The Doctors

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the UK soap opera, see Doctors (BBC soap opera).

For the BBC television series produced 1969-71, see The Doctors (BBC TV series).

The Doctors
The title card used from 1980 to 1982.
Genre	soap opera
Running time	30 Minutes
Creator(s)	Orvin Tovrov
Starring	James Pritchett Elizabeth Hubbard Ann Williams David O'Brien
Country of origin	United States
Original channel	NBC
Original run	April 1, 1963–December 31, 1982
No. of episodes	5280

The Doctors was a soap opera which aired on NBC from April 1, 1963 to December 31, 1982. There were 5280 episodes produced, with the 5000th episode airing in November 1981. The series was set in Hope Memorial Hospital in the fictional "Madison", located somewhere in New England.

Originally, The Doctors was not supposed to be a conventional soap opera. It first aired in 1963 for a trial run as an anthology series with self-contained episodes about medical emergencies. When the show was brought back in 1964, the show adopted a serial form of storytelling. For most of the series, storylines revolved around Chief of Staff Matthew Powers (played by James Pritchett).

The Doctors was considered to be more risqué in storyline choices than its rival, General Hospital (which premiered on the same day). While the doctors on General Hospital worked in harmony with one another for the most part and in some cases were intimate friends, the physicians on The Doctors were much more cutthroat.

For example, Dr. Powers was put on trial for murder, was forced to rescind his Chief of Staff position, and became very depressed. Another doctor took over Powers's spot and immediately schemed to remove his allies, such as Dr. Althea Davis, from positions of influence in the hospital. In another storyline, one doctor's nurse found out that he killed his rival and made it look like suicide. When he discovered that she knew the truth, he tormented her every day at work until she committed suicide herself, allowing him to get away with the murder.

The show became very popular in the late 1960s when it was featured in advertisements for NBC's 90-minute soap bloc. The Doctors flourished when it was placed in the time slot in between Days of Our Lives and Another World, two highly rated shows.

In 1972 and 1974, the serial received a Daytime Emmy for Best Drama. In the years following, the announcer would inform the audience at the beginning of each transmission: And now, The Doctors: The Emmy-award winning program dedicated to the brotherhood of healing.

For most of its run, The Doctors was sponsored by the Colgate-Palmolive company.

Recently, SFM Entertainment reached an agreement with Colgate-Palmolive and the Hallmark Channel by which SFM would assume syndication rights to the show.

1 Ratings history
2 Core characters
3 Additional well-known actors
4 External links

[edit] Ratings history

From the late 1960s to mid-1970s, The Doctors was among the higher-rating soaps of the day. In 1973/74 the show peaked at 4th place, behind CBS' As The World Turns and fellow NBC soaps Days of Our Lives and Another World.

However, after 1975 the show's popularity went into terminal decline: 8th place in 1975-76 and 11th place from 1976-80, before falling to bottom of the pack by 1982.

[edit] Core characters

The five core characters during the series' run were:

James Pritchett as Dr. Matt Powers
Ann Williams, Bethel Leslie, and Lydia Bruce as Dr. Maggie Powers
David O'Brien as Dr. Steve Aldrich
Carolee Campbell, and later Jada Rowland, as Carolee Simpson Allison Aldrich
Elizabeth Hubbard (replaced briefly by Virginia Vestoff, 1969-1970) as Dr. Althea Davis