Rituals (TV series)

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Rituals is an American soap opera that aired in syndication from September 10, 1984 to September 6, 1985. Created by Gene Palumbo, Ken Corday and Charlene Keel and based on a novel written by Keel, 260 25-minute episodes were produced.

The series later aired France from 1989 to 1990 under the name La Ligne de Chance.

[edit] Storylines

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Rituals was a syndicated soap opera that first aired in September 1984. It starred a lot of well-known actors such as Tina Louise, Francine York, Mary Beth Evans, Claire Yarlett and Kin Shriner.

Rituals had several casting problems which had plagued it for the time it was on the air.

For example, the many times married Taylor Chapin was played by 3 different actresses (Jo Ann Pflug, Tina Louise and Francine York). Jo Ann quit the show, because as she was a born-again Christian, she felt she could not play the racy love scenes required with George Lazenby, who played her paramour, Logan Williams. She was replaced by Tina Louise, best known as Ginger Grant on Gilligan's Island; then by Francine York, for the show's last episodes.

Much as Santa Barbara would try to do but in a tongue-in-cheek way, Rituals sought to be overly serious, not too campy, but it just couldn't find anything original, a problem that plagues numerous soaps.

The show sought to ride on the names it could get on the show (again, much like Santa Barbara) with the likes of Tina Louise, Jo Ann Pflug (they played the same character), George Lazenby, Greg Mullavey and then soap icons like Kin Shriner.

Monte Markham was a 1970s television staple (perhaps best known as a kidnapper in Airport '77), but the show had soap actress Christine Jones at the center of the show. She was Markham's wife, Christina Robertson. Markham was Carter Robinson, a boarding school president.

Then there was the rich Chapin family, with grown kids named Brady and Taylor. The show opened with the death of the matriarch, Katherine Chapin; and the arrival of Taylor, stepping off a helicopter with a racehorse's victory wreath. Sometime later, the patriarch, Patrick Chapin, who owned two of the town's largest companies, Wingfield Mills, and Chapin Industries, would die himself.

Carter and his family were at odds with the Chapin family. All this action took place in a fictional community called Wingfield, Virginia, a community near Washington, D.C. and home to a girls school called Haddon Hall. Besides the battles between the Chapins and Robertsons, other characters mainly populated the aforementioned Haddon Hall.

Sharon Farrell, who played Cherry Lane, mother of Dakota, was good for laughs and was put to much better use on the Young and the Restless as Tricia Cast's mother.

But by far the strangest thing was the casting with young actresses with piercing eyes, in the case of Brady Chapin, a young moppet haired fellow, whose gaze was clearly supposed to overwhelm the viewers.

When none of these worked, characters would be recast with livelier specimens.

The show would actually do a contest: "There will be a murder. If you can solve the victim, the motive and the killer, you will win a prize!" In the end, though, Greg Mullavey, who was the working class dad, Eddie Gallagher was killed. The killer was his daughter, Noel (Karen Kelly); and the motive was years of physical and sexual abuse. The late Eddie's wife, Sara, (Lorinne Vozoff, Laurie Burton) was Christina Robertson's sister.

First Daughter, Patti Davis played scheming Marissa Mallory, and then was later replaced with actress Janice Heiden.

Toward the end, Carter Robinson would learn he was actually the illegitimate son of Patrick Chapin, making himself a Chapin, half-brother to Taylor and Brady. This didn't change his feelings toward them at all however.

It actually had a conclusion. Characters would marry and run away, Kin Shriner rode off on his motorbike, someone was shot. The shooter was Christina. She in turn would become a nun and tend to a wheelchair-bound Carter.