Search For Tomorrow Discussion Thread

[NothinButAttitude]

Sherry Mathis is just majestic in those grieving scenes. I just wish someone would post the episodes leading to TR's kidnapping/Travis' death. I'd really like to actually see them for once. 

[amybrickwallace]

She was one of a kind. Hard to believe, but next month will mark 24 years since Sherry's passing. 😢

[amybrickwallace]

 

Here are the SOD synopses from SFT, if anyone's interested:

 

https://classicsodsft.tumblr.com/

[DRW50]

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[Paul Raven]

 

 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2018 by Paul Raven

[amybrickwallace]

Was this the Arthur/Eunice (pre-Ann Williams) fling?

[Paul Raven]

Oct 65

David O"Brien took over the role of Fred Metcalf.

[amybrickwallace]

 

Do you know how long he was on?

[danfling]

How was the character of Rex Twinning written off this show?    Was Eunice a widow when she met Doug Martin?

[amybrickwallace]

Per Wikipedia (yes, take it with a grain of salt), Eunice was divorced from Rex when she came back to Henderson after a five year absence (and played by Ann Williams). 

[Paul Raven]

David/Fred left in 66 at some point.

[amybrickwallace]

 

Thanks. So, I guess he went from there to The Secret Storm before landing on The Doctors at the end of 1967?

[Paul Raven]

'SEARCH FOR TOMORROW' - RATING ARE DOWN AND FLOOD WATERS ARE IN

By Joanne Kaufman; Joanne Kaufman frequently writes about television.

Published: February 23, 1986

•  

To finish off the 1985 spring season - and a few characters - ABC's prime-time soap ''Dynasty'' had a bloodbath. To jettison its old format - and a few characters - this Tuesday afternoon at 12:30 NBC's daytime serial ''Search for Tomorrow'' is having, well, a bath.

A flood will engulf the fictitious Middle Western town of Henderson; subsequent days will bring the remaining characters and plotlines all into a single apartment house. ''We wanted to get everyone together so they could interact more easily and so we could concentrate more on domestic issues,'' said the show's head writer, Gary Tomlin, of the change in television's longest-running soap opera.

Formerly centered on the tangled lives and loves of the McCleary and the Sentell families, ''Search for Tomorrow,'' which made its debut in 1951, will now concentrate primarily on community pillars Jo Tourneur (Mary Stuart) and Stu Bergman (Larry Haines) - and all their children.

Soap operas routinely resort to disasters, natural and not so natural, to eliminate characters who have fallen out of favor with viewers and to boost ratings. There was an earthquake on ''Santa Barbara'' last year, an airplane crash on ''Days of Our Lives'' a few seasons back (a ploy also used recently on prime time's ''Falcon Crest''). A tornado ripped through town in the now-canceled ''The Doctors,'' and devastating fires blazed on the also canceled ''Texas'' and ''Santa Barbara''; indeed, in the past, ''Search for Tomorrow'' has also relied on ravaging flames to heat up its ratings.

The serial's executive producer, John Whitesell 2d, who joined the staff last November, hopes that the flood disaster will stave off an even worse disaster: cancellation. Currently, the viewership for ''Search for Tomorrow'' is the lowest of any daytime serial, with a 2.8 rating and a 10 share compared with a 9.1 rating and a 29 share for the top-ranked ''General Hospital'' on ABC. This means that 3.2 million viewers are tuned in daily to the NBC soap opera, while 10.7 million are following ABC's.

''We need to shake up the situation. 'Search' is in desperate need of refocusing,'' acknowledged Mr. Whitesell, who at 32 is considered something of a wunderkind in the daytime soap-opera field. He began his career directing ''Texas'' in 1981, then joined ''The Guiding Light,'' where last season he won an Emmy Award for best director.

Serious difficulties began for ''Search for Tomorrow'' in 1982 when it was moved from its 2:30 P.M. time slot on CBS to its 12:30 berth on NBC. (Because the long-running serial was not carrying over viewers from ''As the World Turns,'' CBS decided it could fare better with an entirely fresh entry, ''Capitol.'') '' 'Search' went from a network where it enjoyed the loyalty of an audience who'd been watching for 30 years,'' said Mr. Whitesell. ''It was in trouble from the day it got here.'' Though the loyal viewers of ''Search for Tomorrow'' could simply have changed channels, they were now being forced to make a choice between an old favorite and the first half-hour of a relatively new - and steamier - show, ''The Young and the Restless.''

''What we're trying to do,'' Mr. Whitesell continued, ''is come up with a revitalizing approach. When you have an irrevocable disaster, it changes your life. You don't go back the next day.

