Forgotten soaps of the 90's

[tommie]

I’ve never seen this show but have read about it (I think Jason Gedrick was among the cast?). It’s another one of those shows that seems like an odd fit for CBS at that moment in their history, similar to when they tried to go “hip” a few years later with Central Park West when their bread and butter had been older skewing series like In The Heat of the Night and Murder She Wrote.

I think it's worth remembering that they had success with launching Northern Exposure in the summer two years earlier and that did well in the A18-49 demographic - it's explicitly mentioned in all these articles about these late-summer runs for these short-lived shows they had in the early 90s. This is why I'm baffled they didn't attempt to do more with 2000 Malibu Road if they had always planned to air it in the summer - unless Spelling actually insisted that they wouldn't run it against his other shows and they refused I'm not sure why they wouldn't pick up more.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

I think it's worth remembering that they had success with launching Northern Exposure in the summer two years earlier and that did well in the A18-49 demographic - it's explicitly mentioned in all these articles about these late-summer runs for these short-lived shows they had in the early 90s. This is why I'm baffled they didn't attempt to do more with 2000 Malibu Road if they had always planned to air it in the summer - unless Spelling actually insisted that they wouldn't run it against his other shows and they refused I'm not sure why they wouldn't pick up more.

Yes, I see from some articles that CBS trialled up to six shows that summer, with a view to them being picked up for longer runs, like they did with, as you mentioned, Northern Exposure. There’s one newspaper that has a “your TV questions answered” section and they responded to a readers question on 2000 Malibu Road ending. At the time, they said that there were multiple stories floating around (this would’ve been Sept/Oct ‘92) including CBS saying that the ratings fell as the series went on and the theory that has been mentioned on here a few times, that the cast was only contracted for those initial episodes and when Spelling approached them to do more, they all asked for more and the show became too expensive. Someone else wrote in asking about Freshman Dorm and they basically said the ratings tanked, not helped by the show be moved from its original Tuesday slot to Wednesdays, up against 90210.

 

[tommie]

Well, finished up Freshman Dorm and it was a nice little show that was obviously still finding its groove. I would've liked to have seen an entire season of it tbh as I liked the chemistry between the main three girls and you could see this set up being Brenda, Kelly and Andrea in college if Tori Spelling hadn't elbowed her way into the show.

I'll either go for The Heights, Class of '96 or just re-watch 2000 Malibu Road next.

 

[AndyB2008]

'The $treet' is a dead end

Think of the new Fox series "The $treet" as a longer, more focused version of "Sex and the City." Sort of "Sex and the Financial District."

www.deseret.com

One early review that seems to sum the whole mess up pretty accurately.

I saw another article that points out that a lot of FOX’s new shows that season were from big name creators including James Cameron (Dark Angel), David E Kelley (Boston Public) and Chris Carter (The Lone Gunmen). I’d imagine Darren Star’s cachet after Sex and the City plus his previous hits at FOX is what propelled The $treet into production as opposed to it being a great show. FOX obviously had a tactic that year to roll out the big guns to maximise PR potential.

Boston Public was the only one to last longer than 1\2 seasons. Dark Angel lasted 2, and The Lone Gunmen just one. (Didn't help that the X-Files was running out of steam by the time Lone Gunmen debuted - David Duchovny had quit and been replaced by Robert Patrick, with Gillian Anderson scaling down her involvement later).

Dark Angel had Golden Palace syndrome at the end of the 2nd season. Fox had initially told James Cameron that the show would be renewed for a 3rd season, only to change their minds at the last minute.

 

[tommie]

Well, I started watching The Heights - it's of course on the lower-key end of melodrama as Melrose Place had exploded into insanity yet and Beverly Hills of course had just had its Summer of Deception. It is more earnest than Melrose Place; so far all characters are either blue collar or just at the lower end of middle class (though I bet one of the them will be revealed as rich, probably Charlotte Ross's character). They all seem to mostly live at home too - so I think they're supposed to be closer to high school than college graduates.

How Do I Talk To An Angel isn't made the theme song until episode three - it was something else before then.

 

[tommie]

Well, I had to switch it up from the early 90s social melodrama of The Heights and watched the pilot of Class of 96, which is much fluffier and lighter so far. It's a clear attempt to beat Beverly Hills 90210 to the punch of going to the college years; lots of early 90s tunes playing. The indication in the pilot is that we'll also deal with the staff at Havenhurst College, but looking over the cast list makes me think they dropped that aspect pretty fast (just like how the 90210 pilot also featured teacher storylines I guess).

It's always interesting to think how these shows would've developed through the 90s if they had survived into when Melrose Place got crazy - even the mothership increasingly started soaping it up more to be able to compete (though arguably, it all started with The Summer of Deception for 90210).

