of my favorite characters was Becky Hewitt played by Sue Scanell. There was story line with her in the recording studio and I'll never forget that little ditty she sang, "met a girl with a smile" (I don't remember the rest).

[DRW50]

It's great to hear from some fans of the show. I keep meaning to watch more of what is on Youtube. I agree that the characters, some of them at least, seem more real.