Dumb Daytime Moves--Texas

Although not too many people have heard of "Texas," it is historic for a number of reasons.

• It was the first American soap opera to be an hour show from its inception (as opposed to previous soaps that had expanded to a full hour from a shorter length).
• It was one of the rare soap spin-offs (in this case, "Texas" spun off from "Another World". {This was actually the second soap to spin off from AW, the first being "Somerset".})
• It was one of the rare soap operas to credit an actor in its opening title sequence. (in this case, Beverlee McKinsey)

Despite all this, the show flopped.  Big time.

The first problem with the show was Beverlee McKinsey as Iris Carrington (obviously, no relation to the Carrington family of "Dynasty").  Now, on AW, her character was known for being a villainess, but on "Texas," critics say that she had become too tame.  Another problem was that many other roles were poorly cast or suffered from poor writing.  One of the biggest mistakes the series made was luring "General Hospital" star Kin Shriner to the show at great expense...only to give him almost nothing to do until he eventually left.

It also didn't help that at the time, "Texas" was up against ABC's "General Hospital," in which the Luke and Laura storyline was in full steam.  In fact, the wedding of Lucas Spencer and Laura Webber occurred on November 16, 1981, making it the highest-rated hour in soap opera history.  "Guiding Light" on CBS was also in a revival around that time as well.

On April 26, 1982, the show moved from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 a.m., in a desperate attempt to raise the ratings.  I should point out that by this time, Brandon Tartikoff (the man who would save NBC) taken over the head of the network job from Silverman.  Anyways, there were two major problems with this move...

• Soap operas almost never succeed in the morning time slots. (despite the fact that CBS's "Love of Life" lasted for a decade at 11:30 a.m., its ratings were mainly lukewarm during this time)
• "The Price is Right" was on CBS.  Enough said.

The show was eventually canceled on New Year's Eve, 1982, after 2 years and 4 months on the air.  Thankfully, NBC never tried any more soaps in the morning afterwards (although another network would air a soap in the mornings for about a year or so {I might get to that later}).