 

[tommie]

I'm starting to near the end of The Heights and it almost seems like there's a slight mini-reboot going on - they moved two of the girls into one apartment and then one of the guys from their parents, so it makes me think that all parents were going to be phased out. It's an interesting prospect of where this show would've gone if it had been given an entire season (maybe moving it to Tuesdays would've been an option if they didn't want to keep fuelling it with the comedy lead-ins?).

 

[Monzo]

Was there anyone from the Dynasty cast who could sing and could have joined the band to save The Heights? I can easily imagine Michael Nader as a nasty nightclub owner or boss of a record company, but more as a guest starring run and not as a series regular. On the other hand, the lead-in was strong and didn't help the show, so maybe no Dynasty actor could have saved the day.

 

[tommie]

Was there anyone from the Dynasty cast who could sing and could have joined the band to save The Heights? I can easily imagine Michael Nader as a nasty nightclub owner or boss of a record company, but more as a guest starring run and not as a series regular. On the other hand, the lead-in was strong and didn't help the show, so maybe no Dynasty actor could have saved the day.

I don't think lead-in mattered for these shows in the long run - 90210 aired in the same slot as The Simpsons was exploding, yet it didn't start taking off until the end of it's first season when they amped up the Brenda / Dylan drama. Melrose Place started out strong, but got progressively weaker until they leaned into soapy storylines (and even pre-Amanda it was obvious that the audience responded to them - the show went from 6.2 rating to an 8.8 rating during Alison's affair with Keith; it just sort of crashed again post-affair).

From what I've read the last episode of The Heights there's a real estate developer that is buying their rehearsal locale - I guess that's an option for a new character to shake things up they could've gone with; or a corrupt manager that locks them into a contract etc. Either way, I don't actually think it's the special guest star that audiences were really responding to as much the additional drama.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

Was there anyone from the Dynasty cast who could sing and could have joined the band to save The Heights? I can easily imagine Michael Nader as a nasty nightclub owner or boss of a record company, but more as a guest starring run and not as a series regular. On the other hand, the lead-in was strong and didn't help the show, so maybe no Dynasty actor could have saved the day.

It wasn’t until a few months after The Heights ended that Aaron Spelling first tried his “throw a Dynasty star at it to try and boost the ratings” tactic when Heather Locklear joined Melrose Place.

 

[tommie]

It wasn’t until a few months after The Heights ended that Aaron Spelling first tried his “throw a Dynasty star at it to try and boost the ratings” tactic when Heather Locklear joined Melrose Place.

To be honest - it was never really about the "special guest star" in either Dynasty or Melrose Place's cases that fueled the ratings; it was ultimately the writing. That's why subsequent attempts to pull the same stunt on Models, Inc and Pacific Palisades didn't work (same with Central Park West). Beverly Hills 90210 didn't pull a special guest star, but still kept growing at the end of its first season because the aforementioned Dylan / Brenda drama; the Melrose Place audience had already responded well to the Keith affair.

And I don't mean to diminish what Heather brought to the show - the writers pretty much admitted that besides Heather bringing some short-term publicity to the show, her presence and the way she kept delivering lines kept them writing her more and more snarky (and you can tell - in her first episode Amanda doesn't exactly have her killer one-liners).

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

To be honest - it was never really about the "special guest star" in either Dynasty or Melrose Place's cases that fueled the ratings; it was ultimately the writing. That's why subsequent attempts to pull the same stunt on Models, Inc and Pacific Palisades didn't work (same with Central Park West). Beverly Hills 90210 didn't pull a special guest star, but still kept growing at the end of its first season because the aforementioned Dylan / Brenda drama; the Melrose Place audience had already responded well to the Keith affair.

And I don't mean to diminish what Heather brought to the show - the writers pretty much admitted that besides Heather bringing some short-term publicity to the show, her presence and the way she kept delivering lines kept them writing her more and more snarky (and you can tell - in her first episode Amanda doesn't exactly have her killer one-liners).

Of course. Heather’s addition was part of the evolution of the show as a whole, as she came in when the storylines were getting soapier and the scripts were getting better. Unfortunately, in the attempts that Spelling later made, the shows weren’t really evolving and they seemed to think that just adding a “name” to the cast would be enough to turn the tide without making any other improvements. I haven’t watched it in years but if I remember correctly, Pacific Palisades actually got worse after Joan Collins arrived.

 

[tommie]

Tracey Scoggins appears in 1x12 of The Heights as a witch, so maybe she could've been upped to a regular?

 

[tommie]

Well, I will say that the last episode of The Heights worked as a closing episode to the series, similar to how many Aaron Spelling shows in the 90s seemed to attempt to close the books (presumably because of the popularity of his shows overseas).

