Somerset Discussion Thread

[toml1962]

I forgot about that. I don't know which markets it was on at 1pm. 73-74 and 74-75 it was up against AMC and it would surprise me if it had beaten that show. CBS was local programming as was NBC during those years. 75-76 ABC swapped time slots with Ryan's Hope, which would have been the show's competition. THAT show I can believe SOM would beat ratings wise, but if that were true why wouldn't they move SOM to that slot?

[toml1962]

That is the article Carl posted. Hardly a hack job. She let her guard down and said some fairly personal things about her childhood and her insecurities. Obviously she had many.

Edited May 30, 2012 by toml1962

[toml1962]

Keep meaning to post this link. You can check daytime or nighttime schedules going back to 1947 here on wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976%E2%80%931977_United_States_network_television_schedule_(weekday)

[DRW50]

March 1973 Daytime TV

[vetsoapfan]

I've also got this wedding article in my Somerset archives. Thanks for posting it, Carl. It brings back lots of memories. Ernest Thompson was a great Tony, and Renne Jarrett was my favorite Ginger, although Fawn Harriman was good too. I imagine you know that Thompson went on the write ON GOLDEN POND. Who says pretty people can't also be talented?

[DRW50]

I didn't know that.

He looks like Glen Campbell.

How many recasts did Somerset have?

If there are any articles you want to post, let me know, and if I have them I won't post them.

[vetsoapfan]

Good grief, he does sort of resemble a young Glen Campbell, although I think Thompson is better looking.

Somerset had the bad habit of writing out slews of characters, rather than replacing them multiple times, as some soaps are wont to do. There were three Tony Coopers. Douglas Chapin, who was okay in the role, followed by Thompson, whom I thought was the best, and then finally Barry Jenner, who was a decent actor, but whom I felt was miscast. There were three Ginger Kurtz Coopers: Meg Wittner, Renne Jarrett (my personal favorite), and Fawne Harriman. Another character who was recast multiple times was David Grant, with actors Ron Martin (the best, IMHO), Tom Callaway, and finally Phillip McHale (who would later be the third actor to play Tony Lord on OLTL).

[DRW50]

Ron Martin seemed to get a lot of soap press for being involved with Susan Macdonald, who played his sister on the show (I guess that relationship didn't last).

I have a soap magazine article with Fawne modeling wild fashions. I wonder if she was like that on the show.

[vetsoapfan]

Well, it was the 1970s, so many actors on many soaps wore wild fashions, LOL, but I don't recall Harriman's on-screen wardrobe being too far out.

One wardrobe choice that I hated, on another soap, was Marlena Evan's ugly, purple polyester suit which she wore throughout 1976. It seemed every time I tuned into DAYS, there was Marlena wearing that monstrosity. I loathed it.

[DRW50]

This isn't it is it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yg3Lwuqba4

[vetsoapfan]

Oh, no, this suit is MUCH LESS HIDEOUS than her 1976 purple polyester disaster.

[Matt]

I've always wondered how Fawne Harriman was on Somerset because the only thing I've ever seen her in was that 1 episode of "Charlie's Angels" she did and I've never read one good thing about her performance in it. Every comment I've read typically states that she the 1 single client the Angels had where everyone was unanimously rooting for the killer to get her just to shut her up. I can't recall the title of the episode off the top of my head, but it was Fawne played "Angela" who was a college roommate of Sabrina's who's a stewardess being stalked and left black roses and the Angels have to go undercover at the stewardess school which turns into a take-off on Airport '75 where Kelly has to land a passenger plane. I do love watching old episodes of episodic 1970s television, though, because you never know what classic soap star of the period you'll end up running into.

[vetsoapfan]

Hi, Matt. Those comments about Harriman on Charlie's Angels are hilarious! I thought she was okay on Somerset, but paled in comparison to Renne Jarrett, who was much more charming. I agree about 1970s TV; all sorts of soap stars turn up, which is fun to see!

[toml1962]

Am so frustrated because there are details from the show's first year or so that I cannot recall. One of them was a fire that broke out on the Riverboat, which was owned by Gerald and Ike, and where Marsha Davis Harding and Randy Buchanan worked. Am fairly certain this is why later in the series those characters wound up working at the Hayloft. Wondering if anyone here remembers that storyline.

[toml1962]

Fawn was on a fair amount of shows in the 1970s: Switch, Lannigan's Rabbi, Chips, Barnaby Jones and others. She got on the show the way most actors do - an audition. She was a so-so actress, and her career did not last all that long. She certainly was not the actress Jarrett was, and the original actress, Meg Wittner, was better in the role than both IMO.

In fairness, Harriman only started acting around 1970, whereas Jarrett had been around for more than a decade before SOM as a child actor.

Of all three, only Wittner is still active.