''There's something about a flood that's universal,'' he added, pointing out that he had considered several disaster options before resorting to rainfall. ''It's cleansing. A hurricane or tornado would make it hard to pick up. With a flood it's not impossible to rebuild a town, and that's what the people of Henderson will be striving to do.''

Meanwhile, Mr. Whitesell is striving to rebuild ''Search for Tomorrow'' with more ''character-based scenes.'' He and Gary Tomlin will eschew the hairpin plot turns of some of the hourlong daytime serials that over the past few years have included international crime syndicates, drug-smuggling rings and buried treasure. Instead, the show's new format will deal with what is affecting the lives of its characters at home.

''There won't be many office scenes. But this is not to say people won't have jobs,'' said Mr. Whitesell, who explained that he plans to have more contiguous sets with kitchens attached to dining rooms attached to living rooms, ''so that it will be easier to follow the characters around.''

At the ''Search for Tomorrow'' studio on East 44th Street, the 15 principals and assorted extras are slogging around in yellow, blue and pink slickers while jokingly humming ''Singin' in the Rain'' as they gamely endure the relentless aim of a water hose. ''I'm having my shower,'' says a new cast member, Jacqueline Schultz, who with David Forsyth (Hogan McCleary) will form one of the all-important-to-the-ratings romantic couples. ''At least the water's warm.''

''I've been in two fires on the show, which were awfully scary,'' says Mary Stuart, who has played Jo Tourneur, the much-married co-owner of a boardinghouse in town, and has been on ''Search for Tomorrow'' since its inception. ''What's nice about the flood is that everyone is in it. We like the reason for the flood: to turn the show around. We're part of American history, we're part of so many lives. And a lot of actors have come through the show.'' (The list includes Jill Clayburgh, Don Knotts, Morgan Fairchild, Hal Linden, Wayne Rogers, John James of ''Dynasty'' and Susan Sarandon.) ''I think it's going to be great,'' says Marcia McCabe, who has played Sunny Adamson, a reporter on The Henderson Herald, the town's daily newspaper, for more than seven years. ''We want to start with a clean slate. It's a cleansing, so the water is very appropriate. John Whitesell is very daring. Most other producers would have done something less catastrophic.''

But perhaps something catastrophic was precisely what was called for. Mr. Whitesell is up against three major problems: the serial has had a poor showing in the ratings, partially explained by the fact that ''Search for Tomorrow'' is not picked up by all of NBC's affiliates; it runs opposite CBS's ''The Young and the Restless,'' and it is a half-hour show in an era of hourlong formats.

On a 60-minute soap it is possible to have romance, comedy and mystery in a single day. In only half that time, though, it is difficult to fit in all three without being fragmented and spending large chunks of time on exposition.

''When you have a story with a lot of plot you have to do a lot of explaining,'' said Mr. Whitesell, who plans to cut back from 15 scenes per episode to eight or 10. ''That way we'll have a better chance of going into more depth - showing the audience how these characters feel about things. It's all about relatability.'' ''I don't think the half-hour problem is insurmountable - we're just going to concentrate on fewer plots and fewer people,'' said Mr. Tomlin, who wants to tackle racial issues and other themes generally not addressed by daytime soap operas. ''We're going to be feeling our way for a while. We're trying to get the characters to be identified with as strongly as audiences identified with the characters on the 'Mary Tyler Moore Show.' It's all about people.''

And, since soap operas live or die depending on the romantic interplay between their various couples and triangles, ''We're trying to get them in place. That's the thing we're trying hardest to do now,'' Mr. Tomlin added.

It will be some time before Mr. Whitesell can sit back and relax. A format change of this magnitude carries with it the possibility of alienating the core audience, and the executive producer is mindful of the risk he's running. ''You're always a little concerned about alienating veteran viewers,'' he said. ''One of the reasons that you don't change too fast is that you want to keep the continuity. But I don't know how we would alienate them because we're keeping intact all the people they love.''

''We're going to be taking a hard look at the show over the next five months,'' said Brian Frons, NBC vice president for daytime programming. ''By June we'll make the decision to keep it or replace it.

''What John is attempting to do is very difficult,'' Mr. Frons added. ''But if anyone can do it, he can. I think radical change is what 'Search' needs.''

''If people don't like the flood, obviously we can't pretend it didn't happen,'' Mr. Whitesell said. ''But I'm not anticipating they won't like it. I think it will be very beneficial to the show.''

''When I took over as head writer in early 1983,'' Mr. Tomlin said, ''I was told the show would be lucky to last until September.'' A pause. ''But we're still here.''

[danfling]

I cannot remember the name of the character played by John Sylvester White, but the character was Jo Ann's first husband.   How did he die?

[DRW50]

 

Keith Barron. I think it was a car accident.