SOD March 14th 1995

A "Dynasty" in the Making.

Richard and Esther Shapiro,the creators of Dynasty and its spin-off The Colbys,are working on a primetime pilot for ABC tentatively called Malibu Branch.

Can we expect another glamorous over the top hour drama? "You know the way we function" Richard Shapiro laughs."it's serialized",he continues,"but it's not exactly like Dynasty.It's got more stuff in it." What kind of stuff? "it's got cops and crime," the secretive scribe reveals."It's a blending of genres-a soap and a police show".

Shapiro wouldn't confirm whether or not such Dynasty favorites as Joan Collins,who has publicly expressed interest in returning to primetime,or Linda Evans would pop up in the pilot of Malibu Branch; the casting process had just begun at press time. Nonetheless, Shapiro predicts that soap fans will love the show."I think it's a good project," Everybody's excited about it". Stay tuned for more.

I'm almost positive this sort of happened and I watched maybe the first five minutes, it was a TV movie-pilot called The Colony.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colony_%28film%29

That pilot I believe is up on youtube somewhere

The 'Gold Coast' stuff looks good.

Other potential serials which I don't think have been discussed:

- '96 Hollywood Boulevard': in January 1979 there was discussion of this proposed nightly soap which was going to be paired with 'Peyton Place '79' as part of a new syndicated network platform.

- 'Potomac Fever' was a treatment Time-Life was developing. It was created by Jessica Josephson, a Washington insider. The story outlined involved a male reporter falling in love with a senator's wife, while the senator fell in love wiht a bored socialite who was looking to find herself. The senator would flirt with his aide, who wouldn't want to destroy their friendship and hooked up with a junior senator instead. The aide would become pregnant, suffer amnesia, and not know who the father of her child was. This was being developed in lae 1976.

- 'XXs & OOs': A proposed nightime drama from the early 1990s focusing on the country western music scene. The pilot movie was shown several times on WE over the years. I have it somewhere, but I don't remember what happened in it.

You're right. I'd never heard of any of these. Thanks. They sound interesting, especially that weird Potomac Fever soap.

An October 1983 Digest interviews Gloria Loring about her decision to stay with DAYS, which surprised many, as she'd pretty much said she was done no matter what. She mentioned that her contract had been up in April 1983, but she'd stayed on, because she had been negotiating a spinoff with Bill and Susan Hayes and Joe Gallison. She dropped out because Alan Thicke's talk show was supposed to move him to New York (which was the initial reason she was going to leave - but even after his talk show was kept in CA she still planned on leaving),

Edited July 20, 201114 yr by CarlD2

October 1993 SOU:

Richard and Esther Shapiro, the creating team behind the blockbuster primetime serial Dynasty, are creating a new soap opera called Malibu. The obviously California-based drama is still in the planning stages. Although we had heard that former DAYS, GH, and SB headwriter Anne Howard Bailey was being pursued to contribute to the series, our sources confirm that Pam Long (who scripted Santa Barbara's last months) will act as headwriter of the new soap. It also looks as though Long's Pretenders period drama will not find its way on NBC, but Long will adapt two Danielle Steele movies for the network.

Geesh, all of those generic-sounding California titles of the 90s. I wonder how the Shapiros would have handled their return to daytime after their primetime success.

I was trying to figure out if this would have been daytime or primetime. Was this an earlier version of the Malibu show Paul Raven mentioned above?

Do you know anything about this Pretenders show? Was this the long-heralded teaming up of Chrissie Hynde and Michael T. Weiss?

The August 1973 Daytime TV that breaks news on How to Survive a Marriage (then called From This Day Forth) mentions another NBC show in development, called If I Had a Million, which would have a "daytime serial angle." Have you heard of this?

I think the lead was always trying get rich quick schemes

Thanks. Did this make it to air?

Nope

What does anyone know about Undercurrents? It was supposed to be a NBC sci/fi show in the early 70's. Supposedly they were trying to lure a movie star, alal Mac Carey, Joan Bennett to be in it and I think I heard Eleanor Parker's name mentioned at one point.

And wasn't the Days spin off Pacifid LIves at one point? It was supposed to star Dee and include Tommy and Sandy Horton in the cast.

There were many spin offs proposed for DAys over the years

Mahattan Lives

Pacific Lives

Down on the Farm Lives

Hocksteader COunty Lives

Real lives of house wives

Texas Lives

London Lives

Russin Lives

Tranny Lives

I mean the list goes on and on

Pacific lives was supposed to include the hortons not on Days at the time like Bill, Sandy Marie etc

Manhatten Lives was the spinoff with Marlena

Does anyone know more about the proposed spinoff with Doug, Julie, Liz, and Neil, around 1983?