Return To Peyton Place Discussion Thread

[Paul Raven]

It really only left the possibility that Alison had come to some harm.

Why wouldn't she make some contact with her parents?

[Chris B]

Trauma. They didn't have the mental health services we have now. I always took it as her needed to get away and reinvent herself away from Peyton Place. I could buy her not contacting her family for a few years, then when Return to Peyton Place picked the story up, I would've played those beats and have Allison, Elliot and Connie unpack all of that. 

[jam6242]

From 1972.

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Edited January 25, 2023 by jam6242

[SoapDope]

Ron Russell appears in the ad for Zody's circa 1976.

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[Khan]

I wonder if they would have been better off starting the story all over again and calling it, simply, PEYTON PLACE.

[SoapDope]

I know very little about this shows ratings and wonder what reaction it got from fans of the original series. It appears many of the roles were recast quickly during it's short run. 

I have only seen one small promo for it surface on youtube. I wonder f the entire run exist somewhere ? More than likely it has been trashed or was wiped by the network to reuse the tape. 

[Paul Raven]

Would viewers have been happy to watch a story unfold that they had already seen?

 

I think Rodney was replaced within a few weeks as the actor must have been poor.,

Then Bettye Ackerman was replaced as Constance, Kathy Glass left and Lynn Loring was brought in as Betty.

So really not much more than any new soap.

As for whether that show exists there is a possibility that as a 20th Century Fox production it might be sitting in a warehouse somewhere.

The question always remains as to what happened to overseas copies ? RTTPP played in Australia. Were the tapes destroyed or returned?

[Khan]

Probably not, @Paul Raven.  On the other hand, because it (the daytime series) was being produced after the primetime series - with different actors, producers and writers - it is likely that the daytime series would have diverged from the primetime one, just as the primetime series ended up diverging from the movie, and the movie from the book.

[SoapDope]

It would be interesting to find out if copies still exist of RTPP. I figured a company like 20th Century Fox would be good with their archives, but read somewhere that they no longer have the masters to some of their shows and films. Whey they did a DVD release of the series Room 222 several years ago, the quality was beyond horrible. They had to rely on beat up/scratched up 16mm prints. People on Amazon thought it was a joke.

 

[Chris B]

I don’t think that would’ve mattered. I feel like this show just didn’t get long enough to develop. 
 

I’ve read it got better throughout its run and the ratings weren’t bad. I feel like if the show had another year or two it would’ve cemented itself in the NBC lineup. It shocks me they gave up so quick considering it was a name show. 
 

I always hold out hood at least one episode will pop up. We’ve had shows considered lost pop up in recent years so I keep my fingers crossed for this. I do believe the run is likely saved but nobody will be looking for it. 

[te.]

Unfortunately, with How To Survive a Marriage being a pet project plus the line up of Days / Doctors / Another World flying so high I guess they expected more from Return to Peyton Place, despite being slightly higher rated than Somerset. If they had bumped that off instead who knows if NBC daytime had developed differently. Probably not though.

[danfling]

I wonder if the episodes of both Return to Peyton Place and The Best of Everything are in existence.  

[danfling]

Actress/producer Lyn Loring (Betty #2 on NBC's Return to Peyton Place) passed away at the end of last year.  Her death is now being announced.

[Paul Raven]

This article provides some extra tidbits about final storylines

SYRACUSE NEW TIMES, FEBRUARY 17, 1974

All’s Well That Ends Well by Billy Altman

I had a truly religious experience about three weeks ago. It had come to my attention that one of the NBC soapers, Return to Peyton Place, was being cancelled, to be replaced by a new “contemporary” daytime series called How to Survive a Marriage. Having watched Return to P.P. on and off for the last year or so (this being largely attributed to the fact that it was on right after Another World, which I watched faithfully for six years now, I decided to watch the entire last week that it was on. I mean, what happens on a soap opera when it’s being offed? Do the characters just continue on their own merry/miserable way? Do the writers leave everything hanging  so as to thumb their noses at the slobs who let the program die a quick death? I just had to know.

Well, for those of you who never watched the show and judging by the  ratings, that should be just about all of you, I'll run through the plots as quickly as possible. Are you all sitting down?

Allison McKenzie had been working at her father Eliot Carson’s newspaper, The Clarion. She has been despondent ever since Rodney Harrington, her teenage love got married to Betty Anderson Miss Prim and Proper. Eliot had left  for Europe on business, because he and Connie also Allison’s mom, weren't getting it on too well anymore. Connie has been friends with Mr. Nice Guy, Dr. Rossi, for years, and though he gets engaged to one of his nurses, Celina, he and Connie go to a motel one night for an evening of wonderlust and assorted mayhem. Rossi then gets married, but leaves Connie pregnant. Of course, Celina finds out about it and confronts Connie at her bookstore. This results in Connie falling (or was she pushed?) off a ladder winding up in hospital with an aborted pregnancy. Meanwhile, Norman Harrington and wife Rita are running their little restaurant. Rita is pregnant-but surprise! it's Norman's baby. On soapers, babies born of legal parents are so rare as to be somewhat shameful.

Monica and Tom help out the restaurant, and Tom has finally confessed that yes, he was once a doctor years ago but when a young girl died in his car after an accident he lost his licence. Negligence and all that.

This takes us up to the last week and I must admit that I have never in my life seen such action on a soaper than I did those last five days. Everybody to the kitchen and stand up for this part. It would do you well to look up at a row of strategically placed boxes of AIl Tempa-Cheer and Spic and Span, with a new tube of Gleem ready on the shelf just in case. Monica goes to Boston and finds out that an old couple had moved the body of the young girl in Tom’s car, thereby accidentally causing her death. She gets them to tell the police the whole story and Tom's licence is unrevoked. Tom can now freely ask Monica to marry and they elope.

Connie comes home from hospital and Eliot comes back from Europe begging Connie to take him back. Dr Rossi freaks out and begs Connie to run away from him. Connie, strong woman that she is, tells Rossi that that would only make everyone miserable in the long run, and that she would take Eliot back. So Rossi takes Celina to the Virgin Islands on a belated honeymoon, and now only two of the four are unhappy. Let’ s hear it for self sacrifice.

Keeping up the pace, Betty finds out that Rodney (Harrington, remember?) wants a divorce so he can marry Allison, and Betty gets so angry that she actually gives him one. Helping this along is the fact that the wealthy Peytons like Betty a lot and will provide for her and her son, who was not really fathered by Rodney anyway but by Stephen Cord, Betty’s first husband whom she divorced to marry Rodney but who she (obviously) continued to fool around with. Stephen, in turn, is the illegitimate son of old man Peyton by his housekeeper, Mrs. Cord, thus making Betty’s baby old man Peyton's illegitimate grandson! Don’t ask how any of that happened, just take my word for it. Se here’s a helpful household hint: The next time a soap opera is being cancelled, start watching it with your friends and get a betting pool on divorces, births, separations and reconciliations. Maybe Parker Brothers could make a game out of it.

[slick jones]

Great article @Paul Raven. Thanks for sharing!