The show started strong, with a controversial storyline about abortion in the first year. Another World takes place in Bay City, which everyone refers to as fictional even though it’s sitting right there in Michigan, and there’s no use pretending that it isn’t. It’s not very good, and it doesn’t last that long, but it gets better ratings than Dark Shadows does, because sometimes the wrong people win.Īt the time, NBC’s strongest show was Another World, which was five years old at this point, and starting to nip at CBS’ heels. The other wolves can smell weakness.Īnd next Monday, on March 30th - the same day that Barnabas changes channels to Parallel Time, and gives everybody who wasn’t excited about the Leviathans a natural jumping-off point - NBC premieres their brand new soap opera at 4:00pm. And so Art Linkletter’s House Party lived out the rest of its days, unwatched and unloved, a 25-year broadcasting giant felled by a show that at the time was mainly make-believe mad science experiments.īut Dark Shadows has spent the last four months telling a story that nobody really wanted to hear, and squandering the talents of their new werewolf superstar. They threw poor old Art Linkletter into the 4:00 spot, so the squares had something to do if they’d already finished their homework and folded all the socks. But in September ’68, CBS took stock of the situation and decided to turn tail and run, moving The Secret Storm from 4:00 to 3:00, where it was safer and the light was better anyway. The Columbia Broadcasting System was the big dog in the soap world, with chart-busters As the World Turns, Search for Tomorrow and Guiding Light at the top of the ratings for more than a decade.

It was a nationwide sensation, thirty minutes of thrills beamed every day to everyone who mattered. Now, back in the good old days of September 1968, when Angelique was a vampire and Quentin was still a twinkle in Henry James’ eye, nobody would dare counter-program against Dark Shadows. This turns out to be a tactical error.īecause there really is Another World - it airs on NBC at 3:00pm, and it’s doing so well that they’re creating a spinoff, which will compete directly with Dark Shadows.

He’s fascinated by it, of course, and he spends the whole week talking about how desperate he is to see those exciting new stories. Today, Roger Collins opens a door in the east wing of Collinwood and discovers another world, filled with familiar people leading different lives at the exact same time.

Another world soap opera