Spoiler: The Heights - 1x13

Jamie Walters' character (he'll always be Ray "Hold the extra T" Pruit to me) was revealed to be a runaway earlier in the season finds his biological father and gets closure.
The space the band rehearses in got bought by a real estate developer; his son intervenes and makes him turn the space into a nightclub. After some drama, the band gets their first regular gig at the club and the show ends with them playing to a hyped audience. The End.

Overall, I'm not sure I would recommend The Heights unless you're really into these sort of short-lived 90s shows. It never reaches its full potential and is more early Beverly Hills 90210 / Melrose Place rather than a full-out soap. I think if it had continued it could've been interesting - as I said, earlier on in the season the parents were very much a part of the show, but were either written out or phased out by the end. Curiously the final episode didn't air in the States - I wonder if they held it in case of a last minute reversal came and they didn't want to tie themselves to potentially continue the series with how the final episode ended?

 

[tommie]

Diving into the newspaper archive on Google, it seems like they initially only said "The Heights" was going on an hiatus:

Observer-Reporter

books.google.se

Interestingly enough, per this article Fox moved Beverly Hills 90210 permanently to Wednesdays because they were worried about Melrose Place - initially it was meant to lead into The Heights. They also post-poned the debut of the Tuesday night line-up because of these changes as it was initially scheduled for late October: https://books.google.se/books?id=h7...4Q6AF6BAgLEAI#v=onepage&q=the heights&f=false

It sort of explains why Class of 96 might've gotten 17 episodes - you can tell that it's meant to set in the fall (which makes sense) and then heads into the winter months. I assume the extra four episodes was because they either had to extend it beyond 13 or shut down production. When I'm finished with Co96 I might do a further dive into this.

 

[Monzo]

At that time you could still actually make money selling CDs, so I wonder why they didn't try that further with The Heights. The second single "I'm Still On Your Side" had already been sent to some radio stations when the show was canceled (or on a hiatus) and "How Do You Talk to an Angel" was at the top of the Hot 100 at the same time. After the cancellation, no more money was invested in "I'm Still On Your Side", but why not if the show was just on hiatus?

 

[tommie]

At that time you could still actually make money selling CDs, so I wonder why they didn't try that further with The Heights. The second single "I'm Still On Your Side" had already been sent to some radio stations when the show was canceled (or on a hiatus) and "How Do You Talk to an Angel" was at the top of the Hot 100 at the same time. After the cancellation, no more money was invested in "I'm Still On Your Side", but why not if the show was just on hiatus?

"Hiatus" usually means cancelled in this context as no further scripts or episodes were ordered bar the 13th one which went unaired. Essentially, further episodes was a long-shot at that point, but kept a door open until the final axe came in May.

I'm guessing the record company didn't want to invest in another single if the show wasn't airing as that was their promotion for the single.

 

[tommie]

Well, I finished Class of 96 and unfortunately, it never really lifted from the twee phase. I wonder if it had been scheduled as initially planned in October if it would've panned out differently? It looks as if the show had to improvise and pretend like there was a huge spring storm, hence why it was snowy for so long; with both Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place exploding due to soapier antics, I wonder if they would've been able to push it in a soapier direction? I get the impression that the show might've wrapped filming early due to being delayed, hence the four extra episodes.

I've now gone into Homefront and it's soapy right away! Of course, it also delves into serious topics like systematic racism, sexism and classism, but there's no doubt that there's soap DNA in there. Oddly enough ABC skipped the second episode because they thought it was kind of depressing, which makes absolutely no sense from a story standpoint.

Spoiler

It deals with the death and funeral of one of the soldiers from the main rich family, who owns a plant that produces tank parts, and his new bride who just found out she's pregnant.

I can't help to think the audience must've been confused, especially as episode three opened with a recap...

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I really wanted to like CLASS OF '96, and I sat through most of it. I like Jason Gedrick (a hunk who thinks -- but not too much) and the show started out with a mildly forlorn flavor I appreciated (and may have exaggerated in my head) and made me think just slightly of the first season of DYNASTY, and even of my own college days, if only vaguely.

They tried. But, mostly, it didn't work that well, and the balance wasn't really there.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I really wanted to like CLASS OF '96, and I sat through most of it. I like Jason Gedrick (a hunk who thinks -- but not too much) and the show started out with a mildly forlorn flavor I appreciated (and may have exaggerated in my head) and made me think just slightly of the first season of DYNASTY, and even of my own college days, if only vaguely.

They tried. But, mostly, it didn't work that well, and the balance wasn't really there.

Yeah, here's the pilot I hadn't seen in 30 years. He's supposed to be 19 but he's really ten years older than that (which isn't really a problem, Adam Carrington). It's slightly worse than I'd remember -- all tryin' to be more "real" but mostly tritely so.

It wants to affect a mood of some kind, which I'm all for. I think the show had some potential, but I don't recall it developed all that well -- wasn't there a serial rapist plotline that came up? Maybe the show got a little better before it got worse. But you knew it couldn't last.