Search For Tomorrow Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

May would have been very good as Lloyd.

I'm still not sure why they didn't do a better job casting that part, aside from Joe Lambie. Who thought hiring Robert Reed made any sense?

[SoapDope78]

Meg Bennett as a contestant on Three On A Match (1971). I remember Meg saying on a 80's Pyramid appearance that she was a contestant on this show and said it furnished her first apartment in New York as a struggling actress. She started in SFT in 1973.

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I wonder how Janice Lynde would have been as Patti ? 

Robert Reed seemed pissy in everything he did outside of the Brady projects. Ironically, he thought the BB was beneath his talents a serious actor.  

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[DRW50]

Nice to see such an early clip of Meg Bennett.

I could see Janice fitting into the more neurotic type Patti had been. And she was also closer to the right age range.

[TEdgeofNight]

Going back abit, the Search actors HATED the Nicholson, Braxton, Avila Mayer era. I was in NYC during that time and spent alot of time outside the studio and got to know some of the actors. They were miserable. Marcia McCabe, in particular absolutely hated the Sunny suicide story. She was very very vocal about it. 

[Paul Raven]

Why was there such a turnover of writers/producers in that era?

You would think they would be looking for stability but each new team that came in changed direction , seemingly for no good reason instead of tweaking what was there.

A lot of the new characters had little chance to get established before they were gone. Surely some of them had potential to be used by subsequent regimes?

And what about bringing back writers familiar with the show ?

Would Ann Marcus, the Corringtons, Henry Slesar or Peggy O'Shea been approached or interested?

[VelekaCarruthers]

I've been looking at the ratings during and after each head writer switch.  The ratings during Marcus' tenure (Oct 74 to April 75) were very good but at first not quite as high a Upton's (who was there six months prior. Marcus left when Mary Hartman was picked up as she was a creator and head writer). I've watched Marcus' interviews on Youtube; she discusses most of the soaps she worked on. She liked the money; she's not all warm and fuzzy about writing for them. She loved nighttime genres that gave her writing more flexibility than soapy dramas. But she was good at writing soaps.  By April 75, SFT was no.2 in the ratings behind ATWT. O'Shea was next (lasted 18 months) and in May 75, SFT hit No. 1. When O'Shea left the show as still in the top five. O'Shea moved to OLTL in 77? but not as head writer so not sure why she left SFT. The Corringtons were the safest bet to keep long term. They needed to change direction by 1980 as the ratings were  dropping but still very solid 6s/low 20s share). They should have expanded the show to an hour and given the Corringtons some direction and more budget.

One has to wonder about two people who were with the show for a long time:

Mary Ellis Bunim was promoted to EP when she was about 28, amazingly and a woman! She was talented but she went through at 11 head writer changes from when she started in 1974.  Here's her list of writers:

Theodore Apstein (January 1974 – May 1974) 5 mo
Gabrielle Upton (May 1974 – November 1974) 6 mo
Ann Marcus (October 1974 - April 1975) 6 mo
Peggy O’Shea (April 1975 – November 1976) 18 mo
Irving Elman (with James Lipton) (November 1976 – Summer 1977) 9 mo
Robert J. Shaw with Charles/Patti Dizenzo (August 1977 - Spring 78) 6-9 mo?
Henry Slesar (Spring 78 to August 78) 3-4 mo?
Corringtons (August 1978 to May 1980) 1 yr/9mo
Linda Grover/John Porterfield (May 1980 to mid July 1980) 3 mo.
Gabrielle Upton (July 1980 to at least through March or April)
Harding Lemay April to June 81 writers' strike
Don Chastain (Summer 1981 writers' strike - replaced by Ellis/Hunt Dec 81 or Jan 82)

Then Fred Bartholemew comes in when Bunim goes to ATWT (Oct 81?) and he brings in Ellis Hunt for the NBC switchover, they lasted 11 months.

Mary Stuart is the other mystery to me: how was she to work with? Did she instigate many of the writer firings? Was she not involved at all. No other P&G show went through this kind of frenetic change. (The Doctors might be a close second but wasn't on as long and not P&G).

Edited 10 hours ago by VelekaCarruthers

[kalbir]

I feel CBS/P&G got really shaken by 1978-1982 ABC huge rise and domination, thus the changes to the shows.

Considering Capitol showed no growth, I wonder if CBS ever regretting cancelling Search for Tomorrow. From the 1980s Ratings thread, Capitol pretty much inherited Search for Tomorrow audience but Capitol ratings were impacted when One Life to Live rebounded in 1985 with Andrea Evans return. Remember Capitol was head-to-head with the second half of One Life to Live.

Even if CBS kept Search for Tomorrow, I think it would've ended as soon as Bill Bell had a second show ready.

Funny thing is Search for Tomorrow NBC run was only three months shorter that Capitol run.

[Khan]

I agree.  Of course, I haven't seen any of her work on DAYS or LIAMST, but I have seen her stuff on other shows (SFT, GH, LOL, FC and KL) and I think she was very, very good.  

[VelekaCarruthers]

At the start of 1982 under Ellis/Hunt (on CBS) SFT was solidly in the middle of the 13 soaps pulling in between a 7.5 and 6.5 with high 20s share. The final week on CBS the show garnered a 6.3/23. The first week on NBC and mostly thereafter, the ratings were in the middle 3s with a 12 share! I I think under Tomlin 1 and under Glynn the show might have hit over a 4 and 14 but one week only or so.  Capitol didn't get those numbers until middle of summer and in the first few months hit the 4s and low 5. By year end it was in the low 6s/23 share but struggled for the remainder of its run.  

NBC's Search was never going to get 6 / 23 shares but when they were solidly in the high 3s and 12/13 share they invariably fired the writers and producer. Dumb. 

[Paul Raven]

At the time SFT was changing writers regularly (yet maintaining good ratings) all the other CBS shows were steady.

Beginning in 75 All My Children was moved to 12.30-the first time there was soap competition.And then later Ryan's Hope was moved opposite Search. Did that impact the ratings?

ATWT-Soderbergs, TGL-the Dobsons,Y&R-Bill Bell, EON-Slesar. Only LOL was swapping out writers ,and it's ratings were low.

[Soaplovers]

I think the move to NBC dealt a huge blow to SFT that caused the show to slowly bleed out throughout their almost five year run on that network.

SFT was a CBS show and it really showed when it first started airing on NBC so I understood P &G having to make adjustments to the soap in order to make it fit onto the NBC schedule vs the CBS schedule.

The 1983 Tomlin/Lee era was probably the strongest while it was on NBC.  They managed to still focus on Stu/Stephanie/Jo while developing a strong youth focus with Wendy/Warren/Suzi/Kristen/ Brian with the comic element with Rhonda Sue and her partner.  This helped the show from staying the Liza/Travis show.. which it was in 1981/1982.

[DRW50]

I am bewildered and fascinated by the choice to have John Loprieno and Adam Storke play out all their dramatic sequences here in clown makeup. They really took that circus motif seriously.

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