Texas (TV series)

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Texas
Format soap opera
Created by John William Corrington, Joyce Hooper Corrington, Paul Rauch
Starring Beverlee McKinsey
Bert Kramer,
Daniel Davis
Country of origin Flag of the United States United States
No. of episodes 617
Production
Running time 60 Minutes
Broadcast
Original channel NBC
Original run August 4, 1980 – December 31, 1982

Texas (sometimes called Another World in Texas and, later, Texas: The New Generation) was a daytime soap opera which aired on NBC from August 4, 1980 until December 31, 1982. Created by John William Corrington, Joyce Hooper Corrington, and Paul Rauch, the show was a spinoff of Another World. It was unique in that it was the first daytime soap opera to air hour-long episodes from its inception.

Rauch's initial plans involved a historical soap centered around the period of the Civil War. The Corringtons submitted a concept for a show set in the Antebellum South entitled "Reunion", but NBC wanted something more in line with the hugely successful primetime soap Dallas. Rauch then chose to have the show revolve around the popular Another World character Iris Cory Carrington, played by Beverlee McKinsey. She and her goofy maid Vivien Gorrow (Gretchen Oehler) moved away from Bay City to live a new life in Houston and Iris became involved with first love Alex Wheeler. A slew of characters debuted on Another World in hopes that when they moved over to Texas they would take fans with them. The show had a difficult task from the beginning, as the series' main timeslot competitors were General Hospital, then at its most popular, and Guiding Light, which was going through a resurgence at the time.

Critics complained that Iris (who was known on Another World as being a villainess and a bitch) had become too tame, and that other roles were poorly cast or suffered from paper-thin writing (Texas hired General Hospital star Kin Shriner at great expense, only to give him almost nothing to do until he finally left). After a year, however, McKinsey left the show and the secondary characters seen in the first year were given more story. Texas lost one million viewers upon McKinsey's departure. While Another World, which also lost a million viewers upon her 1980 departure, could afford the drop in ratings, Texas could not, and its days were numbered. To try to appeal to the younger audience, the show rechristened itself Texas: The New Generation.

In 1982 Gail Kobe became executive producer and Pam Long (who appeared on the show as Ashley Linden Marshall) became headwriter. The show began to improve in quality but the ratings remained in the basement. The last episodes featured a Christmas miracle (snow fell in Houston as Long's character Ashley and her unborn baby, who had been presumed dead after a flash flood, returned home to loving husband Justin) and a New Year's series finale where the local TV station was bought out and all the major characters were fired. The Doctors also aired its last episode on this day. The final scene was a bittersweet final toast, "to Texas!" Executive producer Kobe and writer Long would go on to make their mark on Guiding Light for much of the 1980s.

Contents

[edit] Scheduling/Ratings History

Texas was launched at a time when NBC's daytime lineup (consisting of Another World, Days of Our Lives and The Doctors) had fallen into ratings trouble, after a highly successful period in the early and mid-1970s.

The show aired from 3-4 p.m. (EST) and caused a small domino effect on the NBC daytime schedule; Another World, which had previously been airing from 2:30-4 p.m., was scaled back to 60 minutes and aired from 2-3 p.m. The Doctors, which had been airing from 2-2:30 p.m., moved to 12:30-1 p.m. Texas was moved towards the end of its run, taking the 11 a.m.-Noon slot on the schedule. This lasted from April to December of 1982, when Texas was cancelled.

Thanks in no small part to ABC's General Hospital, which at the time was at its peak, Texas remained in the bottom echelon of the ratings chart, tying with The Doctors for last place in its inaugural 1980-81 season, with numbers falling graudally after that. However, it did impact on the ratings of Another World to the point that the mother show was no longer NBC's highest-rated soap.

The 1982 move to 11 a.m. did nothing for the ratings (largely due to the popularity of CBS' The Price is Right in that time slot), and Texas (along with The Doctors) ended its run on December 31 of that year. Strangely enough, Somerset, the first spinoff of Another World, aired its finale on the same date six years earlier.

[edit] Surviving Episodes

Soon after Texas' cancellation, cable's TBS began re-airing the show in a weekday morning timeslot, but shown in 30-minute -- not 1-hour -- installments; these airings of Texas would be paired with a new half-hour soap, The Catlins, which was one of the few made-for-cable soaps.

In 2006, Procter & Gamble began making several of its soaps available, a few episodes at a time, through America Online's AOL Video service, downloadable free of charge. Reruns of Texas episodes began with the show's first episode from August 4, 1980.

AOL now is up to episode 256 and is currently airing episodes from August,1981.

There are four missing episodes so far:

Episode #47 dated October 7, 1980 posted at AOL is the same as episode #24 and it seems to be either missing or was somehow mislabeled.

Episode #203 dated May 21, 1981 seems to be a missing episode,as AOL has not posted it.

Episode #245 dated July 21, 1981

Episode #247 dated July 23, 1981

Episodes 78-163 have been unavailable for several months,but their pages were recently removed from AOL.

Although episodes 1-77 are still available through the WMV stream URLs,AOL has completely removed the embedded player pages at the website.

It is unknown when AOL will put these episodes back up.

[edit] Famous alumni

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] Notes

  • During its initial run, Texas Lieutenant Governor William P. Hobby, Jr. took a tour of the program's Brooklyn studio, and praised the show's realistic visual feel.
  • Oklahoma Governor George Nigh and his wife Donna appeared in walk-on roles in Texas (playing themselves as Governor and First Lady of Oklahoma) in episode # 19, which aired in August 1980. Cast member Lisby Larson (Paige Marshall) serenaded the couple with a rendition of "Oklahoma!"
  • The shows opening credits included shots of the Houston skyline and the San Jacinto Monument.
  • Episode #217 features scenes with country singer Ray Stevens
  • The cancellations of Texas and The Doctors ushered in a change in NBC's morning lineup, as the lineup that premiered the following Monday was full of game shows. The block led off with the Jim Perry-helmed revival of Sale of the Century at 10:30 a.m. The hour Texas held went to Wheel of Fortune, which was returning to the 11 a.m. slot, and the game show Hit Man, which introduced audiences to Peter Tomarken. The slot that The Doctors occupied was taken by Just Men!, hosted by Betty White. Of the shows that premiered that day, Sale lasted until 1989, but Hit Man and Just Men! were cancelled after only 13 weeks.
  • When Texas was moved from the 3 p.m. slot, reruns of CHiPs aired there first for a few months. Then two game shows followed it in that slot. The first was Fantasy, an hourlong audience participation show hosted by Leslie Uggams and Peter Marshall. The second was the Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour, hosted by Gene Rayburn and Jon Bauman. A soap opera would not air in that slot again until July 1984, when Santa Barbara premiered.