From the NYT re: SFT
To finish off the 1985 spring season - and a few characters - ABC's prime-time soap 'Dynasty' had a bloodbath. To jettison its old format - and a few characters - this Tuesday afternoon at 12:30 NBC's daytime serial 'Search for Tomorrow' is having, well, a bath.
A flood will engulf the fictitious Middle Western town of Henderson; subsequent days will bring the remaining characters and plotlines all into a single apartment house. 'We wanted to get everyone together so they could interact more easily and so we could concentrate more on domestic issues,' said the show's head writer, Gary Tomlin, of the change in television's longest-running soap opera.
Formerly centered on the tangled lives and loves of the McCleary and the Sentell families, 'Search for Tomorrow,' which made its debut in 1951, will now concentrate primarily on community pillars Jo Tourneur (Mary Stuart) and Stu Bergman (Larry Haines) - and all their children.
Soap operas routinely resort to disasters, natural and not so natural, to eliminate characters who have fallen out of favor with viewers and to boost ratings. There was an earthquake on 'Santa Barbara' last year, an airplane crash on 'Days of Our Lives' a few seasons back (a ploy also used recently on prime time's 'Falcon Crest'). A tornado ripped through town in the now-canceled 'The Doctors,' and devastating fires blazed on the also canceled 'Texas' and 'Santa Barbara'; indeed, in the past, 'Search for Tomorrow' has also relied on ravaging flames to heat up its ratings.
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The serial's executive producer, John Whitesell 2d, who joined the staff last November, hopes that the flood disaster will stave off an even worse disaster: cancellation. Currently, the viewership for 'Search for Tomorrow' is the lowest of any daytime serial, with a 2.8 rating and a 10 share compared with a 9.1 rating and a 29 share for the top-ranked 'General Hospital' on ABC. This means that 3.2 million viewers are tuned in daily to the NBC soap opera, while 10.7 million are following ABC's.
'We need to shake up the situation. 'Search' is in desperate need of refocusing,' acknowledged Mr. Whitesell, who at 32 is considered something of a wunderkind in the daytime soap-opera field. He began his career directing 'Texas' in 1981, then joined 'The Guiding Light,' where last season he won an Emmy Award for best director.
Serious difficulties began for 'Search for Tomorrow' in 1982 when it was moved from its 2:30 P.M. time slot on CBS to its 12:30 berth on NBC. (Because the long-running serial was not carrying over viewers from 'As the World Turns,' CBS decided it could fare better with an entirely fresh entry, 'Capitol.') ' 'Search' went from a network where it enjoyed the loyalty of an audience who'd been watching for 30 years,' said Mr. Whitesell. 'It was in trouble from the day it got here.' Though the loyal viewers of 'Search for Tomorrow' could simply have changed channels, they were now being forced to make a choice between an old favorite and the first half-hour of a relatively new - and steamier - show, 'The Young and the Restless.'
'What we're trying to do,' Mr. Whitesell continued, 'is come up with a revitalizing approach. When you have an irrevocable disaster, it changes your life. You don't go back the next day.
'There's something about a flood that's universal,' he added, pointing out that he had considered several disaster options before resorting to rainfall. 'It's cleansing. A hurricane or tornado would make it hard to pick up. With a flood it's not impossible to rebuild a town, and that's what the people of Henderson will be striving to do.'